Creating a Beholder Zombie?

[aeauseth]

The monster manual has an entry for "Beholder Zombie". I was having a philosophical discussion with another GM and we were wondering how you would create one.

Animate Dead and Create Undead won't do the trick. Actually we couldn't find any spell that seems to do the trick. Wish doesn't even seem appropriate.

We did find the artifact "Wand of Orcus", hardly an easy mechanism to bring a beholder zombie into your game.

Simply poofing one into existence for a mini-campaign seem to lack authenticity, since the MM states they are created with necromatic magic.

I'm still relatively new to 5th edition, am I missing the spell or ability to create a beholder zombie?

[Santra]

Nope! In fact the necromancy school seems to be lacking. I feel that this will be rectified down the line by some sort of splat. As of right now though there is no real option for it short of WoO, wish, or homebrew.

[hymer]

There is also no mechanism for bringing kobolds into being. Perhaps the game doesn't need it?

[pwykersotz]

I define all such things as "Temporarily beyond the scope of the players". Actual development would be relegated to a mad wizard, a foolish ritual, and way too much resource expenditure for it to be worth it to an adventurer. That said, I'd probably let them copy his arcane ramblings into a cohesive spell if they were serious about it.

But yeah, this is one of those things about 3.5 that I feel was lost after too much splat, the idea that you can create your own way to do things instead of using printed spells.

[Santra]

I define all such things as "Temporarily beyond the scope of the players". Actual development would be relegated to a mad wizard, a foolish ritual, and way too much resource expenditure for it to be worth it to an adventurer. That said, I'd probably let them copy his arcane ramblings into a cohesive spell if they were serious about it.

But yeah, this is one of those things about 3.5 that I feel was lost after too much splat, the idea that you can create your own way to do things instead of using printed spells.

Honestly I feel the ability to spend time and research new spells as a wizard is one of the most rewarding parts of the damn class. Sure you will only ever have two or three of these spells (usually due to time/money constrains in game) but they will be YOUR spells.

[pwykersotz]

Honestly I feel the ability to spend time and research new spells as a wizard is one of the most rewarding parts of the damn class. Sure you will only ever have two or three of these spells (usually due to time/money constrains in game) but they will be YOUR spells.

Oh, definitely! Creating new spells is awesome. And if a player really wants to make a spell to zombify aberrations, so be it. I was just referring to existing justification.

[Naanomi]

I imagine zombies spontaneously rise on occasion due to dark magic plotness as well; not only active necromancy