Necromancy spells based on Riftwar. Peach.

[JoshuaZ]

These spells are inspired in part by the assassins in Raymond Feist's Riftwar Saga who do creepy things when they die. I've thus created a new type of spell, "death-triggered". These spells function sort of like contingencies but are lower level than the equivalent contingency.


Death Message
Necromancy [Death Triggered]
Level: Sor/Wiz 1
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 10 minutes
Range: Touch
Targets: Creature touched.
Duration: Permanent until discharged
Saving Throw: Will negates
Spell Resistance: Yes

Upon casting, you pick a message of ten words or less in a language you know. The target when it is killed will briefly animate itself and speak the message to the nearest person. You can optionally add other conditions for to whom it should speak to, such as a specific person. However, whether the message is triggered is dependent on the knowledge of the person at time of death. Since this message is delivered vocally, the message will not be delivered if the lungs or other body parts necessary for speech are non-functional. A second casting of Death Message erases any previous casting and replaces it with a new message.

Reveal Death Message
Divination
Level: Sor/Wiz 3
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 minute
Range: Touch
Targets: Creature touched.
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: Yes
Spell Resistance: Yes

You find out if the target has Death Message effect on it, and if so what the Death Message is. If you do not know the language of the Death Message you will hear the words but not know what they mean.

Detect Death Trigger
Divination
Level: Sor/Wiz 1
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Touch
Targets: Creature touched.
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: Yes
Spell Resistance: Yes

You find out if the target has a Death Trigger spell on it. This does not reveal to you any information about the nature of the spell in question.


Delayed Desecration:
Necromancy [Evil] [Death Triggered]
Level: Clr 4
Components: V, S, M, DF
Casting Time: 10 minutes
Range: Touch
Target:Creature touched
Duration: Permanent until discharged, then 2 hours/level, see text.
Saving Throw: Will negates
Spell Resistance: Yes

Target creature when it dies immediately has the effect of "Desecrate" cast centered around the creature. The Desecrate is treating as having having effective caster level equal to your caster level or the the HD of the creature targeted, whichever is lower.

The material component is a pot of unholy water that must have at least 50 gp of silver dust, and 10 gp of onyx sprinkled into it, and a drop of blood of the target. The mixture is slowly boiled off as the spell is completed.

Delayed Animation:
Necromancy [Evil] [Death Triggered]
Level: Clr 5, Sor/Wiz 5
Components: V, S, M, XP
Casting Time: 10 minutes
Range: Touch
Targets: One living creature.
Duration: Permanent until discharged
Saving Throw: Will negates (see text)
Spell Resistance: Yes

This spell acts as a delayed animate dead triggered on the target as soon as it dies die. You must at casting choose whether it will become a zombie or a skeleton. The effective caster level for the animate dead is equal to your caster level at the time of casting. The normal material component for animate dead must be provided. The caster becomes automatically aware when the spell has been triggered. The caster may also optionally give a starting command to give the undead when casting the spell which it will receive as soon at it is created. This command cannot be any more complicated than a command one would normally be able to give to an
unintelligent undead.

XP:10.

Murmandamus's Gift
Level: Sor/Wiz 6
This spell identical to Delayed Animation but when triggered the caster has the option of temporarily taking the form of the now risen servant. This functions essentially like Magic Jar with the caster taking over the undead creature but over any distance as long as one is on the same plane. The spell does not require the gem used in Magic Jar. The Magic Jar effect lasts up to 10 minutes per a caster level, and may be voluntarily dismissed as a standard action. If you do so, you may mentally leave instructions to the undead creature. Such instructions must be reasonably short.

Delayed Animate Dread Warrior
Level: Sor/Wiz 8
This spell is identical to Delayed Animation but instead involves a casting of
Animate Dread Warrior, and the corresponding XP cost and material components are the same as Animate Dread Warrior. The spell also takes 1 hour to cast and has an additional material component a human skull which on top of one must burn a candle of a specially prepared red wax (cost 20 gp) and an extra XP cost of 100.

Delayed Undead Creation.
This spell is identical Identical to Delayed Animate Dread Warrior but creates a Ghoul or a Ghast (depending on caster level as per Create Undead). Requires the skull and candle as well as the normal components of Create Undead instead of the normal components of Animate Dread Warrior. There is still an additional XP cost of 100.

[Pronounceable]

Damn. Why didn't I think of this before? And here I was considering myself a Feist fan...

[SurlySeraph]

Cool. I've never played Riftwar, but I like these.

[Kizara]

Ok, some nice work here. Some minor points for improvement:

Reveal Death Message should have the (Language-Dependant) descriptor after its school. Also, it could easily be 1st-level, as the effect is fairly minor and extremely limited in scope (only works against one specific spell).

Delayed Desecration could stand to be a level lower, as Desecrate is a 2nd-level spell IIRC.

Delayed Animation should have the sentance "The normal material component for animate dead must be provided." removed where it's currently written, and replaced with the normal Material Component entry at the end of the spell description (which you simply transcribe from Animate Dead). Also, it should state that it uses the same 'pool' of control limit as the normal Animate Dead spell.


Delayed Animate Dread Warrior: 1) Where is the Animate Dread Warrior spell? 2) Again, summerize and detail all the components and costs as for a fresh spell, don't say "as per the referance spell, but with these exceptions and additions". It's much cleaner to simply 'spell' it out :P.


Delayed Undead Creation. : same problem as Delayed Animate Dread Warrior, I shouldnt have to backtrack and cross-reference 3 different spells to figure out how this works, the spell itself should say so.

[DracoDei]

The last one needs a level probably.

And I disagree about referencing other spells, I think it actually simplifies things to say "Like this one except as follows"... but not more than one level deep probably.