I would think the decay of the undead would be a dead giveaway of which one is which. I doubt Einheriar would stink of rotten flesh. Maybe they smell of blood or mead or steel.

@Mindwin, they're claimed whole by the gods and taken away from the realms of man. These holy workers are being claimed only slowly as their mortal sins burn away which is what causes the smell.

@Mindwin If you can cast some necro spells I think you can think of one merchant spell that keep meat from rotting.

Sounds like you just gave his story another facette. Or maybe you changed the entire setting. Nice.

@SZCZERZOKŁY: Keeping meat from rotting further, sure. But the zombies have already been rotting by the time they resurrect. Also, as a general comment: who says that holy resurrection is any less "rotting undead" than necromancy? Good/evil (holy/necro) are subjective terms, there isn't necessarily an objective difference.

At Necromart we pick only the freshest, recently died bodies to resurrect. If we need we will your family on the spot and resurrect them just for you.

Holy resurrection enacted by whom? I don't imagine a force capable of bringing anyone back from the dead is necessarily limited by how intact a corpse is. I imagine the only requirement is dirt, irrespective of the source of the dirt. So whoever is doing the holy resurrection, it would be more "plausible" to me if they were someone less than a god.

@Flater: 'Necro' (from the Greek 'nekros') means corpse. It has no evil connotations in and of itself.

@r_alex_hall What's in a name? that which we call a rose, By any other name would smell as sweet;

Or to put it another way $DEITY is allowed to reanimate corpses, mortals aren't.

@Flater, Are you saying that our holy priests are just performing necromancy by another name? You shall be hanged for this heresy and then you may begin your eternal service to the great god!

Wait, you mean a religious body would condemn an action and then perform the same action with a different pretext? You are a fantasy writer! That would never happen in the real world.

@corsiKa, oh but of course not, and to suggest they might would be heresy, you'll get the Spanish Inquisition down on you

@Separatrix I don't even know what I meant by my last sentence about "whoever is doing the resurrection" anymore, and the "what's in a name" metaphor doesn't clarify anything for me, whatever I meant :p This is the only thing I think I can have meant, omitting my own last sentence which confuses me: if someone has the power to put a spirit (assuming the existence of spirits) back into a corpse and animate it, they'll have the power to create a spirit and body from dirt, too. Power over life is the highest rank of power, in my imagination.

@corsiKa I don't know whether you're being ironic. Hypocrisy of the kind we imagine with these speculations and at this level is in my imagination plausible. It is at least easy to allege hypocrisy in such grave matters in so many real life circumstances and organizations.

@r_alex_hall, necromancy is necromancy, whoever is doing it and whatever they're calling it. It's a standard use of magic in fantasy and almost always classed under evil. I'm merely implying that theocracies tend to do a lot of evil in the name of good, but it's acceptable because it's being done by them in the name of good.

Ok. I suppose I'm musing on any differences between necromancy as it may usually be employed in fantasy versus resurrection, and any rank of power associated with either. I don't personally have a lot of fictional reference on that. And thanks for clarifying the implications (which is what I thought you meant, but you never know).

@r_alex_hall If sarcasm doesn't make you think for just a moment they might be serious, then it was poorly executed indeed.

Difference being free will: you are the necromancer's flying monkey, vs. a free agent. It's the difference between being in the employ of Nick Fury vs. Loki.

@corsiKa rlly? I'm not aware of any ranks of how well sarcasm is carried off (depending on whether it could fool someone). If plausibility ranks a higher sarcasm score for you, okay, ha ha.