Animate Skeleton

Animate Skeleton
Level	1
School1	Necromancy
Source(s)	Book of Necromancy Book of Cantrips Ashenzari's cookbook
Casting noise	1
Spell noise	0

This spell raises an inert skeleton to a state of unlife.

Animate Skeleton is a level 1 Necromancy spell that animates a single non-animate, non-demonic skeleton. The caster must be standing over either a skeleton or a skeleton-bearing corpse. This spell will raise the skeleton right out of a corpse, effectively butchering it in a single turn. (Note that, a skeleton-bearing corpse can always be animated and thereby butchered; but if you butcher first, sometimes the skeleton is lacking and animation is impossible.) If there are multiple corpses at your feet, one of them will be chosen for you.

Strategy

As a means of reanimating corpses, it is cheaper than but inferior to Animate Dead, since the latter can produce stronger zombies and attempts to animate everything in sight. However, this spell is fantastic for those characters who are wielding a blunt weapon which they cannot or do not wish to unwield. Three primary reasons for this are wielding a cursed blunt weapon, wielding a blunt weapon of vampiricism, or wielding a blunt weapon of distortion. Ashenzari worshipers in particular are likely to be interested in this spell, since it lets them wield any weapon they want and still have it cursed, to get the extra piety and skills from being bound.

Necromancers, especially worshipers of Kikubaaqudgha that can receive corpses reliably, may benefit from its synergy with Simulacrum by creating multiple simulacra of large monsters from the chunks.

See Also

• Derived undead

History

Prior to 0.8, the spell took longer than the 1 turn it now takes to butcher and animate the skeleton.