An Inner Talent

Sometimes, an unexperienced necromancer may misunderstood its ability with the power of a sorcerer. Both of them wield their power as an innate ability, but while sorcerer harness their own inborn magic, necromancers has the ability to harness and manipulate the vital essence that move any living creature to use it at their advantage.

Whenever mad wizards who pursuit the eternal life, blessed priest of gods of life or gifted sorcerers with an unique talent, necromancers aim to achieve their goal by weaving the very core of life.

A Predictable Misconception

Contrary to popular belief, necromancer are not necessary evil creatures, not seek to subjugate others. In fact, some of them seek to use their powers for the good. A poor understanding of their skills as well the frightening power of the undead has simply produced a misconception of their image to the common folk.

Necromancers are rare in the world, and so the story of one evil necromancer taking over a city with a hoard of zombies may spread very quickly, while the story of gifted men with ability to heal the badly injured may pass unnoticed.

Creating a Necromancer

The most important question to consider when creating your necromancer is how did you come in contact with this new power and why do you use it: Were you a young sorcerer who discovered their talent for manipulating life essence was their true power? Did you form part of a demon-worshipping cult where you were teached with the art of harnessing life essence? Or perhaps the source of your talent is unknown and mysterious, and one day you almost die when you discover this new power? Also you must determine how your character appeal necromancy: Is it simply the pleasure of control of life, or did you lose a loved one and could not face your inability to prevent its death?

Quick Build

You can make the necromancer quickly by following these suggestions. First, Intelligence should be your highest ability score, followed by Constitution. Second, choose the Acolyte, Hermit or Sage background. Third, choose the cantrips chill touch and thaumaturgy, and the 1st-level spells cure wounds and witch bolt.

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Hit Points

• Hit Dice: 1d6 per necromancer level
• Hit Points at 1st Level: 6 + your Constitution modifier
• Hit Points at Higher Levels: 1d6 (or 4) + your Constitution modifier per necromancer level after 1st.

Proficiencies

• Armor: None
• Weapons: Daggers, Darts, Sickles, Quarterstaffs
• Tools: None

• Saving Throws: Constitution and Intelligence
• Skills: Choose two from Arcana, Deception, History, Investigation, Medicine, and Religion.

Equipment

You start with the following equipment, in addition to the equipment granted by your background:

• (a) a quarterstaff or (b) a sickle
• (a) a component pouch or (b) an arcane focus
• (a) a priest’s pack or (b) a scholar’s pack

Alternatively, you can choose to start with 4d4 x 10 gp and opt to spend some or all of that money on starting equipment.

Dark Magic

As a necromancer, your ability to manipulate the life essence of living beings is a natural talent for you. However this technique is enhanced by studying spells and the arcane arts.

See chapter 10 of the official player handbook for the general rules of spellcasting and the end of this document for the necromancer spell list.

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Doctrine of the Undertaker

The Doctrine of the Undertaker could be said to be the best known by the common people. Its sole purpose is the raising of the undead. In this doctrine, necromancers leave their training behind, and spend all their time mastering the ability to raise and create hordes of undead. For this same reason, their necromancers are often physically weak and of little speech, since they spend their entire lives surrounded by the dead.

Death Tyrant

At 20th level, you choose an additional Undead Style from the Undead Style feature. Additionally, when you cast an spell, you can choose any amount of undead creatures in a 60-foot range centered on you, the creatures recover the double of the spell level in hit points.

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Siphoning Doctrine Spells

Unholy Recovery

Starting at 3rd level, you gain the ability to consume up to the last drop of life from a corpse. As an action, you can touch a corpse or an undead creature. The creature takes 1d8 + your necromancer level in hit points and you restore the same amount in hit points. A creature which hit points drops to 0 become fine dust. A corpse always becomes fine dust.

Whenever you use this feature on an unwilling creature, make a melee spell attack, on a hit the feature takes place.

You can use this feature a number of times equal to your intelligence modifier (minimum of one charge). When you finish a long rest, you regain all expended uses.

Dark Mastery

At 6th level, you have obtained a greater control of the life force of living beings. Whenever you deal necrotic damage, you automatically gain temporary hit points equal to half the necrotic damage dealt, rounded down.

Additionally, you gain proficiency with light and medium armor, and three weapons of your choice, and whenever you deal damage with a weapon attack or any necromancer spell, you can choose to change the damage dealt to be necrotic type.

Proficent Leech

At 10th level, you master new methods to siphon the life from your enemies.

