You are a necromancer. With but a single touch and by speaking the magical words (which takes about a second) you may animate a corpse into a zombie servant. Any living creature within 100 feet who makes eye contact with a necromancer will die and instantly become a zombie. A necromancer can surround himself with a cloud of necrotic energy, making himself immune to harm and magic as long as he maintains concentration and and doesn't move faster than a slow walk. Necromancers can shoot a ray of dark energy from their finger tips with a range of 500 feet, any living creature struck by it will instantly die. Undead creatures attacking a necromancer, whether in melee, with a ranged weapon, or magically, have only half of their strength, dexterity, or accuracy to do so and their magic only has 1/4 of the normal effect. Necromancers can heal any wounds they have suffered by touching an enemy and draining its life force - one touch of a necromancer will kill any living thing if the necromancer wishes. With a second of concentration, a necromancer lord can take control of an enemy undead creature within 100 feet, the undead will then serve the necromancer for the next hour unless it is a lich or vampire. Once per day you can surround yourself with a cloud of dark energy that reduces the strength, dexterity, and courage of living beings by half within its 500' radius - this power lasts for an hour. Once per day, you can curse a land that is within your line of sight, causing one acre of vegetation to die.
As a necromancer lord, you have your soul stored with a phylactery at a special hidden location. If you should ever die, you will be restored to life at the location of your phylactery within about 6 months of your death. As a necromancer, you age normally but at any point may undergo a transformation into a lich. As a lich, you gain all of the immunities of an undead creature - you are immune to poison, fatigue, thirst, hunger, fear, etc. In addition, you cannot be destroyed unless your body is completely demolished - even then your existence is restored by your phylactery. A lich is twice as strong as any mortal and just as dexterous, it also has the ability to see in absolute darkness. On the downside, it has the appearance of a withered corpse or skeleton with eerily glowing eyes and as a lich you cannot longer feel pleasure or pleasant sensations.
Zombies have virtually no intelligence of their own but will obey the will of their necromancer master. They are 50% stronger than humans, 50% less fast and dexterous, and extremely difficult to kill. To take down a zombie you must hack it to pieces, cut off its dead, or otherwise pulverize the body until it is useless. Zombies slowly decay over time, lasting roughly a year before becoming too rotten to be useful. Zombies are immune to poison, disease, thirst, hunger, fatigue, fear, etc.
Necromancers can create more advanced undead creations as well. These are more difficult to control and more time consuming to create.
Wights are a powerful form of undead created by necromancers. Each one takes a necromancer a week to create from a humanoid body, though this body must have been a great warrior in life. A wight is twice as strong as a mortal, just as dexterous, and even more durable. Wights can only be killed if their bodies are completely destroyed, even decapitation cannot destroy them. Also, they do not wear out as zombies do. Each wight has human-like intellect but only the vaguest memories of its human life, it is now devoted to the necromancer. Another variant of a wight is a death knight, a human wight with a wight horse steed. A necromancer can only control up to 1000 wights at a time.
Abominations are huge undead constructs made from the bones of giant creatures or numerous smaller creatures. They are a mishmash of flesh and bone, sometimes with numerous limbs or multiple heads or layers of bone armor. They are gigantic, weighing thousands of pounds and having the strength of over 20 men, though they are slow and lumbering. They are virtually impossible to destroy, requiring siege machines, explosives, magical weapons, or other creatures of incredible strength. They are, however, particularly vulnerable to holy weapons and the power of good priests. They have the lack of free will of zombies and all of the immunities of zombies as well. Creating such a creature requires a year of constant work by a single necromancer, though the labor can be split between multiple necromancers for a faster job - 6 necromancers wold take two months. Abominations slowly wear out like zombies, they need 1000 pounds of dead flesh added per year to prevent it from losing 5% of its strength and durability.
You may find other mortals capable of learning the dark arts of necromancy, though only one in a million people have that potential. When you find such an idividual, you may take them under your wing and begin training them. Such a person becomes an apprentice after a year of training. An apprentice can animate zombies in the same way as a necromancer lord can, though they have none of the other powers. In addition, an apprentice becomes an acolyte after 10 years of training. An acolyte can animate zombies and can also shoot out a beam of necromantic energy up to 100 feet, killing any living creature it touches. Acolytes can also create and control wights, up to 10 each.
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