The tradition of Necromancy was established for the purpose of subverting the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth to enable mortals to extend their existence beyond their normal life span—in direct defiance of the will of Father Death.
The original makers of this magic sought the secrets of longevity and wanted to safeguard their sense of selves from the ennui and dissolution experienced in the Underworld. It was their efforts at teasing out the secrets of life and death that introduced the undead to the world. Many Necromancy spells awaken corpses and bind them to the will of their makers so they become as slaves. Students of the tradition tend to surround themselves with unliving servants and lie low in dark, gloomy places where they have easy access to the bodies and body parts they need to conduct their foul experiments.
Control Limits: Many Necromancy spells enable you to control undead by causing them to become compelled when you create them. The maximum number of undead you can have compelled with Necromancy spells is equal to your Power score. If you create a new undead that exceeds your limit, you remove the compelled affliction from the undead you have controlled for the longest time.
Creating Undead
From animated corpses to grave thralls, nearly all undead exist because a necromancer somewhere discovered the means of creating them. One could conclude that there exists a Necromancy spell for almost every undead creature and that could be the case in your games. Although some such spells already exist, as noted in the Spell Index, creating spells for all the undead would be an endless process, since new forms of undead appear all the time. You can, with the help of your GM, create certain spells you want to add to the game by using the following guidelines.
The Undead Creation table gives the minimum rank a spell must be for it to create an undead creature of a particular Difficulty. Because Difficulty is a flexible concept, geared more toward expressing how a creature interacts with player characters, the GM might decide that some undead require spells of higher rank than the table indicates, if spells for creating those creatures even exist at all.
The table also shows you how many creatures the created undead counts as for the purpose of how many undead you can control.
Undead Creation
| Difficulty | Minimum Spell Rank | Count As |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | 1 creature |
| 5 | 1 or 2 | 1 creature |
| 10 | 2 | 1 creature |
| 25 | 3 | 1-1/2 creatures |
| 50 | 4 | 1-1/2 creatures |
| 100 | 5 | 2 creatures |
Hide From Undead
Duration 1 minute; see the effect
You become hidden from undead creatures for the duration. The effect ends immediately if you make an attack.
Mark of the Necromancer
Target One creature you can reach
Your hand blackens as you reach for the target. Make an Intellect attack roll against the target’s Agility. On a success, you touch the target and leave a black handprint on the spot you touch. For 1 round, when the target takes damage, it takes 1d6 extra damage.
Attack Roll 20+ The target is also impaired for 1 round.
Spectral Grasp
Target One creature within medium range
A shadowy hand streaks toward the target. Make an Intellect attack roll against its Agility. On a success, the target takes 1d3 damage and makes attack rolls with 1 bane for 1 round.
Attack Roll 20+ The target takes 1d6 extra damage.
Steal Face
Target One dead creature you can reach that has a humanoid shape and has its head still intact
Duration 1 hour
You touch the target and cause its face to lift from the skull and attach itself to your face, where it remains for the duration. The face merges with yours to appear and feel like living tissue, enabling you to masquerade as the dead creature. When the spell ends, the face rots away and slides from your head.
Animate Corpse
Target One Size 1/2 or 1 corpse you can reach
You touch the target. If you concentrate and maintain contact with the target for 1 minute, it becomes a compelled animated corpse of its Size.
Sacrifice You can expend a casting of this spell to cast spectral grasp.
Bone Armor
Duration 1 hour
Bones break free from the ground under you and crawl up your body until you are fully encased. For the duration, you have Defense 15 and you count as if you are wearing light armor. While you wear this armor, whenever a creature within 1 yard of you attacks you with a weapon and gets a success on the attack roll, bone splinters fly at the triggering creature, forcing it to make an Agility challenge roll. On a failure, the creature takes 1d3 damage.
Charnel Stench
Area A 5-yard-long cone originating from a point in your space
You exhale a reeking brown cloud that spreads through the area and then dissipates. Each living and breathing creature in the area must get a success on a Strength challenge roll with 1 bane or become dazed for 1 round and impaired for 1 minute thereafter.
Create Accursed Hand
Target A severed hand you can reach
You touch the target. If you concentrate and maintain contact with the target for 1 minute, the target becomes a compelled accursed hand.
Sacrifice You can use an action and expend a casting of this spell to cast the spectral grasp Necromancy spell.
