Is Necromancy in-universe?

[Adonan]

Spoilers, I think

I'm in the middle of the Physical DPS role quest, and Renda-Rea mentioned paying a Necromancer to bring Ardbert back so she could kill him out of spite. I thought Necromancy wasn't a thing. Although, that might just be in Aorzea. Not much of a spoiler, but there you go.

[KageTokage]

The Tamtara Deepcroft (Hard) quest as well as its continuation in the Palace of the Dead both touch on that. The HW WHM quests also revolve around shutting down someone's experiments into the matter.

It does exist, but it's considered a forbidden art and is most commonly utilized by voidsent (Forgall in the Weeping City of Mhach being the most notable example, though multiple lesser voidsent summon undead as well).

[Adonan]

I asked because some people have asked to see a Necromancer class. I didn't think it was ever going to happen, but now I'm not so sure.

[Gula]

Fat Cat mount, of all things.

[Enkidoh]

Right, Necromancy does exist but is considered utterly taboo socially and forbidden, for good reason, as it's not bringing the dead back to life at all, it's actually a form of summoning Voidsent, who end up inhabiting the corpse and turning it into a demon at worse, or at the very least a reanimated skeleton or zombie.

Ul'dah's sister city Sil'dih was destroyed due to a zombie apocalypse that was unleashed upon it due to a necromantic potion (I won't say anything more other than it's part of the ARR Hildibrand quests), so accordingly even mentioning necromancy in Ul'dah can get you into serious hot water there. And several dungeons also involve cleaning up the horrific results of stupid mages who had been messing around with necromancy (both versions of Tam-Tara Deepcroft, both versions of Haukke Manor).

And this was in 1.0 not ARR but Minfilia's father Warburton... was believed to have been revived from death using necromancy... but the scene in question was rather ambigious.

[Iscah]

And then you have the ARR ALC quests which do... something. It doesn't line up with what else we know and wasn't all that well-explained even within the story itself.

[KageTokage]

And this was in 1.0 not ARR but Minfilia's father Warburton... was believed to have been revived from death using necromancy... but the scene in question was rather ambigious.

That plot thread actually is continued/resolved in the SB ALC questline (Albeit somewhat retconned like a lot of other carry-overs from 1.0).

The attempted resurrection seemingly left the victims trapped in a state between life and death; bodies devoid of breath and consciousness but undecaying, and it ended being not Warburton who was subjected to it, but F'lhaminn's husband Nielle who had been intending to have him revived to learn his secrets, but was assassinated by the Syndicate and then used as a test subject by his would-be client.

In the end you destroy the cursed weapon used for the ritual which allows Nielle and the other victim to return to the lifestream as the natural order dictates.

[Gemina]

Reviving the dead, as in body and soul are returned and intact, is the art of Resurrection. It is a holy act and much the opposite of necromancy. Many desire it; few attempt it; and even fewer are actually successful. Even in the realm of fantasy, death is considered very permanent and getting around it usually involves filling in some plot holes, or creating them in the process. We see the attempts at true resurrections on several occasions in FFXIV including the ALC questlines, and even Emet's quest involved the revival of those long gone.

Necromancy is the art of summoning and communicating with the dead. Attempts at resurrections really aren't a practice of necromancy, but when the result is the voidsent, zombies, or other twisted manifestations; or when said result is the intent of the summoning, then that can definitely be seen as necromancy. When taking all that into account, along with Edda/Tam Tara/PoTD, we can for sure say that necromancy exists in this world. It would be interesting to see it as a new job. The practice is considered highly taboo and forbidden, but so is practicing white magic.

The DRK questlines with Myste also explore this a bit as that epic final battle in the snow is all the WoL's doing. This along with Eden exhibits the WoL's summoning skills are second to none. Perhaps that's why he/she is so good at putting others in their place who also want to give it a go. IIRC, I believe Zenos is the only character thus far who has returned from death's bosom, and how it came to be wasn't through necromancy.

[hynaku]

There has to be Necromancers here look at all undead monsters there is in the world. Like the gentlemen zombies from Hildibrand quest.

[Mixt]

Necromancy is by definition the manipulation of life energies.

This includes stuff like human sacrifice, which would technically make incidents like the summoning of Titan using living sacrifices which led to that kobold child losing it a type of necromantic ritual. Or the whole summoning of Shinryu, because human sacrifice was kind of a big thing there.

Necromancy and Primal summoning work well together it turns out, due to the whole ritualistic sacrifice deal.

And then there is what happened to the Scions, though it was an accident, getting soul yoinked like that does count. Oopsie.

It's not just to do with the undead, that sort of thing also falls under the necromantic banner if you take into account what the word means.

However, the public perception has come to deviate rather drastically from the meaning of the word, so undeath is the only thing most think about when they hear about necromancy, even though that is not remotely the only thing that particular school of magic can do.

Heck, Energy Drain is technically necromancy due to it involving leeching energy from the target, same deal for the Drain spell. Not that anyone ever thinks about that particular technicality. Nobody goes shouting "NECROMANCER!" as soon as some Thaumaturge uses Drain, even though it does technically fall under the banner of Necromancy.
Vampiric properties? That's a necromancy spell fellas.

So uhh, Arcanists and Thaumaturges kinda already dipped our toes into the outer edges of the necromantic magic school. And it may be for the best to not go much deeper than that.

Simply put, Necromancy is magic that messes with souls and life force, usually but not always in a manner that produces undead abominations. Sometimes it just rips your soul out of your still living body, or gets used to turn people into fuel for other types of large scale magic, such as a Primal Summoning. Or leeches the vitality of the target, both wounding the foe and healing the user at once, or any number of other things of the same nature.