As a bonus action, you can choose a creature you can see within 30 feet of you. For 1 minute or until your concentration ends (as if you were concentrating on a spell) the creature is marked. The mark ends if the target is ever outside the 30-foot range or if it has total cover from you.

Once you use this feature, you can not use it again until you finish a short or long rest. Each necromancer has its own mark. Choose one of the following features of your choice.

Bestow Life

At 14th level, you learn how to bring back to life the recently deceased. As an action, you touch the corpse of a creature who died within the last 24 hours. The creature bring back to life with 2d10 hit points and the target suffers from a level of exhaustion (as described in PHB appendix A).

Once you use this feature, you can not use it again until you finish a long rest.

Everlasting

At 20th level, killing you becomes a challenging task. When you are reduced to 0 hit points, you can expend and roll 1 vitality dice (no action required) and drop to a number of hit points equals to the rolled number instead.

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Bloodletting Doctrine Spells

Blood Drinker

Beginning 3rd level, you discover that blood is the essence of all life, and you learn how to draw it. You gain the following benefits while you are unarmed:

• You can use Dexterity instead of Strength for the attack and damage rolls of your unarmed strikes.
• You can roll a d6 in place of the normal damage of your unarmed strike.
• On hit, the enemy must perform on a Constitution saving thrown against your spell save DC. On a failed save, you recover 1 spent vitality dice.

Unarmored Defense

Also starting at 3rd level, while you are wearing no armor and not wielding a shield, your AC equals 13 + your Dexterity modifier.

Blood Hunter

At 3rd level, your gain the ability to smell and track blood. You add your proficiency bonus on your Perception and Survival ability checks to track wounded creatures. If you are already proficient, you double your proficiency bonus.

Blood Magic

Beginning at 6th level, you learn how to improve your magic through blood and life. Whenever you cast an spell, you can spend 1 vitality point to improve its strength. Choose one of the following features to learn:

Blood Control

At 14th level, you acquire the ability to control the alive through their blood.

As an action, you attempt to dominate a creature you can see withing 30 feet of you. The target must succeed on a Constitution saving throw against your spell DC against your spell save DC or be controlled by you for 1 minute.

While the target is under your control, you can command it in the same way you do with your Undead Minions.

You can use your action to take total and precise control of the target. Until the end of your next turn, the creature takes only the actions you choose, and doesn’t do anything that you don’t allow it to do. During this time you can also cause the creature to use a reaction, but this requires you to use your own reaction as well.

Each time the target takes damage, it makes a new Constitution saving throw. If the saving throw succeeds, your control ends.

Once you use this feature, you can not use it again until you finish a long rest.

Vampirism

At 20th level, you have accomplished the greatest of your ambitions. You gain the following features:

• Your speed increases by 20 feet while you are not wearing armor or wielding a shield. Additionally, you gain the ability to move along vertical surfaces and across liquids on your turn without falling during the move.
• As a bonus action, you can spend one vitality dice and regain a number of hit points equal to the roll result, plus your Constitution modifier, plus your Intelligence modifier (minimum of one).
• When you take the attack action using your unarmed strikes, you can attack twice, instead of once.
• When you use your Raise Undead feature, you can create a vampire spawn instead. You can only have up to 2 vampire spawns at the same time.

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Healing Doctrine Spells

Life Giver

Beginning at 3rd level, your Vitality Infusion feature increases its range to 120 feet.

Additionally, whenever you use Vitality Infusion to heal a creature, you can target one additional creature. The creature must be within 30 feet of the other when you target it.

Natural Recovery

Also starting at 3rd level, you gain the ability to improve the natural healing of the body. When you take a short rest, choose up to 6 creatures within 60 feet of you. Whenever one of the targeted creatures roll a Hit Die to regain hit points, double the number of hit points it restores.

Improved Healer

Starting at 6th level, the Vitality Infusion you spend on others heal you as well. When you use your Vitality Infusion in a creature other than you, you regain 3 hit points for each spent die.

Vitality Aura

Starting at 10th level, you learn how to heal more creatures at the same time.

As an action, you choose any amount of creatures within 30-feet radius centered on you and heal them spending dice from the pool. The maximum number of dice you can spend at once is equal to your Intelligence modifier (minimum of one die). Roll the dice you spend, add them together, halve the result, and restore a number of hit points equal to the total.

Life Proficiency

Beginning at 14th level, you learn a new way to manipulate life. Choose one of the following features to learn:

Return from Death

At 20th level, you master the shift between death and life. At any time after you die, you can replicate the effects of resurrection on yourself without consuming material components, provided your body has not been disintegrated.

