Book/The Layman's Guide to Clerical Necromancy (Fifth Edition)/Annotated

A well-loved copy of The Layman's Guide to Clerical Necromancy, annotated by Cedric.

This version of the book does not actually exist in-game, but rather in the form of a copy of the original Layman's Guide's google document. In character, however, it resides in Cedric's possession.

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THE LAYMAN'S GUIDE TO CLERICAL NECROMANCY [FIFTH EDITION]

By Abbott Grover

Notes by Cedric Thoracic

A guide to our current understanding of the zombification and curing process.

Special thanks to Quickstep for resource collection and editing.

Edited by Cedric Thoracic for a more recent and accurate process.

This book isn't meant to be dense, but it will be. I've too much passion for this subject to write in any other way.

This is to say if you're looking for a step-by-step, this will not necessarily be that, and instead a very lengthy walkthrough of my process and the materials needed to follow it.

First of all, before anything, THIS IS IMPORTANT, aspiring necromancers will need either the courage and pluckiness to venture into the Nether and fight tooth and nail for their needed supplies...or, if that isn't attainable for you, either the funding or the connections to ask a more experienced explorer to do so.

Most often, it will be in your best interest to approach an already-established cleric for a point in the right direction, as any cleric worth their salt will be at least vaguely familiar with the capabilities of their patients and clients (especially clerics focusing on medicine).

When you meet your resource collector, know that you will need to nurture your partnership, regardless of what they ask for in return.

What you're asking them to do is grueling and difficult, and even piglin explorers (despite being native to the Nether, however many generations they may be removed) will struggle.

Note #1: Piglin explorers are initially hostile, and hard to trade with. They will likely not give you specific items you need but will give you directions to the nearest Nether Fortress for Netherwart or the closest patch of brown mushrooms. A good way to prepare is to bring plenty of gold ingots.

All that established, here is a list of the materials you will need to start from absolute scratch:


 * 3 Cobblestone blocks
 * At least one spider eye, with at least 10 being recommended to account for mistakes
 * As many brown mushrooms as you have spider eyes
 * As many handfuls of sugar as you have spider eyes
 * As much gunpowder as you can justify having
 * Several glass bottles- at least 2
 * A source of water- if you have access to cauldrons, they'll be convenient for you, but otherwise a nearby well will do
 * As many melon slices as desired NOT FOR EATING!!!
 * As many apples as desired ALSO NOT FOR EATING!!!
 * At least 8 golden nuggets for each melon slice or apple (apples require ingots, not nuggets.)
 * At least 2 blaze rods, preferably around 5 or 6 to make sure you'll have enough fuel
 * At least one wether wart shoot, preferably at least 3- you may use these to grow more on the overworld, which will be useful in the future
 * At least 3 blocks of soul sand, in order to create a small nether wart farm
 * OPTIONAL: ghast tears will allow you to make potions of regeneration, which will be more useful for healing and easier to give to those incapable of or too sickly-feeling to eat more golden apples
 * OPTIONAL: if going the route of potions of regeneration, also consider acquiring redstone dust to increase the length of its effect or glowstone dust to increase its potency
 * OPTIONAL: A simple, often overlooked solution to various ailments is to have the one suffering from it drink milk.

Your very first step (assuming you already have a workspace in your home or otherwise, and that you have all your materials as well as a crafting bench) is to create not a brewing stand, but a holding chamber.

This should ideally be a small but comfortable space, roofed to keep out the sunlight and no more than 3x3 blocks.

Zombies, being undead, will burn in the sunlight, and even if you save them from this it will likely make your job more difficult later.

Note #2: Recent developments have shown that tinted glass is also sufficient to block out the sun's harmful heat, yet still offer some welcome light.

You will also need to ensure you can easily move subjects in and out of the chamber without them being able to escape from inside, as well as ensuring you will be able to reach them and administer potions and golden apples.

Aside these specifications, you can get creative with the space- it can be indoors, outdoors, fenced or walled, whatever you want. Just keep it humane.

Now onto the brewing stand. For this, you will need your 3 cobblestone and a blaze rod.

