Necromancers

You're a necromancer lord who animates the dead to create an unstoppable horde of zombies and other undead creatures.

The bread and butter of your army are zombies. Zombies can be raised by the dead by yourself or any of your necromancer acolytes. Each one has virtually no intelligence of its own but will obey the will of its 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. Animating a zombie takes a ten minute ritual and can be preformed on any more or less intact corpse. Zombies do not decay, but do wear out over time. For each year that passes, 1% of the zombies in this army become unusable for some reason such as injury, rot, wearing out, or something similar. As other undead, they are immune to poison, disease, thirst, hunger, fatigue, etc.

Animating a creature as the undead doesn't just enslave the body, it enslaves the soul. The soul of the unfortunate victim is wrenched out of the afterlife and imprisoned in their rotting body. Trapped in their fetid corpse, they exist in a fog of agonizing cold, mental anguish over their state, and horrific nightmare-like visions of the worst parts of their former lives. They do not display any intellect because the torment of their undead state is so consuming that they cannot think clearly on their own. Because their soul is utterly enslaved by necromantic power, they are compelled to obey every order of their necromancer master even if it involves killing people whom they once loved - actions which will repeat themselves in their mind over and over again. The only release from this tormented state is total destruction of their corpse which breaks the chains of evil magic and releases the soul. Should a necromancer be destroyed, his zombie slaves will be free from his control but still imprisoned inside its corpse, they will have been driven mad by so much suffering and will attack any living thing that they see.

The limitation of zombies is that any one necromancer can only control so many at a time. As necromancer lord, you can control 10,000 zombies at once. Normal necromancers can control 5,000 zombies each. Acolytes can control 1000 zombies at once.

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 single necromancer a week to create from a humanoid body. 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. Any weapon wielded by a wight courses with dark necrotic energy, causing it to instantly kill any living creature it pierces the flesh of. When a wight kills a living creature, it recovers from 10% of what ever wounds that it has, meaning that 10 kills will restore a wight to full health. Another variant of a wight is a death knight, a human wight with a wight horse steed. Because it takes more energy to control and maintain wights, each one counts as 10 zombies for a necromancer to control and a death knight counts as 20.

Necromancers can also animate other creatures as zombies than humans. These creatures become zombies in much the same way as humans do - having their strength increased by 50%, their speed and dexterity decreased by 50%, and becoming as difficult to kill as any undead are. Zombies of non-humans are, however, often a little more difficult to control than those of humans. Hobbit, goblin, hobgoblin, gnomes, and dogs/wolves count as a one human zombie each for purposes of control. Dwarves, elves, beastmen, and horses count as two each. Draconians, ogres, bears, worgs, and large cats count as 10 each. Flying eagles count as 50 each. Elephants or rhinos count as 100 each. Baby dragons or giants count as 1000 human zombies each. Other creatures will be decided based on their power and size. None of these special zombies have any supernatural power they had in life - a gnome zombie is simply a smaller version of a dwarf zombie and has power over earth or stone.

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 count as 500 zombies for purposes of control. 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.

Necromancers are what make this undead army possible. All necromancers, including you as lord, get the following powers. They can animate undead as above. Any living creature within 50 feet who makes eye contact with a necromancer will die and instantly become a zombie if the necromancer has the ability to control more minions. 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, though even when he is not concentrating this necromantic energy reduces the effectiveness of all attacks against him, physical and magical, by half. Necromancers can shoot a ray of dark energy from their finger tips with a range of 500 feet, any creature struck by it will instantly die or be stunned for 10 minutes if undead. 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. Necromancers can focus their attention on another magic user within 500 feet, while doing this they can counter any spell cast by that magic user before it can take effect. Countering spells this way takes concentration, but they can still walk at half speed while doing so. Necromancers do not die from old age as normal humans do, but rather merely get more withered over time until at the age of around 100 they become an undead being with the powers and abilities of a wight in addition to their necromancer powers. If a necromancer should lose his mortal life by violence, he will arise as a necromancer wight one day later.

As necromancer lord, you have a few additional powers. 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 priest, tomb king, 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 (aside from fellow necromancers) 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 100 acres of vegetation to die. A necromancer lord doesn't need to concentrate to use his necrotic energy shield, but he cannot cast spells or use special abilities while it is in effect, though even without this field being active he still only suffers 25% of the effect of all attacks because of the necrotic energy which protects him.

Necromancers have access to one additional power chosen from the list below:

Phylacteries - the necromancer knows the secrets of storing souls in phylacteries instead of merely in the body of an undead creature. However, only willing individuals with some degree of magical power can have their souls stored this way. All of your necromancers (including the necromancer lord but not acolytes) are now liches - having all of the powers of wights and necromancers combined. In addition, when ever a lich dies its body crumbles into dust and will reform 1 month later at the location of the phylactery. These phylacteries are immune to all magical scrying and divination and are protected by powerful magical enchantments.

Unholy Abomination - your necromancers know the secrets to creating a much more powerful form of abomination. This creature requires 10 years to create divided by the number of necromancers working on it. It requires at least 1000 man sized or larger corpses. It is a massive lumbering beast with limbs constructed of many smaller creatures bodies and wailing faces of the dead looking out from its massive body. It has the strength of 50 men and is terribly difficult to destroy, even massive attacks which may severally damage it do not harm, only cause a shower of maggots and black blood to rain down on attackers. The creature can regenerate damage by consuming smaller creatures - essentially eat creature is devours has its body added to the undead mass and effectively heals an equal amount of flesh to the victim's mass. The unholy abomination must consume 10,000 pounds of flesh each year or lose 5% of its strength and vitality. All who look upon the unholy abomination who aren't immune to fear suffer a 25% reduction in their combat ability (assuming they don't flee) because of the terror the beast inspires. The unholy abomination counts as 2500 zombies for the purposes of control.

Wraiths - you have the ability to create wraiths by enslaving the soul of a dead humanoid without trapping it in its body. A wraith has normal human dexterity and double a human's strength. A Wraith appears as a dark and ghostly spiritual form, like a skeleton wreathed in flowing black robes and emanating darkness. The touch of a wraith kills any living creature. It can only be injured by magical weapons and even then, it is resilient to harm and requires many blows to destroy. A wraith takes a week long ritual to create and counts as 500 zombies for the purposes of control.

Vampirism - the necromancer lord and all of his necromancer followers (but not acolytes) have transformed themselves into vampires through necromantic magics. They all of the abilities and weaknesses of fledgling vampires and retain their necromancer powers as well.

Instant Animation - your necromancers need to only touch a corpse and speak magic words for 10 seconds to animate a dead creature into a zombie. For acolytes they must chant the words for 1 minute while the necromancer lord may do it in 5 seconds.

Acolytes are those who have begun their training in the dark arts of necromancer but have yet to become full fledged necromancers. They can only animate zombies and only control 1000 at a time. Aside from that, the only other supernatural ability that they have is to kill with a touch, which heals them of their own injuries.

You begin play with 50 necromancers, each of which is master over 1000 zombies, any number of which can be traded for wights or death knights. You also have 250 acolytes. You personally control 5,000 zombies or equivalent value in wights or death knights. You cannot begin play with an abomination, but can begin construction.

In addition to the above servants, you get 50,000 human servants who worship and serve you, hoping to eventually become a necromancer or be given immortality by you. These people can reproduce among themselves as normal humans do. You can have up to a number of necromancers equal to .1% of your human population, and each necromancer can have up to 10 acolytes under him.

Necromancer armies start with access to 13th century technology, but most of their equipment will be stolen along with the dead.