Grave Grasp
Area A circle on the ground with a 5-yard radius centered on a point within short range
Duration 1 minute
For the duration, darkness spreads through the area; bony claws and rotting hands rise from the ground, which becomes difficult terrain. Each creature in the area when you cast the spell or that is in the area at the end of a round must make an Agility challenge roll. On a failure, it takes 1d6 damage and becomes immobilized for the duration. If it was already immobilized, it instead takes 1d6 extra damage. The creature can use an action to tear free, removing the immobilized affliction.
Harvest Soul
Target One creature, killed no longer than 1 round ago, within short range
Duration 4 hours; see the effect
A ball of faint light rises from the target and flies toward you, orbiting your body for the duration. You can use an action to end the effect immediately and heal damage equal to your healing rate. Until the effect ends, the target creature cannot be restored to life by any means.
Bone Splinters
Target One creature that has bones in its body within medium range
Make an Intellect attack roll against the target’s Strength. On a success, the target takes 3d6 + 5 damage. If it becomes incapacitated by this damage, it dies instantly and the bones in its body explode in a 3-yard-long cone originating from a point within its space. Everything in the area takes 1d6 damage; creatures take no damage with a success on an Agility challenge roll.
Attack Roll 20+ The target takes 2d6 extra damage.
Create Skin Cloak
Target The intact hide of one Size 1 creature that you can reach
You touch the target. If you concentrate and maintain contact with the target for 1 minute, it becomes a compelled skin cloak.
Sacrifice You can use an action and expend a casting of this spell to cast the animate corpse Necromancy spell.
Funeral Shroud
Duration 1 minute
Shadows appear and gather around you, partially obscuring you for the duration. The shadows grant you 1 boon on attack rolls you make from casting Necromancy attack spells and impose 1 bane on challenge rolls you make to resist those spells.
In addition, at any time, once per round, you can use a triggered action to cause the shadows to emit a sharp noise. Each creature (other than you) that is within 3 yards of you must make a Will challenge roll. The creature gains 1 Insanity on a failure. On a success, it becomes immune to this effect of your casting of the funeral shroud spell until it completes a rest.
Necromantic Power
Duration Until you complete a rest
Dark magic energizes your body to give you greater control over the undead you create. The number of undead you can have compelled is doubled until this spell ends.
Sacrifice You can use an action and expend a casting of this spell to regain the casting of one rank 1 or lower Necromancy spell you have learned.
Shrieking Skull
Target A point in space you can reach
Duration 1 minute, see the effect
A human skull appears in the air, centered on the target. It has the flier trait, Defense 20, and Health 10. When its damage total equals its Health, the skull crumbles and the effect ends immediately.
When you cast the spell, you can have the skull fly up to 10 yards and scream; you can also do this using an action or a triggered action on your turn for the duration. The noise spreads through a sphere with a 3-yard radius centered on the skull. Each creature that can hear in the area must get a success on a Strength challenge roll or take 1d6 + 1 damage.
Animate Large Corpse
Target One Size 2 corpse you can reach
You touch the target. If you concentrate and maintain contact with the target for 1 minute, it becomes a compelled animated beast. (Alternatively, you can use the rules for “creating animated corpses” to determine the creature’s statistics.) This creature counts as one-and-a-half undead creatures for the purposes of determining your limits on control (see Shadow, page 135).
Sacrifice You can expend a casting of this spell to cause one undead creature you compelled that is within short range to heal 3d6 damage or two such creatures to heal 2d6 damage.
Cannibalize Magic
Target One creature within medium range
Make an Intellect attack roll against the target’s Strength. On a success, the target takes 3d6 damage and you regain the casting of one spell of rank 1 or lower.
Attack Roll 20+ The target takes 2d6 extra damage and you instead regain the casting of one spell of rank 2 or lower.
Create Fire Specter
Area A cube of space, 1 yard on each side, resting on a solid surface and originating from a point within medium range
Duration 1 minute (see effect)
A compelled fire specter appears in the area and remains for the duration or until it is incapacitated, at which point it disappears. If you become incapacitated, the specter is no longer compelled and you cannot end the spell early.
Keening
Area A 10-yard-long cone originating from a point in your space
The sound of your terrifying scream spreads through the area. Each living creature in the area must make a Strength challenge roll. A creature takes 4d6 damage, gains 1 Insanity, and becomes deafened for 1 minute on a failure, or just takes half the damage on a success.
