Which Good Forgotten Realms gods accept the use of necromancy?

Question

I just started learning D&D and my Dwarven Healer (Cleric of the Revered mother) has to pick from among a list of spells. These include necromantic spells, such as Inflict Wounds, which I don't intend to pick.

However, I noticed D&D does not have any kind of "evil" tag for spells. Furthermore the Player's Handbook states necromancy is not evil, though taboo in many societies.

So I ask myself, which Lawful Good gods would allow their servants to use necromancy for a noble end? Such as raising noble comrades with their prior consent, to crush an ork army. Which (neutral or chaotic) Good gods would?

The Question gains further urgency by the fact, that I will automatically learn the spell "Raise Dead" at level 9 as a Life Domain Spell!

Answer 1

The fact that a spell is marked "necromantic" doesn't mean that it's evil or that it has to do with undead; there's an important difference between necromancy-the-school-of-magic and necromancy-the-actual-act-of-creating-undead.

The book doesn't explicitly say that any god will ban you from using any spell, but it's true that the use of certain spells might violate your god's principles. You (or your DM) will ultimately have to be the judge of this.

I think a good line to draw is this: the actual creation or use of undead is an evil act, so any good-aligned gods would disapprove of your use of the animate dead spell. But other spells such as spare the dying and raise dead don't involve the undead and are fine regardless of your alignment.

Answer 2

Any god will allow the use of any spell if it advances their interests.

In D&D 5e, good means putting others before yourself and evil means putting yourself before others if you read the descriptions carefully (PHB p.122). A spell can no more be good or evil than a hammer can. The specific usage of a spell can have good or evil intent.

For example a god of the dead may abhor spells that both animate or raise the dead as an interference with their interests: the natural transition of the living into death. Or they may be laissez faire about it since everyone comes to them in the end. This could be true irrespective of whether the god is good, evil or neutral.

Answer 3

All of them

As you've noticed, necromancy is more than just creating undead. In general, spells that deal necrotic damage, manipulate souls, or cause illness tend to be categorized as necromancy spells, too.

Creating undead is generally frowned upon by most good-aligned dieties. However, other uses of necromancy are more widely accepted.

Resurrection spells, such as raise dead, revivify, resurrection and true resurrection, are pretty much universally accepted by good-aligned dieties. These spells do not create undead. They bring a dead creature back to full life, whereas spells like animate dead or create undead bring them to a warped, unholy fascimile of life.

In addition, resurrection spells do not allow you to bind the dead creature's soul to your will, as undead-creation spells do, nor do they extend the creature's lifespan past its natural end (resurrection spells generally stipulate that creatures that die of old age can't be brought back).

Both resurrection and undead-creation manipulate souls, and therefore both are classed as necromancy, but the outcome of this manipulation is very different.