On your crafting bench, form a base of 3 cobblestone at the very bottom, with the blaze rod in the center.

This, I'd hope, is difficult to mess up, so while you're at it you may crush whatever blaze rods you have remaining into blaze powder (which you will need for the coming steps).

Next, you will be brewing your potions.

(As an aside, this is under the assumption that you don't yet have a subject to cure, but if you do, ideally you would get them safely into the holding chamber before anything else, ESPECIALLY if daylight is a concern.)

(Quite literally every other step aside the holding chamber can wait if you need to contain a zombie in an emergency- every second counts.)

Assuming this isn't an immediate concern, however, you are going to place your crushed blaze powder into the fuel slot.

NOTE: THE FUEL SLOT IS NOT THE CRUCIBLES OR THE PORT AT THE TOP!

THE FUEL SLOT CAN BE FOUND AT THE BOTTOM, A FUNNEL ATTACHED TO THE STAND BY A TUBE.

YOU MADE IT.

YOU SHOULD KNOW.

At this point, have the rest of your materials on hand if possible, preferably in a storage space nearby- this will make the next process much smoother.

Once you've fueled your brewing stand, you will combine your spider eyes, sugar, and brown mushrooms to create fermented spider eyes (which you will very much need, no matter how badly they make the house smell when freshly-fermented. Wait for them to dry if it bothers you so badly, they won't lose their potency.)

Then, you will fill the glass bottle you would like to use for your weakness potion with clean water and place it into your brewing stand.

You may fill multiple bottles if you wish to make more, with up to 3 bottles per brewing stand, but be sure to have some extra in order to brew healing potions later.

In the ingredients slot of the brewing stand, insert one fermented spider eye. This should create a potion (or three) of weakness, right off the bat.

''' DO NOT REMOVE THESE FROM THE STAND YET. '''

Before removing them, deposit a handful of gunpowder into the brewing stand.

This will make it so that the potion may be thrown from a short distance with the same effect as if it were drank, which will be useful when dealing with a likely-hostile zombie.

Note #3: If you are a little handy with redstone, a dispenser above or on the side of the holding chamber can be used to douse the patient with the weakness potion as well. This also gives less risk of shards of broken glass.

(If you think yourself capable of forcing a hostile mob to drink, though, then be my guest. It's your funeral.)

(Really, don't try it.)

Then and only then may you pull your freshly-brewed potions from the stand and store them somewhere safe and cool.

While those are brewing, however, which will likely take some time, you can prepare for your next step.

Taking your melon slices and gold nuggets, surround all of the slices with the nuggets on your crafting bench to create glistering melons. Place them somewhere safe- you'll be needing them shortly.

Once you've done that (if nothing has exploded yet), fill as many more bottles as you desire with fresh water and place them in your brewing stand.

After being sure to clean the ingredients slot of any gunpowder residue, pick and place a nether wart shoot into the slot.

This should leave you with an awkward potion, the ideal base for any good potion; the chicken broth to your clerical soup.

From here, the process is the same whether you are brewing potions of healing or potions of regeneration:

Place either a glistering melon or a ghast tear into the ingredients slot (for healing and regeneration respectively), wait for them to brew, and then if desired add glowstone dust (if a healing potion) or redstone dust (if a regeneration potion) for the most ideal boost in effect.

(You may, of course, experiment as you wish with potion brewing on your own time, but I would hope that if you're reading this you are at least following my instructions.)

Now, you should have your holding chamber, your splash potion(s) of weakness, and at least one healing potion of your choice (though I do advise that you stockpile these, as they're very useful.)

(More on this later.)

Now, all that's left to prepare are the golden apples, which may be prepared in the same manner as you prepared the glistering melons- apples in the center, gold nuggets ingots surrounding them.

With all of that preparation done, you are ready to cure your zombie.

Assuming that you already have your subject in custody (I have no instructions for this aside try to capture them with as little further damage as possible), you will grab one potion of weakness and a golden apple.

Note #4: If you suspect your zombified patient has suffered too much damage, preemptively dousing them with an Instant Damage potion will instead heal them. THIS IS ONLY FOR EMERGENCIES. If too potent, it can possibly worsen their state of necrosis.