Spectral Sycthe
Requirement You must be holding your implement with both hands
Duration 1 hour
Seething shadows turn your implement into a scythe that you can use for the duration. When the scythe appears, and on each of your turns until the spell ends, you can use it to attack one creature you can reach. It functions as a two-handed finesse weapon that deals 2d6 + 2 damage. You can use Intellect in place of the attribute you would normally use to attack with this weapon. Finally, when a creature becomes incapacitated by an attack you make with this weapon, the creature dies.
Well of Dark Power
Area A circle on the ground with a 5-yard radius centered on a point within medium range
Duration 1 minute
A glyph appears at the origin point. For the duration, when any creature in the area takes damage, it takes 2d6 extra damage.
Drown in Maggots
Area A 3-yard-radius circle centered on a point on the ground within long range
Duration 1 minute
Maggots come boiling up out of the ground to partially obscure the area and turn the ground in it into difficult terrain for the duration. Any creature in the area when the maggots appear or that enters the area must make both a Strength challenge roll and a Will challenge roll. A failure on the Strength roll indicates the creature takes 3d6 damage from the chewing maggots and becomes impaired for 1 round. A failure on the Will roll indicates the creature gains 1 Insanity.
Seal the Underworld’s Gates
Area A sphere with a 10-yard radius centered on a point within medium range
Duration 1 minute
Tendrils of necromantic energy spread through the area. For the duration, undead in the area make attack rolls and challenge rolls with 1 boon and living creatures other than you in the area make attack rolls and challenge rolls with 1 bane. As well, Size 1 or 1/2 living creatures that die in the area become compelled animated corpses.
Soul Blight
Duration 1 minute
Curls of darkness rise from all over your body for the duration. When you cast this spell, and again whenever you use a triggered action on your turn to do so, you can blight the soul of one creature you can see within medium range that has a soul. Make an Intellect attack roll against the creature’s Will. On a success, the creature’s soul becomes blighted for 1 minute. While its soul is blighted in this way, the creature is impaired, and whenever it takes damage from one of your attacks or an attack made by an undead under your control, it gains 1 Insanity and you or a creature within short range of you heals 2d6 damage.
Animate Huge Corpse
Target One Size 3 or smaller corpse you can reach
Upon casting this spell, you must concentrate for 1 minute, during which time you maintain physical contact with the target. When you finish, the target becomes a compelled animated corpse (apply the animated corpse template on page 133 to the base creature) of its Size. A Size 2 creature counts as one-and-a half undead creatures, and a Size 3 creature counts as two undead creatures for determining how many undead you can have compelled.
Create Chainbound If you have enough corpses to fill a cube, 3 yards on a side, and at least four heavy lengths of chain, you can use this spell to create a compelled chainbound instead of an animated corpse.
Create Ghastly Chorus If you have enough faces harvested from corpses to spread across a flat surface, 3 yards on a side, you can use this spell to create a compelled ghastly chorus instead of an animated corpse.
Sacrifice You can use an action and expend a casting of this spell to cause an undead compelled by you and within short range to heal 3d6 damage or cause two such creatures to heal 2d6 damage.
Army of the Dead
Area A circle on the ground with a 2-yard radius centered on a point within medium range
Duration 1 hour
The area becomes difficult terrain for the duration. At the end of the round in which you cast the spell, 2d6 compelled animated corpses claw free from the ground and stand up. All the animated corpses created by this spell count as a single creature for the purpose of determining how many compelled undead creatures you can control. The effect ends when the last of these animated corpses is destroyed.
Call of the Grave
Target Up to six creatures you can see within long range
Threads of necromantic energy leap from your outstretched hand and streak toward the targets. For each target, make an Intellect attack roll against its Agility. On a success, the target takes 4d6 + 5 damage and becomes diseased. If the target becomes incapacitated when it is diseased in this way, it dies, and 1 round later it rises as a compelled animated corpse of its Size (apply the animated corpse template from page 133 to the creature).
Each time a target diseased by this spell completes a rest, it must make a Strength challenge roll. The target takes a –1d6 penalty to Health on a failure or, after its third success, removes the diseased affliction from itself. The penalty from this effect is cumulative and permanent.
Attack Roll 20+ The target takes 2d6 extra damage.