Once you use this feature, you can not use it again for 7 days.

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Mortal Melody

A very rare and terrible disease. The mere contact with an infected creature requires a DC 20 Constitution saving throw. On success, the creature is immune to the disease. On fail, the creature is infected. After 24 hours the virus takes effect, crumbing to dust the body of the infected. The disease is so fast that victims can hear their skin crackle and their bones grow brittle, crack and break under their own weight. The victim has disadvantage on Attack Rolls, Ability Checks, and saving throws using Strength, Dexterity, or Constitution. Their movement speed is also reduced by half. There is no known cure. Tales says that the blood of an angel can revert this state.

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Necromancer

NECROMANCY REQUIRES TALENT. THE SKILL TO manipulate the life essence is not something that everybody should do. Only those who inborn the gift has the privilege of play god.

- Larloch, the Shadow King

When it comes to fighting in times of need, necromancers have it easy compared to other characters. Their talent for manipulating the essence of life grants them a wide spectrum of defensive and offensive capabilities. Unlike other characters, they are never alone. Every necromancer is born with an aspiration that, together with his innate power, will come true someday.

Due to the idea of ​​inappropriately breaking the boundary between life and death, raising the dead and burying the living, traveling with them does not sit well with many people. Despite this, many necromancers successfully overcome these prejudices by demonstrating how their abilities can be used for good.

Necromancers are often defined by events going on during their youth. For some of them, their only purpose is to recover someone who is no longer there, or to avoid this suffering to other people. These are well received by strangers. For others, the entire world is an acquired right, banished from society and hated by the folk, they consider themselves tyrants of death.

Playing a necromancer character can be as rewarding as it is challenging. The sections below offer suggestions on how to flesh out and personalize your person.

Necromancy Origin

Some necromancers understand where their power came from, based on how their abilities manifested. Others can only speculate, since their powers came to them in a way that suggest no particular cause.

Does your character know the source of your unique talent? Does it tie back to some distant relative, a near-death experience, or a satanic ritual? If your necromancer doesn't know where their power arose from, your DM can use this table (or select an origin) and reveal it to you when the information plays a role in the campaign.

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Necromancy Origins

d6	Origin
1	You almost die one day, and you discovered that death was not the end, but the beginning.
2	Your power arises from your family's bloodline. You are related to some powerful creature, or you inherited a blessing or a curse.
3	You belonged to a demon-worshipping cult, where you learned to manipulate the life essence as part of the satanic rituals.
4	You remember exactly how you died. But somehow, you didn't die at all.
5	You meet another necromancer one day, which cursed your (or blessed) with this skill.
6	You experienced the death of many persons around you. And somehow it broaden your sight to a new realm.

First Usage

The first time a necromancer defy the natural course of life is an experience that will mark him or her for its entire life. When your necromancer's power appeared, what was the first thing you did? How did you face this power?

First Usages

d6	First Usage
1	Your beloved one died and you were not able to save it. Your desire of bring it back was so strong that you raise it as an undead, accidentally or intentionally.
2	You found a death animal in the forest and bring it back to life, it's now your pet.
3	Something in you was different and no one understood it. You killed your best friend and turned it.
4	Everything you touches withered, soon your discovered this power.
5	A friend of your almost die from a wound or disease, but you healed him with this power.
6	A group of goblins attacked the place where you lived, but you managed to scare them with undeads.

Desires

Reactions

Necromancer

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Doctrine of the Reaper

Contrary to other doctrines, in the Doctrine of the Reaper death is accepted as the final destination of all that lives. This doctrine is known for the characteristic use of the scythe, a weapon that reaps life. Its necromancers are dark creatures that only await their death and of those around them. Over time, their wills and bodies vanish on the death spiral, until not even their bones remain.

The reapers' acts are not evil, for they are no longer able to distinguish between good and evil. For the reapers, death is an inevitable state, something we all have in common.

Spectre

At 20th level, you have abandoned you physical form to become a spectre, a creature of pure magic. You gain the following benefits:

• You gain resistance to bludgeoning, piercing and slashing damage from non-magical weapons.
• You can attack twice, instead of once, whenever you take the attack action.
• You gain a flying speed of 60 feet.
• You become immune to the following conditions: charmed, exhaustion, frightened, grappled, paralyzed, petrified, poisoned, prone and restrained.

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Shamanism Doctrine Spells

Sixth Sense

At 2th level, you gain an uncanny sense of when things nearby are not as they should be, giving you an edge when you dodge away from danger.

