Animate Dead

The undead make great minions. But where are you gonna get your hands on a bunch of Skeletons or zombies? Why not go look up Animate Dead in your Tome of Eldritch Lore (it should be in chapter one, part II, "Exercises for the Aspiring Necromancer", just after "Applied Demonology"), proceed to your local graveyard, and give it a try? So long as you have enough mana, you can do this all night! Of course, easy come, easy go. Chances are that your new minions are low-durability and may even have a short lifespan. Good thing you can just raise the corpses of your slain foes, right? If you lack the necessary skills, of course, you can always employ someone else to handle the casting for you. But watch out for your opponents to figure out what you're up to — if the caster goes down, there's a good chance the entire army will crumble into dust on the spot (invoking Shoot the Mage First and Straight for the Commander). In short, when a spellcaster of some sort has a spell to create an undead minion out of a corpse (of whatever degree of freshness), that spell is some variety of Animate Dead. The usual output is a skeleton or zombie, though a mummy is another possible result if the corpse in question was embalmed. Incidentally, this is how traditional ("Type V") zombies are made — a voodoo bokor revives a dead person, who is then under their control. See also Necromancer, Cavalry of the Dead, Night of the Living Mooks, Raising the Steaks. Contrasts Revive Kills Zombie and Turn Undead. Not to be confused with Praise Dead.