Without additions and properly brewed, a weakness potion should last ninety (90) seconds, which will be a very small timeframe to kickstart the curing process.

There is no delicate way to put this- you are going to throw the weakness potion at your zombie and then forcefeed them the golden apple.

Yes, this is necessary.

Golden apples have innate healing properties which, combined with a weakness potion, will bring a zombie back to a living state.

The process can take anywhere from just 3 minutes to several days depending on level of necrosis, with the zombie experiencing increased aggression for the duration.

As the subject will be in a volatile state during this time, I advise you don't monitor them too closely- whether the process be quick or slow, it will no doubt be extremely stressful on your subject, and agitating them could have adverse effects.

As a tip, I have found success calming them by using curtains to block line of sight.

Note #5: Additionally, the patient is also likely to be calmed by music, if you have a record to play that's relatively serene.

It's not advised you attempt to feed the subject during this process, but you should prepare food that won't spoil for later.

Once the subject has been cured, they may still be suffering damage from their previous state.

Regardless of their level of injury, they will always be suffering at the very least fatigue, weakness, and nausea, so some level of compassionate care is absolutely necessary.

To sum it up: good food, rest, treatment, and potions where necessary.

Here at this point is where I diverge from the guide and into my findings.

Following the fourth revision of this book, I was lucky enough to be able to get my hands on both another zombified villager as well as a zombified human (rare, as you should know).

This, as you might imagine, was quite exciting for me- an opportunity to bring a poor soul back to vitality, to refresh myself on my oft-neglected hospitality skills, and to experiment with the revival of a member of my own kind.

Unfortunately, even in cross-checking with other towns, I had not been able to identify who this zombie was.

That told me that they were likely an older body, old enough to have either traveled far or slumbered for generations.

Troubling news, and news that brought my morals to the forefront of my mind.

Would it be right to revive someone into a world where nobody would remember them? Would it not be better to put them out of their misery when they have no claim over their mind, so caught in the throes of mindless hunger that they can no longer be called human?

Villagers are grateful to have their lives back, certainly, as far as anyone has been able to tell, but would we have the same standard?

This, however, would become the least of my worries.

It is here that I will advise my more squeamish readers (those of you reading for fun, not guidance) to look away, as this isn't for the faint of heart.

The revival process went as was expected, though it went on a bit long for the subject.

By my count, it lasted nearly 2 days, and though the curtains helped, they were much more reactive to sound and much more apt to throw themself against the walls of the chamber.

They were not in good shape when revived.

Though the golden apple's regeneration had certainly worked to repair most of their inner workings (a fact I would later confirm through autopsy, which should tell you how poorly this went) they still had several wounds scattered across their body, and their empty eye socket had once more begun to bleed.

Thankfully, they were capable of understanding my speech, and though I wasn't able to fully soothe them I was able to administer an instant health potion with little trouble.

This, as I would find, was a horrible mistake.

With the severity of their wounds and the potency of the potion, their wounds suddenly healing and sealing over was enough to send them into shock.

To avoid going into too much detail (and out of respect for the once-more-dead), I will summarize by saying I was able to get them into bed and breathing again.

Over the next few days, however, their condition deteriorated further, and they passed just days later from what I now believe to be a form of sepsis.

Further research will be needed before I am anywhere close to comfortable either performing this process or condoning it on both our human and piglin brethren.

Life is too precious to waste like this.

If you take any message from this account, let it be this:

If in an emergency situation, more is not necessarily better.

I strongly believe that if I had given them a series of regeneration potions rather than the stronger potion I administered to them, they could very likely be living among us today.

Not even the poets of this town could properly put my sorrow into words.

Be careful with your power, aspiring clerics, and always aspire to make the right choices.

You could save a life.

Note #6: I have taken this to heart. I've made some additional changes to the ways I've tended to cure, keeping the individual in mind instead of merely the goal.

Abbott Grover truly was one of the most successful Necromancers of his time. I wish I could have met him. I'm hoping he won't mind I made some corrections.