You have advantage on Dexterity saving throws against effects that you can see, such as traps and spells. To gain this benefit, you can’t be blinded, deafened, or incapacitated.

Whispers of Danger

Beginning at 6nd level, the spirits warn you of danger. Before you make a saving throw, you can choose to gain advantage on the roll, providing you don't have disadvantage on it.

You can use this feature a number of times equal to your intelligence modifier (minimum of one charge). When you finish a long rest, you regain all expended uses.

Spirits Totem

Beginning at 10th level, you gain the favor of the spirits.

As an action, you can summon helping spirits. Choose a point within 60 feet from you. During a minute, the spirits will help you with their power, each spirit having a different effect.

Once you use this feature, you can't use it again until you finish a long rest.

Choose one of the following features to learn:

Summon Spirits

At 14th level, you can ask for the aid of an spirit.

As an action, you call forth an spirit. Choose banshee or ghost. The creature you chose appears in an unoccupied space within 10 feet of you. The creature is friendly to you and your companions for the duration.

Roll initiative for the creature, which has its own turns. It obeys any verbal commands that you issue to it (no action required by you). If you don’t issue any commands to the elemental, it defends itself from hostile creatures but otherwise takes no actions.

After 1 minute, the creature return to the realm of the spirits.

Once you use this feature, you can't use it again until you finish a long rest.

Spiritual Sight

At 20th level, you can perceive both the physical and spiritual plane in perfect sync. You gain 120 feet of truesight.

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Dreadful Whispers

This curse is obtained by angering spirits. Affected creatures say to hear whispers and incantations from spirits. At the beginning of every day, the creature must succeed a DC 20 Wisdom saving throw. On fail the creature is affected by a long-term madness from the DMG.

Occult Doctrine Spells

Occult Sage

At 3rd level, you are used to academic research. You become proficient in your choice of two of the following skills: Arcana, History, Nature, or Religion.

Your proficiency bonus is doubled for any ability check you make that uses either of those skills.

Occult Researcher

At 3rd level, you craft a book where you write down all your knowledge about death. This boook is called a Book of Death.

When you gain this feature you can now inscribe magical rituals in your Book of Death. Choose two 1st-level and one 2nd-level spells that have the ritual tag from any class’s spell list (the three needn’t be from the same list). The spells appear in the book and don’t count against the number of spells you know. With your Book of Death in hand, you can cast the chosen spells as rituals. You can’t cast the spells except as rituals, unless you’ve learned them by some other means. You can also cast a necromancy spell you know as a ritual if it has the ritual tag.

On your adventures, you can add other ritual spells to your Book of Death. When you find such a spell, you can add it to the book if the spell’s level is equal to or less than half your necromancer level (rounded up) and if you can spare the time to transcribe the spell. For each level of the spell, the transcription process takes 2 hours and costs 50 gp for the rare inks needed to inscribe it.

If you lose your Book of Death, you can perform a 1-hour ceremony to write a replacement. This activity can be performed during a short or long rest, and it destroys the previous book. The book turns to ash when you die.

Death Quimera

Beginning at 6th level, you learn how to craft a creature from the death of others.

As an action, you choose a point within 60 feet from you. Choose any amount of undead creatures under your controls in a 30-foot-radius sphere centered on that point. Each target is pulled toward the center of the sphere and merged into a powerful golem made of rotten flesh and bones.

The target creatures disappear and a death golem is created. The current and maximum hit points of the creature are equal to the sum of hit points of all the targeted creatures. The creature statistic are at the end of the subclass description.

For 1 minute or until your concentration ends (as if you were concentrating on a spell) you command this golem in the same way you do with your Undead Minions. After the duration or when the golem die, the golem break into pieces, as its binding energy banishes, filling the ground with flesh and bones. The undead creatures consumed by the golem start reappearing after 1d4 minutes, as their animating magic returns to them. If the golem had less than half of its hit points, only half of the creatures reappear, chosen randomly with a die. On 0 hit points, no creature reappear.

Once you use this feature, you can not use it again until you finish a long rest.

Enhanced Quimera

At 10th level, you learn how to improve the your death golem.

You gain one of the following features of your choice.

Vitality Binding

At 14th level, you learn how to effectively heal your golem.

Whenever you use your Vitality Infusion to target the death golem, you do not roll the spent dices. You instead use the highest number possible for each die.

Perfect Chimera

At 20th level, you mastered the science used behind your Death Chimera feature. Choose an additional enhance from the Enhanced Chimera feature.

Additionally, you learned how to maintain your chimera indefinitely. You cannot use your Death Chimera feature if you already have a death golem under your control.