Build Me an Army Worthy of Mordor! (3.5 Specialist Wizard Spell, PEACH)

[NeoSeraphi]

Adding some more artist comments in here, because, I dunno. I feel like it's a more personal approach then just posting the spell. Anyway, this one actually kept me up last night. I finished the abjuration one and then I started thinking about the four schools I had left to do. I gotta say, everyone here should be grateful to DrK for starting his Never-Ending Winter game, because if he didn't, I wouldn't have actually gotten a copy of Frostburn, nor looked through its spells nearly as closely as I did. Seeing that mantle of the icy soul spell and realizing the possibility of making a serious, permanent, undispellable change with something as simple as an XP cost, it's changed my way of thinking about powerful spells. That said, I won't bore you all anymore! Without further ado...

Cycle of Undeath
Necromancy [Evil]
Level: Necromancer 8
Components: V, S, XP
Casting Time: 1 hour
Target: One intelligent undead creature touched
Range: Touch
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: Will Negates (Harmless)
SR: Yes (Harmless)

You draw upon the power of necromancy, and bestow it upon one of your higher-level minions, granting him the power to bind souls to corpses just as you do, so your army will grow ever larger.

You bestow the touched intelligent undead with the ability to cast animate dead as the spell, as a spell-like ability three times per day with a caster level equal to its HD. The undead creature may not animate and control more HD of creatures than 4 HD/caster level. Any beyond that and the creatures he animated first become free-willed undead.

To use this spell-like ability, the undead creature must have at least 14 Intelligence. It requires no components.

XP Cost: 3000 XP, plus another 3000 XP for each undead creature you have previously imbued with this spell.

[Mulletmanalive]

SRD already beat you to the name

Unyielding Generals?
Legion of the Damned?
Vecna's Gambit?
Authority, Spread yet Undiminished?

[NeoSeraphi]

SRD already beat you to the name

Son of a...! DAMN YOU WOTC!

Unyielding Generals?
Legion of the Damned?
Vecna's Gambit?
Authority, Spread yet Undiminished?

Hmm...I really wanted to focus on the whole "I made you, now you make others" thing...I think I'll go with cycle of undeath. How does that sound?

[Mulletmanalive]

I assued as much, but tbh, circle of death sounded more like a band of asian movie than "i give you power, now make more" to me.

That's a pretty good revision. I actually like Vecna's Gambit more for that angle, i mean...Kas...

[Noctis Vigil]

Vecna's Gambit doesn't work, because this is a creepy spell, and that name makes me giggle.

Well done, I like it, NeoSeraphi.