For the convenience of Necromancers

[Klaus Teufel]

I've created a couple of spells for necromancers. The first is to make it convenient to create skeletons from battlefield casualties; the other is to fulfil a scene that any necromancer worth their salt should be capable of.

Excarnate Corpse

1st level necromancy

Casting Time: 1 minute (ritual)

Range: 30 feet

Components: V, S, small bone

Duration: Instant

You target the corpse of a humanoid or beast, medium-sized or smaller, that has a skeleton. The spell summons a magical swarm of dermestid beetles that miraculously scour away any flesh and organic material, leaving an inanimate skeleton.

At Higher Levels: For each level the caster is above 5th level, they can excarnate an additional creature*.

*This matches the Animate Dead progression, because 2 character levels = +1 spell slot level


Arise from the Grave

5th level necromancy

Casting Time: 10 minutes (ritual)

Range: 30 feet radius, 10 foot deep

Components: V, S, skull of a goat

Duration: Instant

You stand in an area that you think the dead are buried, and call on them to dig themselves out of their graves. Up to five medium sized or smaller humanoid skeletons will dig through to the surface and be under your control as per Animate Dead. If the corpses were buried less than 2 months ago, they will arise as zombies instead.

At Higher Levels: For each level the caster is above 5th level, they can exhume an additional creature.

[LudicSavant]

Arise from the Grave

5th level necromancy

Casting Time: 10 minutes (ritual)

Range: 30 feet radius, 10 foot deep

Components: V, S, skull of a goat

Duration: Instant

You stand in an area that you think the dead are buried, and call on them to dig themselves out of their graves. Up to five medium sized or smaller humanoid skeletons will dig through to the surface and be under your control as per Animate Dead. If the corpses were buried less than 2 months ago, they will arise as zombies instead.

At Higher Levels: For each level the caster is above 5th level, they can exhume an additional creature.

Arise from the Grave is probably better served as a tweak to both Animate Dead and Danse Macabre (because it's dumb that they don't let you do that already).

[Asmotherion]

Cool spells, I like them.

[Dualight]

Small note on the strengthening process for the spells: in 5e, only cantrips improve directly based on the level of the caster, spells that use a spell slot instead improved by casting them with a higher-level spell slot. That said, all it would take is to replace

At Higher Levels: For each level the caster is above 5th level, they can excarnate an additional creature

and

At Higher Levels: For each level the caster is above 5th level, they can exhume an additional creature.

with "When you cast this spell using a spell slot of a higher level, you (increased effect) for each level above (the spell's base level)."
Also, is there any particular reason Arise from the Grave is a 5th level spell, when animate dead is a 3rd level spell?

Other than that, it is a cool idea, flavourful, and them being rituals makes them especially useful for necromancy-focused wizards.
Which spell lists would you put theses spells on, aside from the obvious wizard?

[Ionathus]

I like both spells, though Excarnate Corpse could easily be a cantrip or an at-will necromancer class feature. Stripping the flesh off of a corpse isn't really worth even a 1st-level spellslot: I'd say it's more on par with the utility of Mold Earth or Prestidigitation. You could already raise that corpse as a zombie with Animate Dead anyway (and zombies have some perks themselves, so converting it to a skeleton ain't automatically better).

Given that the other 1st-level Utility spells we can compare it to are Feather Fall and Floating Disc, I think Excarnate Corpse doesn't look worth the spell slot. It's a cool ability though! I'd probably give it to my necromancer PCs for free as flavor, or as a minor magic item reward.

At Higher Levels: For each level the caster is above 5th level, they can exhume an additional creature.

Minor note: levelled spells in 5e don't ever key off of caster level. "At Higher Levels" is only about the spell's level, so you'd want to change it to "when this spell is cast with a spell slot of 6th level or higher, an additional creature is exhumed for every level above 5th."

Cantrips do key off caster level, so you could do the "extra targets" thing for Excarnate Corpse in that instance.

[Chronos]

Counterintuitively, cantrips are a bigger cost than first-level spells, because you get to choose so few cantrips, and can't swap them out. But if you want it to be used more, you could make it a first-level ritual.

[Anymage]

Excarnate Corpse would work best as a minor, attunement free magic item. The problem is that as a cantrip it ties up a cantrip slot, while as a spell it ties up a spell known slot for everybody who isn't a wizard and takes ten minutes to cast as a ritual. (Ritual casting saving a spell slot in exchange for adding ten minutes to the cast time. Nothing would break if you ignored the general rule to make this a one minute ritual, but players who are consistency focused would try to figure out how to get more fast ritual spells.) An item is the easiest way to make this fluff effect not cost meaningful character resources.

Arise from the Grave suffers from both world logic problems (while the visual is cool, dirt is heavy and neither skeletons nor zombies are especially strong) as well as usability issues (animate dead, only higher level and only effective in graveyards, is not appealing enough compared to just using the original spell and maybe carrying around a shovel). Instead, I'd consider changing the spell itself. The TCoE Summon Undead should have the summon claw itself out of the ground if it's even remotely plausible, and Animate Dead could stand to have something like giving caster's proficiency mod THP if the bodies are interred under a thin layer of dirt before casting. Same visual of the undead bursting out of the ground, less overhead.

[Klaus Teufel]

Small note on the strengthening process for the spells: in 5e, only cantrips improve directly based on the level of the caster, spells that use a spell slot instead improved by casting them with a higher-level spell slot. That said, all it would take is to replace

and

with "When you cast this spell using a spell slot of a higher level, you (increased effect) for each level above (the spell's base level)."
Also, is there any particular reason Arise from the Grave is a 5th level spell, when animate dead is a 3rd level spell?

Other than that, it is a cool idea, flavourful, and them being rituals makes them especially useful for necromancy-focused wizards.
Which spell lists would you put theses spells on, aside from the obvious wizard?

Probably Warlock, and perhaps Death Cleric?

[sandmote]

Probably Warlock, and perhaps Death Cleric?

The spell is intended for necromancer PCs, but in practice you could also add some neat lore stuff by giving the spell to Clerics in general. You could have a culture (an orcish or hobgoblin culture maybe, but it could also be a dwarven method of keeping the mausoleums clean and free of vermin) whose burial rites involve reducing the body to just the bones. Excarnate Corpse then becomes a helpful way for clerics to quickly prepare bodies, whether a Grave or Order Domain cleric at home or a War Domain cleric lightening the load after a large scale battle.

[Klaus Teufel]

That's a good point. In researching "Excarnate Corpse" I learned that reducing bodies to bones for returning them home was a common option in the 18th Century, at least for the British Navy. So they didn't have to deal with a decaying body in the months it would take to sail home for burial.