The gods of undeath are often portrayed as evil deities who desire nothing but to corrupt and enslave the living. While this is true for dark gods like Vecna, Urgathoa, Nerull, and Myrkul there are far less malevolent gods like Wee Jas and Osiris who consider the undead as useful tools for study or some other purpose. Followers of this domain learn spells to create undead, as well as alter their magic to raise fewer, but far more powerful undead that surpasses any an arcane caster can animate.
Domain Spells
1st:
Ray of Sickness,
False Life
3rd:
Blindness/Deafness,
Ray of Enfeeblement
5th:
Animate Dead,
Vampiric Touch
7th:
Blight,
Shadow of Moil
9th:
Dance Macabre,
Negative Energy Flood
Tomb-Tainted Soul
Starting at 3rd level, you become suffused with necrotic energies, enuring you to the powers of the undead and warping your curative magics to be able to heal them. You gain resistance to necrotic damage and have advantage on saving throws against the special abilities and attacks of undead creatures. Additionally, you can treat undead as living creatures instead of undead for the effects of spells you cast that would heal damage or remove conditions. (such as
Cure Wounds and
Lesser Restoration.)
Channel Divinity
Also at 3rd level, you gain the following channel divinity options:
Bone Skin. As an action, you channel your deity's foul power, temporarily entering into a twilight state between life and undeath. You gain resistance to bludgeoning, piercing and slashing damage from non-magical sources for 1 minute.
Command the Dead. As an action, you target one undead you can see within 30ft and invoke your divine authority over it. It must make a Charisma saving throw. On a failed save, it must obey your commands for the next 24 hours, or until you use this Channel Divinity again. Undead who's CR are equal to or greater than your level are immune to this Channel Divinity.
Rise from the Grave If a living ally within 30ft of you would drop to 0 or less points, you can use your Channel Divinity as a reaction to temporarily grant it the vitality of a zombie. Until the end of their turn, that ally has the Undead Fortitude trait. (See the zombie stablock for details) Additionally, if they succeed on the Constitution saving throw they make with their Undead Fortitude trait and return to 1 hp, they immediately gain an amount of temporary hit points equal to 2d8 + your Wisdom or Charisma modifier that last until the end of their next turn. At 5th level this increases to 3d8 + your Wisdom or Charisma modifier, and at levels 11 and 17 increases again by 1d8, to a maximum of 5d8 + your Wisdom or Charisma modifier at 17th level.
Empower Undead
Through faith and devotion to your deity, you have unlocked the secret to maximizing the potential of the few undead, rather than swarm with the many. Starting at 6th level, whenever you cast a spell that would require you to reassert control over undead it creates (such as
Animate Dead), you may choose to empower one already existing undead under your control that spell could create instead of creating new undead. Doing this reduces the number of undead you can reassert control of after each long rest with each spell you cast that creates undead by 3 (to a minimum of 1, and a maximum of 3 less.) and instantly causes any undead over this limit you currently control to crumble to dust (leaving them unable to be reanimated again). Empowering an undead in this way grants it the following additional benefits:
- An empowered undead increases its hit point maximum by twice your Acolyte level
- The empowered undead gains a bonus to its AC equal to half of your proficiency bonus (minimum 1, rounded down)
- An empowered undead gains a bonus to attack and damage rolls equal to your Wisdom or Charisma modifier (minimum 1)
- An empowered undead gains Turn Resistance if it did not have it already
Empowering an undead automatically reasserts control over it, however you must re-empower your controlled undead every 24 hours or the effect ends. You may only empower 2 undead at a time per casting.
Corrupted Form
Starting at 14th level, your form twists to become more like that of an undead creature. You can’t be blinded, deafened, frightened, or poisoned, and if an attack is a critical hit against you, it doesn’t deal its extra damage to you.
Scion of Undeath
Your devotion to the darker powers of the world have bequeathed you with the knowledge to create a Scion of Undeath, a chosen undead granted divine favor and magic. Starting at 18th level, when you cast a spell that would create undead under your control (such as Create Undead), you may choose perform increase its casting time to 8 hours ritual to imbue an undead creature with you divine magic instead of create new undead. The imbued creature gains the following benefits:
- The creature gains the effects of your Empowered Undead feature and has its own initiative rolls.
- The creature’s Wisdom score is increased to 16, or it increases its Wisdom score by 2, to a maximum of 20 (whichever is higher).
- The creature’s CR is now treated as being 3 higher for the purpose of an Acolyte's Destroy the Faithless talent.
- The creature learns a number of spells of your choice from the Acolyte spell list equal to your Wisdom or Charisma modifier of 5th level or lower, as well as 2 cantrips of your choice from the Acolyte spell list. The creature has 20 mana with which to cast these spells, and a mana limit of 7. It regains all expended mana whenever you finish a short or long rest, and uses its own Wisdom as its Spellcasting ability.
- The creature gains the Control Undead and Grim Harvest Channel Divinity options (as-per the Death Domain), and may Channel Divinity once-per short or long rest. It uses its own Wisdom score to set the save DCs for these Channel Divinity options.
You do not need to re-empower or reassert control over your Scion, however you may only have one controlled at any given time, and if you attempt to create a new Scion, your former leaves your service. You may dismiss control over your Scion at any time with an action, in which it becomes indifferent to you and departs.