Tot, tot, tot, ich mache dich tot

[stillsostrange]

I need a word, o my wise and learned LJ. This time, I need a word for undead sorcerers that isn't lich. Not zombies, mind you, or any sort of shambling undead. I need something that implies power and sentience.

truepenny suggested necrifex, which I'm very fond of, but if might have the sanguiturge problem of crossing the Greco-Latinate streams. So I turn to the court of the LJ poll.

[Poll #1548248]

Comments

[mmaresca.livejournal.com]

"Necrophant" sounds best, in that I get a "dead, but powerful" vibe from that name. A bit of research turned up the Slavic word, "Koschei". I don't know if you want to go there.

[ammitnox.livejournal.com]

Mortificus?

[fadethecat.livejournal.com]

I think that "Mortifex" is awesome, but would have taken "Necrophant" as well as a second choice if it had been ticky-box-ish.

(That said, my brain keeps insisting that anything ending in -phant must be associated with the elephant. Yes, it does this with hierophant too.)

[galeni.livejournal.com]

Undead sorceror or sorceror dealing with the undead? And Latin or Greek or German? Mortiphrant?

[stillsostrange.livejournal.com]

A sorcerer who is undead. Otherwise he's just a necromancer.

[galeni.livejournal.com]

Mortecer?

Nesorcerer?

[artemishi.livejournal.com]

I think anything with the 'necro' will strike every reader with the concept of death/decay, and thus Necrophant (so like heirophant) is my fav. I suppose something like necromagi is too bluntly obvious...

[jaredrackler.livejournal.com]

Gandnar? Gand meaning wand and nar meaning corpse, so wand corpse

Aristanecros? Necros meaning corpse and aristos meaning best

[joecrow.livejournal.com]

I dig "necrophant" best. In fact, I vote for necrophant as the new undead sorcerer nominative, genre-wide.

So let it be written, so let it be done!

[auriaephiala.livejournal.com]

When I see "Necrophant", I hear in my head "Once there was an Elephant who tried to be a telephant, oh no, it was an ellaphone who tried to be a telephone ..." and so on (from a kids' poem called Ellatellaphony or something to that effect).

So it just doesn't have the right effect on me.

I picked Mortifex.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

You are, though perhaps eccentric, not alone in this world.

I had the same reaction.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

I'm not sure about necrophant: it makes me think of frozen mammoths.

[magpie49.livejournal.com]

Your Tot, tot, tot appealed to me.

A Geisterbeschwörer is a necromancer with the German habit of concatenation to extend meanings, would a totGeisterbeschwörer therefore be a dead necromancer?

[malinaldarose.livejournal.com]

I think necrifex is very pretty. Necrophant reminds me too much of Sam's delight over the oliphants. Mortifex would do, I suppose....

Does one use a necroticky to make a bomb?

[curgoth]

Necrarch? Necromagus?

[sovay]

Necrophant—a dead hierophant—works best for me. You could also try looking into words formed from νέκυς rather than νεκρός.