A member class. Upgrade from a Wizard, Warlock, Sorcerer or Cleric at level 15 or higher by completing the Fabrica tutorial (active membership required). The higher entry bar makes it a late apex, not an early pivot.
In Mortmain nobody stays dead, but the body they died in does. It lies where it fell, it belongs to the person who was in it, and after three days it is bones. The Necromancer is the class that puts that body back on its feet. What rises is not the person, who is alive somewhere else in a new body, and not a servant: it is a monster, bound to you for a day at a time, and it stops being yours the moment you stop paying for it.
The dead do not eat, do not tire and do not think. They stand guard, haul, carry and hold a wall for a fraction of what a living hand costs, and a town can smell what you have done to its wages. Where the Bishop decides who comes back, the Necromancer decides what the body does while they are gone.
| Hit Die | d6 |
| Primary Ability | your base class's casting ability (Wizard → INT, Warlock or Sorcerer → CHA, Cleric → WIS), with Wisdom second |
| Saving Throws | Intelligence, Wisdom |
| Armor | Light |
| Weapons | Simple |
| Base class | Wizard, Warlock, Sorcerer or Cleric (level 15+) |
| Alignment | Any |
Hit Points at 1st level: 6 + Constitution modifier. At higher levels: 1d6 (or 4) + Constitution modifier per level.
Ability Score Improvements: 4, 8, 12, 16, 19 (you may take a feat instead at each).
Spellcasting: a full caster on your base class's list. Resource: the pool, how many bodies you can hold bound at once; it grows at levels 5, 10, 15 and 20.
| Level | Prof. | Features |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | +2 | Raise the Hollow (pool 1), Grave Sense |
| 2 | +2 | Standing Reassertion |
| 3 | +2 | Rite (subclass) |
| 4 | +2 | Ability Score Improvement (or feat) |
| 5 | +3 | Veil the Face, pool 3 |
| 6 | +3 | Embalm |
| 7 | +3 | Rite feature |
| 8 | +3 | Ability Score Improvement (or feat) |
| 9 | +4 | Body Contract |
| 10 | +4 | Cold Vault, pool 7 |
| 11 | +4 | Greater Raising |
| 12 | +4 | Ability Score Improvement (or feat) |
| 13 | +5 | Rite feature |
| 14 | +5 | Unbroken Bind |
| 15 | +5 | Master of the Hollow, pool 20 |
| 16 | +5 | Ability Score Improvement (or feat) |
| 17 | +6 | Rite feature |
| 18 | +6 | Rite capstone |
| 19 | +6 | Ability Score Improvement (or feat) |
| 20 | +6 | The Hollow Host, pool 100 |
Raise the Hollow. A minute's casting over a corpse or a pile of bones, a pinch of bone dust and a pinch of Sunshard dust, and it rises: a skeleton from bones, a walking corpse from flesh. Make an Arcana check to bind it. Succeed and it is yours; fail and it rises anyway, loose and hostile to everyone including you. Nothing happens is not an outcome. Grave Sense. Examine the settlement you stand in and learn what dead lie in it. Standing Reassertion. Every bound body must be reasserted every day, four bodies to a casting, and from level 2 your character does it while you are offline, from your pack. If the pack runs dry or you are dead when the day ends, every body you hold walks off as a monster. Veil the Face. A raised corpse wears the face of the person it was, and anyone who knew them may recognise it; from here you may contest the recognition with Deception or Arcana. Bones have no face. Embalm. Salt a corpse, eight pounds to the hundred, and it keeps for 240 days instead of three. Body Contract. A living person may sell you the use of their next corpse, as a standing bargain or as a clause on their hire; a promised body binds one step easier and nobody has a grievance. Cold Vault. A vault fitted with a cold rune keeps every corpse in it as long as the rune keeps meat. Greater Raising. Raise Large bodies: an ogre's, a minotaur's, a warhorse's. A Bone Destrier is a mount that never eats, never tires and costs you four slots of the pool. Unbroken Bind. A missed day frees nothing until a second day is missed. Master of the Hollow. Commanding the bound trains Leadership faster. The Hollow Host. A hundred bodies, or twenty five horses, or any mix that sums to a hundred slots.
You can hold 1 body at level 1, 3 at level 5, 7 at level 10, 20 at level 15 and 100 at level 20. Each body inside the pool's band is one slot; a mount is four. Every body costs you a share of a casting every day, about 20 copper of Sunshard dust a head, which is less than the poorest person in Mortmain lives on. That is the whole class: the dead are cheaper than the living at anything that does not need a mind, and everyone in town knows it.
In combat one bound body fights beside you at a time, like anyone's companion; more fight only as your Leadership allows. The rest work: guard, watch, haul, deliver, tend, mend. On a skilled post they work at disadvantage on both the check to succeed and the check for quality. A body that fills a post nobody living could fill displaces nobody. A body beyond that has idled a living hand, and the town's unrest counts it, along with the smell of every corpse you keep.
The person whose corpse you raised is alive, and they will hear. Raising a body without its owner's contract is an atrocity on your record and a grievance in theirs; they may claim the body back, and a raised face in a market is a witness against you with everyone who recognises it. Monsters and animals belong to nobody, and their bodies are yours to take.
Chosen at level 3.
See Classes for the rest of the roster.
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