All the following rules assume there is a suitable corpse nearby. Necromancers cannot conjure undead minions out of thin air.
Zombies can be made from any mostly intact corpse.
Skeletons can be made from any intact skeleton missing no more than 10% of their original bone mass. Skeletons cannot wield weapons or tools that they were not trained to use in life. Skeletons only have the shield proficiency merit if they had that in life.
Ghouls can only be made out of fully intact corpses, and they must be less than a week old.
Normal Reanimation Rules
Creating undead costs double the normal quintessence or mana cost of a normal spell so a Divine caster with Necromancy ●● needs to spend four mana points to make a tier zero zombie and an arcane caster with Necromancy ●● needs to spend four quintessence points to make a tier zero zombie.
Two dot divine or arcane magic can create a tier zero undead with 5 drams of reagents and ten minutes of spell casting.
Three dot magic can create tier one undead with 10 drams of reagents and fifteen minutes of spell casting.
Four dot magic can create tier two undead with 20 drams of reagents and 30 minutes of spell casting
Five dot magic can create tier three undead with 50 drams of reagents and an hour of spellcasting.
Enhanced Reanimation Rules
If a necromancer the casting time by three-fold, increase the mana or quintessence expenditure three-fold and increases the reagents by five-fold, a necromancer and make undead of one tier higher than they would normally be able to do.
Rushed Reanimation Rules
Necromancers can make temporary undead much quicker than "normal" or "enhanced" undead.
Temporary undead cost half the reagents of the normal tier and the spell can be cast in a single A-action in a cinematic combat round. It also costs the mana or quintessence of normal spell, not a double spell.
Temporary undead last for one hour per success rolled and then the corpse will literally fall to pieces.
What do the Tiers mean?
"Tier zero" undead are zombies with no enhancements.
"Tier one" undead are skeletons with no enhancements or zombies with one enhancement.
"Tier two" undead are skeletons with one enhancement or zombies with two enhancements
"Tier three" undead are skeletons with two enhancements, zombies with three enhancements or ghouls with zero enhancements.
"Tier four" undead are skeletons with three enhancements, zombies with four enhancements, or ghouls with one enhancement.
Zombies, skeletons, and ghouls represent the so called “common undead”. Necromancers with a creative or narcissistic streak often strive to make rare or even unique undead creatures.
I plan to include examples of these sorts of undead later but in the meantime, Game Masters are encouraged to come up with their own unique undead creations and assign a tier value to them.
Most rarer undead require specific types of corpses (virgins, condemned criminals, suicide victims, dead royalty, etc) whereas the common undead can be made from almost any dead person.
Necromantic Control Limits
A necromancer can only control so many undead at once. The weakest necromancers can command up to 50 undead minions at any given time and the greatest necromancers can command up to 300 undead minions.
A necromancer's control rating is equal to their Willpower multiplied by their Necromancy rating multiplied by six.
It does matter how powerful the undead are. If a necromancer has a control rating of 150, it doesn't matter if they are tier 0 zombies or tier 4 skeletons.
It a necromancer creates one more undead than his control rating, his oldest active undead minion will fall into a "primed" state. Otherwise, a necromancer can choose to put any undead minion in his line of sight of into a "primed" state at will.
A necromancer can theoretically create an unlimited number of primed undead.
If a necromancer is slain, most of his active undead minions will follow their last order to the letter, forever. Once their last order is completed or becomes impossible, they become primed. Ghouls immediately become primed when their controller dies.
Primed Undead
A primed skeleton or zombie will stand still and do nothing pretty much forever. Decomposition will set in eventually but primed undead decompose about ten times slower than normal corpses. If a necromancer keeps their primed undead in a cavern or chamber awash with necromantic energy, the primed undead will decompose about a hundred times slower than normal corpses.
A primed ghoul will start hunting mortal flesh on its own volition. The ghoul will start to decompose and eventually be destroyed if it goes a prolonged period of time without feeding.
A necromancer can activate and command primed undead without expending reagents assuming the necromancer is magically capable of creating normal undead within the tier of the primed undead. This just takes a normal spell action and normal mana or quintessence expenditure. A necromancer can command a primed undead one level above his normal tier limit with five minutes of casting and 25 drams of reagents. It does not matter if a primed undead was created by the necromancer originally or was created by another. They are usually putty in the next hands of whatever necromancers happens to find them.
It is very popular for necromancers to try to poach the primed undead of rival necromancers. Necromancers on friendly terms with other necromancers often gift or trade undead with their peers.
If an adventurer, soldier, or holy inquisitor who hates the undead happens to find a chamber full of primed undead, there is very little to stop them from destroying all the undead they see within minutes.
Any necromancer worth his salt is going to hide their primed undead and/or booby trap their primed undead storage area to prevent their enemies from stealing or destroying their reserves.
Any detect undead spell (with the level one arcane spell or from divine Purification Any detect undead spell with the level one arcane spell or from divine Purification ● or divine Necromancy ● will immediately tell the difference between a normal corpse, a primed undead minion, or an active undead minion who happens to be standing still with a single success rolled.
At two successes the spell will reveal what tier the undead is. At three successes it will reveal approximately how long ago the undead was created and if the undead is active, it will tell you if the controller is nearby or not. At four successes the spell will reveal what the exact tier powers of the undead are.
Generic detect magic spells are a lot less helpful.
At one success it will detect the presence of absence of magic on a corpse. At two successes, the caster can see if the corpse has lingering necromancy on it or lingering magic from something else. At three successes it will tell the caster if the corpse is undead, yes or no. At four successes the caster will be able to tell if the undead is primed or merely standing still.
Reduce, Reuse Recycle!
Undead troops are generally used as expendable cannon fodder. If a necromancer has one (or ten) of his zombie minions hacked to pieces, can he simply reanimate them again.
Yes, but it is not as easy as it sounds. Many necromancers view as more trouble than its worth.
To reanimated a once animate corpse, the necromancer has to recast the spell
at least twice more to reanimate a corpse a second time.
The first casting is to repair or "heal" the mangled corpse. and the second casting is to reanimate the newly repaired corpse.
An undead minion that was cleanly decapitated or had its skull crushed needs one casting to repair the corpse and one casting to reanimate the corpse.
An undead minion that was chopped into tiny pieces needs to four castings of the spell to repair the corpse and a fifth casting to reanimate it.
If the corpse was melted in acid or otherwise turned into something so amorphous that casual onlookers cannot tell that the remains are actually a corpse, it takes
nine castings to repair it and a tenth to reanimate it and even then, the necromancer still needs to recover all the remains.
Note that multiple castings to reanimate a corpse expend the reagents with each and every single casting. Meaning this can get very expensive.
Necromantic Psychological Warfare
Sadistic necromancers like to re-animate the corpses of the friends and family of their living enemies.
This could provide a necromancer incentive to re-usse a specific corpse over and over. Unfortunately for necromancers a "repaired" corpse does not look like much like the original corpse so a necromancer can usually only play the psychological warfare card once per corpse.
A necromancer who is also an illusionist can have lots of fun with psychological warfare if they are creative enough. In this case, it really doesn't matter who the corpse originally was.
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