"Nah you've probably got the right basic idea. The usual correct course of action when you meet a necromancer is to beat the shit out of them and tie them up." River takes the pipe back for a more cautious puff; there she goes, down the right pipe. At last. "So let's start with the real uncontroversial basics. While the original necromancers weren't magic users at all - they were mediators with the undead, especially ghosts - the modern practice is a sympathetic and sacrificial magical art that manipulates the energy found in death and wounds, usually just called 'death' 'cause the Empire fell but its grip on academia sure godsdamned didn't. We generally get that in three broad ways; picking over sites of tragedy like scavengers, killing things with our own hands, or sucking out our own life force to create death. The la Croix favor the first and the third, though I'll be real with you, we ain't above the second if someone's gonna have to die anyway or, I dunno, we can afford a goat."