Saturday 4 December 2010

The Necromancer: A New OSRIC Class. Part III

Second Level Necromancer Spells:

Agent of Shadow
Level: 2
Range: 60 ft
Duration: See below
Area of Effect: 1 Shadow under the Necromancers control.
Components: One eye from a specially sacrificed human or demi-human victim.
Casting Time: 1 turn
Saving Throw: none.
This spell allows the Necromancer to send a single Shadow which must already be under the Necromancers control far beyond the normal distance at which he could retain control of an undead creature. The creature will perform one task for the Necromancer (typically scouting or assassination) before returning to the Caster. If the Shadow's task takes it beyond the Necromancers Shadow Agent radius (equal to 2 miles for every level of the Necromancer) it will either abandon it's mission and return to the Necromancer (50% chance) or else attempt to complete the mission. If it attempts to complete the mission it will break out of the Necromancers control after fulfilling it's objective. If this is the case it will not return to the Necromancer once it's errand is complete.

Corpse Touch:
Level: 2
Range: Caster
Duration: 3 rounds plus 1 round/level
Area of Effect: Caster
Components: Grave Dust
Casting Time: 2 segments
Saving Throw: vs Spell
The spell causes the Necromancers hands to turn a shade of corpse-blue. Each round until the spells duration expires, the Necromancer may make a normal weapon attack using only his hands. Any foe hit suffers D4+1/level hit points of cold damage as the chill of the grave suffuses their bones and must take a saving throw vs spell. If the save succeeds, there is no further affect from the Necromancers touch this round. If the save fails, the victim must take -1 to all future dice rolls until he has had to chance to warm up around a fire. This is a cumulative effect, so a victim who fails this saving throw twice suffers a -2 to all dice rolls. The Necromancer can make one such attack per round until the spell expires, counting as a weapon attack. The Necromancer is free to cast other spells without causing the spell to expire, but may not make a Corpse Touch attack and cast a spell in the same round.

Improved Animate Dead
Level: 2
Range: As Animate Dead
Duration: As Animate Dead
Area of Effect: As Animate Dead
Components: As Animate Dead
Casting Time: As Animate Dead
Saving Throw: As Animate Dead
As Animate Dead, except that the 1d6 creatures affected reanimate with half the hit dice they possessed while living. They attack as they did in life, but lose the benefits of strength, dexterity or weapon specialisation. They have D8 for hit dice, regardless of their previous hit dice type, may wear armour, attack with normal weapons and turn as ghouls. The bodies cannot have been dead for longer than a week and must be more or less whole.

Manufacture Ghoul
Level: 2
Range: touch
Duration: Permanent
Area of Effect: 1 unwilling Sacrificial Victim (see below)
Components: 1 Formally sacrificed victim, human flesh and 1000gp worth of rare herbs, unguents and lotions.
Casting Time: 1 night
Saving Throw: none
Creates a ghoul from a sacrificial victim (willing or otherwise). The victim must be human, and no other activity can be conducted that night. At midnight, the victim is first fed the flesh of another human (who must be a friend or loved one of the victim) and then sacrificed, his bleeding heart removed from his or her chest and held before his still living eyes until he expires. At which point, the Necromancer must anoint and paint the body using foul, ancient runes. At dawn the ritual ends, and at dusk that same day, the sacrificial victim shall arise as a ghoul under the control of the Necromancer. The ghoul will count towards the maximum hit dice of undead the caster can have under his control at any one time.

Sense Life
Level: 2
Range: caster
Duration: From Dusk till Dawn or Dawn till Dusk
Area of Effect: 120 ft radius
Components: A drop of still-warm blood dabbed on the forehead of the caster.
Casting Time: 1 round
Saving Throw: none
Three times during the spells duration, the Necromancer may concentrate for a single round to sense the presence of life within 120ft of his current position. Walls, doors, fences and the like prove no barrier to this ability. However, the Necromancer will only learn the direction in which the life is present and the intensity of that life force (number of warm bodies present, their rough size and so on). He will not be aware of the exact location of these living beings. if, for any reason, the blood is wiped from the casters forehead, the spell expires.

Summon Ghouls or Ghasts
Level: 2
Range: As Summon Skeletons or Zombies
Duration: As Summon Skeletons or Zombies
Area of Effect: As Summon Skeletons or Zombies
Components: As Summon Skeletons or Zombies
Casting Time: As Summon Skeletons or Zombies
Saving Throw: As Summon Skeletons or Zombies
This spell follows the rules for the first level Necromancer spell Summon Skeletons or Zombies, with the exception that it first attempts to Summon Ghouls or Ghasts, only summoning skeletons or zombies if no Ghouls or Ghasts are within range of the spell.

Wisdom of the Dead:
Level 2
Range: 60ft
Duration: 1 turn per level.
Area of Effect: The intact body from which the skull spell component was taken.
Components: 1 Skull. Grave Dust. 10gp worth of unguents and ink
Casting Time: 1 round
Saving Throw: None
By means of this spell, the Necromancer can interrogate the soul of the being to whom the skull belongs regarding events that have occurred within fifty feet of the body. This body must have previously undergone a night long ritual in which the body is adorned with dark runes which will tie the soul of the dead being to it's corpse. Should the body ever be dismembered or the skull destroyed, the soul will be freed from it's bondage and the skull in question may never be consulted again.
Corpses which have been prepared in this manner do NOT count towards the maximum HD of undead the caster can have under his control at any given time. They are not motile and, other than the ability to sense events around them (line of sight is not required) count as ordinary corpses for all other purposes and game rules.

3 comments:

netherwerks said...

Interesting spells. We don't use OSRIC, right now, but these look adaptable enough for one or another simulacra necroclone game.

Have you looked at Garth Nix's The Abhorsen Trilogy? The Abhorsen is a good necromancer who puts down the unlawful dead. It's ostensibly a young adult book, but still manages to deliver quite a bit of RPG-usable stuff.

Timothy S. Brannan said...

Awesome. I am going to try this with Basic/Expert D&D and see how that goes.

Dangerous Brian said...

@ Netherworks:
I haven't no, but now that you've recommended them I'll be sure to look them up. And yes, hopefully they should be usable in any retroclone without too much trouble.

@Tim: Thank you very kindly. but I can't take all the credit. Other than Corpse Hands, most of these spells are adapted from the Spell-Like abilities listed in the WD35 WD article. Let me know how you get on with the Necromancer in your game. That Magnus guy you talked about on your blog seems like a great villain.