Necromancy, without all that undead nonsense

[Madcrafter]

A bit longer post than expected, feel free to skip the first paragraph.

I was in the process of making my eleventh backup character for my current campaign, and had decided on a necromancer, of the tomb raiding, uncovering ancient secrets variety. Unfortunately, he, doesn't seem like the kind of person who would keep many undead minions around (both for flavour and game speed reasons). Assuming I wish to stay as a wizard, I have been able to find no prestige classes that really focus on the spell aspect of the necromancy school, and not on the "I'll create lots of undead and rule the woooooooorrld!"

Essentially, what I ask is this: Are there any prestige classes for necromancer wizards that do not seek to focus on/improve your undead creation ability, that aren't just bland generic ones (like archmage)? Assume all books, from 3.x, pathfinder, and all settings (except FR, cause my DM hates it) are allowed.

And an alternate question: If having an undead army is unavoidable, are there any uses for them besides the typical combat, guarding, trap triggering, world conquering and multi-state computing? I already have found the hilariously awesome Undead Battery feat, but am looking for other options.

[Urpriest]

Wizards actually aren't very good at the Undead part of Necromancy. They're better at laying down debuffs, like Enervation and Ray of Exhaustion. Master Specialist (Necromancer) isn't bad for that type of character, though it does have a few abilities geared towards the undead. Lord of the Uttercold (Complete Arcane, IIRC) is another good feat for a Wizard Necromancer. Most of the prestige classes that regular wizards use, like Incantatrix(didn't notice the FR note) or Loremaster, would still be good for this sort of character.

[HunterOfJello]

The Escalation Mage from Faiths of Eberron is a prestige class that isn't directly focused on necromancy but gains 5/5 casting and a handful of class features that allow them to copy metamagic feats with possible risks to the PC if they fail caster level checks. The class is based around worshipping The Shadow, but could be readjusted to any evil magic-based deity. I think the context of the class' abilities fits well with a Necromancer since it involves increasing a spell's power with the risk of taking damage each time the class abilities are used. (Note: The spells still work and gain the metamagic effects even if you fail the caster level check. The main danger is failing a concentration check against the damage you've taken afterwards.)


*edit*
It's a shame that the class only increases the spellcasting of arcane spellcasters, otherwise I'd jump on this PrC for the Archivist i'm building.

[Madcrafter]

Yeah, i was hoping to stay away from the more general wizard PrCs. I'll take a look at Escalation Mage (especially since we are in Eberron). Its a shame there isn't more for the more spell oriented necromancers.

[Yorrin]

If you ever do end up finding something good for this, PM me or something. Spell-focused Necromancers are my favorite casters to play at low levels, but then I usually end up going Master Specialist and building my undead army and forget to even look into good non-undead PrCs.

Escalation mage is a good idea, I must admit. I've played a Illusionist that went into it once, and I'm quite a fan. You'll get good mileage with that one, it's just not in any way necromancy focused.