The History and Teachings of Kigot

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A book rumored to be within the possession of certain Necromancers. Its contents are largely unknown, but portions that have filtered through the rumor mill include:

• It said to have been written by Xerasyth.
• It states that Jonathan Kigot was once a Cleric.
• It follows Kigot's transition from being a Cleric to being a Necromancer.
• It discusses Kigot's specific teachings about how Necromancy, with the insertion of a particular moral system to guide its practioners, can be used to somehow help all sentient beings find true freedom.

OOC Note: Non-Necromancer players can also read the openly available post from Armifer (added below) for more information on this topic. However, please remember that knowing the information from this post is still OOC-only, and not something a non-Necro character should know in-game.

Brief Sketch of the History of the Philosophers

To perhaps help, let's go over a Brief Sketch of the History of the Philosophers.

About a hundred-odd years ago, some idiot (name unknown) wrote Investigations Toward an Alchemy of Flesh, and then was killed by a bunch of other idiots (random Zoluren adventurers). The Alchemy of Flesh wound up in the hands of some idiot Cleric (named Kigot), with the idiotic idea that he'd known what to do with it.

Kigot had this idiotic notion that by exposing Necromancy to the light of day the good people of Elanthia would be better able to fight against it, so he made copies and sent it to some other idiots he knew (random Zoluren and Therengian scholars). They, being idiots, also made copies and began distributing them. Cue sudden increase in Necromancers.

The Temple at some point realized what was going on and started yelling profanity through the corridors. Cue lots and lots and lots of murder.

This is what Markat calls the first generation of Philosophers -- scholars who had direct access to the Alchemy of Flesh and began to pursue necro-alchemy. Most of them are at this point very dead.

Kigot gets very upset about the Temple trying to murder him and had a moral break. He devoted the rest of his short life to crafting an ethical system to support Necromancy, which he called the Philosophy of the Knife. Then he got murdered.

This is where the second generation comes in -- Necromancers who "converted" the Philosophy and the promise of necro-alchemy, or their direct apprentices. There are a few dozen of these people walking around today.

Among the many, many, many pages that Kigot wrote (really, you could use his collective works as a weapon in a pinch), he had the rather arrogant assumption that there'd be no greater breakthrough in the field until a group of necro-alchemists could put aside their differences and work together. He was smart enough to understand this could only be achieved in terms of dominance and submission, so referred to this theoretical leader among Philosophers as the Triumphant; the guy who beat or conned everyone else into submission.

Enter Zamidren Book, who used Lyras's self-destructive crusade and the reactionary anti-Necro sentiment as an excuse to murder some of his rivals and browbeat a significant fraction of the Philosophers into doing things his way.

He was successful and has cultivated a relatively impressive powerbase, but spends most of his time at the moment split between trying very, very hard to keep the Temple and the Hounds from murdering everybody and playing politics among his knife-wielding degenerate peers.

-Armifer