Been here 10 years and the only necromancy that I've witnessed outside of Events and antags is when Lhindir walked into Providence with his Gravelord name above his head. I'm not too sure what my view on Necromancy and undead stuff is, I think its cool and a fantasy staple so its bound to attract players both positively and negatively. I think undead playable creatures and the like was another way to add more players into the fold of necromancy without giving them the magic, like a trial I guess.
The thing about promotion is generally what happens everywhere. Players in an army for example climb ranks and get bored eventually if their 'progress' becomes limited or reaches a conclusion. Difference between a necromancer and some army goon is that the army guy can pk his persona and basically do it all over again with a fresh coat of paint whereas someone with magic can't because they'd have to 'learn' the magic all over again for half a year to reach a similar point in power where they can comfortably produce conflict.
Idk if necromancy had pk clauses or what not but I think it'd be neat if a T5 necromancer that PKs whether through a clause or not, have the option to attain T2 or T3 Necromancy on a new fresh persona through some dark magic mumbo jumbo reasoning. Would likely ease the boredom with regards to promotions when there is an option for a new coat of paint.
I feel like the way magic is handled on LoTC in general is just incredibly lame. At first, 6+ months to master a specific magic seems fine on paper. However, what these restraints on magics don't take into account is that its not 6 months of active magical roleplay but a handful of training sessions and rarely any magical conflict. Additionally, since magic is such a huge IRL timesink for power rewards ,players are HEAVILY inclined to never PK their persona and just stack applicable magic apps until they have the equivalent magical prowess of Xerath.
Sorry for the rant in that last part but since the topic is about a magic I just had to share a bit of my opinion on magic in general.
What I want to see from necromancy? I want to see dark magics have an actual opportunity to achieve some sort of position of antagonist. I'd like to see necromancer players be able to gather resources, magics and create LITERAL naxxramas to rain plague and undeath upon farming villages. I want necromancer and undead players to have crazy goals like that and for it to be achievable through whatever system possible. Feel like the lifespan of necromancers should correlate to this sort of storyline, where a small cabal gathers in power and attempts some unbelievable feat towards the end. Either defeated or victorious, at least SOMETHING big and noteworthy happens. Necromancers and Undead should be very ambitious and at the peak of their power should be very confident and public. There needs to be a gameplay loop to keep all players interested, having an ENDGAME to magics just literally ends their gameplay most of the time. There should be a cycle rather than some linear progression.
Idk just ask @NarthokI heard he is interested in dark magics currently, should probably just make him the lich king and see what happens.