Literature / Necromancer (End Master)

This page covers both the story-game Necromancer and its twin story-game, Death Song.

Necromancer is an online Gamebook created by Choose Your Story user End Master, creator of Eternal. The story-game revolves around a young mage school student with no apparent magical talent. Failing his classes and bored out of his mind, the young man discovers the appeal of necromancy, an art forbidden after the rise of a powerful lich lord, hundreds of years before.

Death Song, also created by Endmaster, takes place in the same world as Necromancer and at much the same time. Death Song, however, focuses on a much more mundane character: a young, aspiring musician who is forced to leave his home and dreams, in order to provide for his family. Taking up arms, The Bard soon comes face to face with armies of Death itself, and, despite his best efforts, The Bard soon learns that you can never beat death.

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Examples of tropes in Necromancer and Death Song:

Necromancer

• After the End: After killing everything on the planet the Necromancer grows very bored on the lifeless world.
• Apocalypse How: In the true path, not a single living thing remains on the planet.
• Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: The Necromancer eventually achieves godhood and leaves the dead world behind.
• Chess Master: In one path the demon Big Red falls under this as he orchestrates events to deliver the world to the infernal realm which leads up to the Necromancer’s downfall.
• Crippling Overspecialization: Subverted. The Necromancer isn’t good at too many other forms of magic (Or even complex war strategy), but he’s SO powerful at necromancy that he just overwhelms everyone eventually.

• Demon Lords and Archdevils: Velzix and his various generals and advisors are these. Big Red is a much more subtle version and doesn’t even pose as one.
• Eldritch Abomination: Messing about with time magic tends to open up portal and warp reality to a degree where these sorts of things come wandering into the normal realm.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: His mistress Catalina is the main one, though he really wants to spare his sister and mother as well.

• A God Am I: In the hell path, your character proclaims this, falsely. In the true path, however, your character actually ascends to become a new God of Death.
• Grandfather Paradox: Not quite. At one point the Necromancer has the chance to prevent his inevitable destruction of the world by allowing his father to get killed in the past. It works, however this scenario just leads to the Necromancer winding up in the timeline where he becomes the First Great Lich Lord that was from the past instead.
• Spirit Advisor: The Necromancer’s dead ex-girlfriend Serena is one at the very beginning to initially guide him and then shows up to guide him again at the very end.
• Supernatural Elite: Lord Rostov and the vampires in general qualify. Despite being undead, they hide in the shadows and manipulate the living nations to combat the greater threats such as the Necromancer and Velzix. After all, if either of those forces win, their own lifestyle becomes a lot less cushy at best and leads to outright extinction at worst.
• Necromancer: Obviously the Necromancer.

• Timeis Dangerous: As bad as summoning demons and raising the dead is considered to be, temporal magic is considered dangerous even by those that lean towards the dark arts. Quayle and later Trelik try to master it and go insane in the process along with opening up portals to an Eldritch Location. Only the Necromancer’s mother is able to manipulate time without any serious problems.

• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Though he’d never admit it, the Necromancer wants respect from his father He finally gets it when he kills Velzix.

Death Song

• Accidental Hero: The Zalan Empire keeps making the Bard into this even though in most cases he was just trying to survive whatever awful battle he just managed to crawl away from. He doesn’t even really want to be known as a hero either. At one point The Necromancer’s sister calls him out on his ability to survive every time and he breaks down and confesses everything to her, but she keeps it a secret.

• Blackand Gray Morality: The Chimera Company is a group of highly skilled murderers and others with disreputable morals. The leader is the Necromancer’s father on top of all that. *However when compared to demon hordes or undead legions, they’re the “good guys.”

• The Determinator: Even as the world slowly dies and everything and everyone he’s ever known has died, the Bard keeps trying to survive just to spite death.
• Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: The Bard, already having survived more hell than most and currently dying himself manages to STILL stand up to the Necromancer and give him a piece of his mind.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: When the Bard is playing his last song for the Necromancer and Catalina he finally finds peace and knows he’s going to be reunited with his loved ones.
• Failure Is the Only Option: The Bard can run from death, but not forever.
• Ironic Hell: On the mercenary path, should the player choose for the character to accept the offer of a demon named Big Red, he will end up being killed and wind up in Hell as Big Red's personal musician. Of course, the instrument that Big Red gives the character causes him to feel immense pain when he strums it. Therefore, he gets pain out of one of the few things that gave him pleasure in life.

• Masterof Illusion: A community of pixies serves as a non-evil example. They use powerful illusions to keep themselves isolated and have been from the world for so long they aren’t even AWARE that it is being destroyed by the undead until the Bard tells them. They’re very alarmed by this news.
• Must Not Die a Virgin: The Bard hires a hooker before he goes on a mercenary mission where he might have to face demons or the undead.
• The Power of Rock: While he doesn’t actually defeat evil with it, the Bard’s music is very well liked by all those that can appreciate such things, this even includes beings like vampire assassins, ruthless mercenaries and The Necromancer’s mistress, Catalina.
• A Real Man Is a Killer: Most of the members of the Chimera mercenary company believe in this. Though despite the fact that the Bard has killed kobolds, they don’t even consider letting him join until he ends up killing one of them.

• Thicker Than Water: The Bard tends to lean towards this. While he does have a sense of duty to his job, his whole reason for either joining the army or becoming a mercenary is to make money for his family. In a few paths he breaks protocol and returns home to either check on them or try to save them.

• Wandering Minstrel: The main character of "Death Song" has an odd talent with the lute and he carries it with him throughout the entire story, regardless of whether he's in the army or fighting alongside brutish mercenaries.
• Unwinnable by Design: Try as you might, you will never reach an end where you stop the Necromancer.

Both

• The Alliance: Since nobody wants the world to be overrun by demons or undead the rest of the nations of the world become this. The Alliance is actually run by a cabal of vampire puppet masters.
• The End of the World as We Know It: This happens at the end of both games, the only difference being that in Necromancer, you're causing the apocalypse, while in Death Song, you're on the receiving end.

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