Animate Dead

By utilizing Necrosis, you can infuse the deceased with death energy, resurrecting them as undead creatures such as zombies. The animated dead are zombie like but do not require a called shot to the head to be killed. They can be destroyed from standard damage. Targets of this spell must have zero health and have been dead for at least an hour.

Animated dead last for up to twenty-four hours or until killed. They can be reanimated continuously every twenty-four hours if they have not been killed and you can pay the cost. Any dead that is killed after it’s been animated cannot be animated again.

The dead you animate are your slaves to do with as you please. They will obey every command you give, including ones that would cause them harm or death. They only understand your basic commands and cannot speak or comprehend languages. Commands that are more complicated than basic instructions, such as attack, move to a location, guard, or stay confuse the animated dead. They will remain motionless and stare at their master blankly if they do not understand the command.

During combat, animated dead have their own initiative and actions separate from your own.

Depending on the size of the dead creature being animated, depends on how much essence is required when channeling this spell. The larger the creature, the more Necrosis energy is required. In addition, the number of undead you can control depends on your thievery statistic.

The maximum number of Instances you can have is equal to your thievery. Each size category of creature equals a specific value towards your maximum Instances. The Instances Value section of each size category indicates their value in points. For example, if your thievery is a five, you can animate up to one medium-sized creature and one teeny, tiny, or small sized creature. Or, you could animate one large or huge sized creature.

Each creature that has been animated is given the undead template with the exception that their health remains the same as when they were alive. They also do not gain zombie rot. The template can be found here: Zombie Template.

Boost

Boosting this spell works differently than standard spell boosting. Animate Dead can only be boosted in the ways listed below.

Extra Instances (+6)

You gain +3 instance value per 6 essence, to a maximum of +12. This is added to your current thievery when determining how many you can animate. For example, if you have a six in your thievery, spending six essence would increase your instances from six to nine. This would allow you to animate up to three medium-sized creatures.

Intelligence (+10)

Spend an extra 10 essence to give th undead creature intelligence. This boost allows them to comprehend languages and speak their original native language (if they had one). They can also perform more complex commands if their original intelligence was three or greater.

Skeleton (+5)

Allows you to create an exact skeleton version of a creature, giving them all the special abilities/spells the creature had when it was alive. If any of the special abilities require their body to be whole, they cannot use that ability.

Animated Skeleton

When channeling the Animate Dead spell, you can choose to only animate the skeleton of the creature. This allows you to still animate the dead if the only thing that remains is their bones. Animating bones still inside a creature causes them to rip themselves out of the corpse upon activation of this spell.

When animating skeletons, use the same rules of this spell as animating flesh. The difference is that skeletons can wield weapons without penalties but cannot wear any armor.

The skeletons are surrounded by faintly pulsating black wisps of Necrosis energy.

Bone Wall Summon

Creating animated dead (skeleton) from a bone wall reduces the time to channel this spell down to three actions. This only applies to medium and smaller skeletons.