Calamitous Corpses

by Eron12 with Heroforge

-Magnati, independent necromancer

"Creating specialized undead minions requires using specialized corpses and Calamitous Corpses are no exception. Calamatous Corpses can only be created by accident victims.   Accidental deaths are all too common in Scarterra, but such deaths are very difficult to predict and impossible to manufacture. A staged accident is a murder, not an accident. Even if everyone beileves the death was an accident, such victims cannot be turned into Calamatous Corpses.

  Also Calamitous Corpses are not created equal. The more unlikely an accident is, the more powerful their unlucky aura will be. A man drunkenly fallling and cracking his skull open after walking home from a tavern will not create a very powerful Calamitous Corpse, at least not compared to a man who drowned in a shallow puddle of water after being knocked unconscious by a falling coconut."

by Eron12 with Heroforge

-Magnati, independent necromancer

"Calamitous Corpses are extremely useful in combat in conjunction with other undead warriors because they increase the odds of random bad events among the living but don't impact the fighting ability of the undead. Battlefields are always full of random events but Calamitous Corpses increase the number of instances of warriors striking their allies by accidents, warriors dropping their weapons, warriors slipping in the mud, and other random hijinks.   The necromancer and his living allies are still affected by the same bad luck but wearing a necklace or bracelet with one of a Calamitous Corpses' finger bones will shield a living wearer from the bad luck.

  Fortunately, this doesn't make Calamitous Corpses distinctive to the enemy because it is hardly unique to see undead with missing fingers and a human hand has fourteen finger bones.   To the naked eye, Calamitous Corpses look like ordinary zombies but when viewed by an diviner capable of reading magic auras, they have a very prominent aura. The more powerful their unlucky effect is, the stronger their aura is.   Since Calamitous Corpses are so hard to replace, any necromancer that dabbles in illusion magic would do well create at least a few decoy zombies with fake magic auras."