That means that unless a necromancer wants to take the coward's route and never create undead minions ever, she is probably going to have start out creating some skeleton laborers and "garden zombies" as a stepping stone to greater power later. I am now capable of creating Tier Four undead. Doing so is not worth the cost in reagents, so I usually make Second or Third tier undead, but I have not bothered making 'Tier Zero' zombies in a many years. I outgrew them. I still occasionally make Tier Zero skeleton laborers. If you just need a minion to lift and carry something, it's a waste of reagents to assign a higher Tier undead to simple labor. It's like using a thirty gold piece charger horse to pull a cart of dung when you could use a donkey instead for a tiny fraction of the price. Or use a skeleton donkey, you won't have to feed it. though a human skeleton will generally follow orders better."Magnati, independent necromancerby Eron12 with HeroforgeSome necromancers use esoteric terms to rank undead, but more pragmatic necromancers use the terms "Tier One", "Tier Two", or "Tier Three", and the oh so rare "Tier Four" undead. Each tier has a baseline requirement in mystical power to create. There are dozens of variations at every tier. There are only two 'Tier Zero' undead options. Basic zombies that crudely punch, claw and bite at enemies and basic skeleton laborers can carry or push items from point A to point B.
Symptoms
A skeleton laborer will obey it's masters commands without need of food or rest, essentially forever, though wear on tear on bones means a skeleton doing heavy laborer will eventually need to replaced after years of hard labor.
Though skeleton laborers can only perform very simple tasks, and if precision is needed (like you need a field plowed in straight lines), a necromancer has to supervise them directly.
Affected Groups
Almost any corpse can potentially be renanimated as a skeleton laborer.
Mortal corpses are better at taking orders than animal corpse unless the animal in question was very well trained in life, so most necromancers do not bother with animal skeleton laborers.
To make a skeleton laborer (or any skeleton based undead), most or all of the bones need to be present. A zombie can still mostly function with a crude prosthetic replacing a missing part but a skeleton not so much. A skeleton missing key bones is going to be a lot weaker clumsier if they can be reanimated at all.
Unless the necromancer uses a variation of the Necromantic Prosthetics spell but that spell is very expensive and time consuming to waste on a lowly minion.
It is technically possible to create Tier One or Tier Two skeleton laborers that can perform more complex tasks than grunt laborers but these undead can't be made from just any corpse. Skeleton based undead retain a portion of thier living self's skills but it's drastically reduced.
For example, in order for a necromancer to make a skeleton blackmith capable of making servicable nails and horseshoes, she needs the corpse of person who was a very celebrated blacksmith in life.
Rarified corpses are not easy to come by, so even the most blackhearted often find it easier just to buy nails and horseshoes than try to make them in house.
Cultural Reception
-Daana Defender of the Hearthby Eron12 with Hero Forge"Just because skeleton laborers are less deadly than other undead does not mean they are less of an abomination against the natural order and all things that are good. The idea of desecrating a corpse and trapping a soul on the mortal soul just to save a few a copper pieces on labor costs is one of the most morally repugnant abominations I have ever heard of. I will not rest until all undead on Scarterra are destroyed as their unrepentant makers."
-Dallas the NecromancerDallas the friendly necromancer by Eron12 with Hero Forge"Skeleton laborers are among the simplest undead to make and they are literally incapable of harming the living. More importantly, their creation has no affect on the souls of the dead, only the corpse, and after death it's just an empty shell. Yet due to unjust prejudice against necromancers, they are illegal in almost every land. Instead they cruelly make living peasants or even slaves do their grunt labor. And they call necromancers evil.... This is why I will not rest until undead are destigmatized throughout all of Scarterra.
by Me with Midjourney
Type
Magical
Origin
Magical
Cycle
Chronic, Acquired
Rarity
Uncommon
Affected Species
okay this lore is so interesting, the whole tier system for undead and skeleton laborers just being the cheap grunt labor version is so practical and darkly funny. also the contrast between daana's holy rage and dallas's "actually it's fine and you're all just prejudiced" argument is such a good little moral debate. quick q tho, are skeleton laborers actually sentient in any way or are they just empty shells following orders?
To answer your question, skeleton laborers are not sentient, and the soul of the dead person can still proceed to the normal afterlife but Scarterrans don't know this, they can only make an educated guess. Only a small fraction of Scarterra's dead become "the Restless Ghost", aka "Ghosts." But if a Scarterran is a ghost, it's going to cause all sorts of complications if their original body is animated as an undead. The "Tier System" is something I created to simplify RPG rules. Rather than come up with separate rules for every possible undead, I created a tier system to standardize the rules. Different Tier levels have different prereqs in magical power and reagents used. Both Daana and Dallas are spokespeople for very controversial groups without a lot of friends so they represent extreme opposing views.