Needs a Better Title The undead make great minions. But where are you gonna get your hands on a bunch of skeletons or zombies? Why not go look up Raise Dead in your Book Of Shadows (it should be in chapter one, "Exercises for the Aspiring Necromancer"), proceed to your local graveyard, and give it a try? So long as you have enough mana, you can do this all night! Of course, easy come, easy go. Chances are that your new minions are low-durability and may even have a short lifespan. Good thing you can just raise the corpses of your slain foes, right?

If you lack the necessary skills, of course, you can always employ someone else to handle the casting for you. But watch out for your opponents to figure out what you're up to - if the caster goes down, there's a good chance the entire army will crumble into dust on the spot.

In short, when a spellcaster of some sort has a spell to create an undead minion out of a corpse (of whatever degree of freshness), that spell is some variety of Raise Dead. The usual output is a skeleton or zombie, though a mummy is another possible result if the corpse in question was embalmed.

Incidentally, this is how traditional ("Type V") zombies are made - a voodoo bokor revives a dead person, who is then under their control.

See also Necromancer, Night of the Living Mooks.

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Examples

• In Warcraft 3, Scourge Necromancers can raise Skeleton Warriors from corpses, and the Graveyard is a building which produces an infinite number of corpses. Thus the only limiting factor is mana. Inexplicably, one corpse of any unit type produces two humanoid skeletons with swords.
  • Similarly, Warcraft 2 has Raise Dead, which produces a single humanoid skeleton warrior with a sword.
  • Warcraft 3 also features the Avatar of Vengeance, which spams a shorter-duration Raise Dead spell while not being squishy at all.
  • The Death Knight, a Scourge hero unit in Warcraft 3, has as his Ultimate move "Animate Dead" which raises up to six nearby dead units to fight for the Death Knight for forty seconds.
  • Death Knights in World of Warcraft have several spells that allow them to raise undead Ghouls from corpses. The basic raise dead spell creates an NPC Ghoul that will follow the player around and attack his target (there's a talent that will turn it into a permanent pet under the player's control), raise ally raises a dead group/raid member as a Ghoul they have control over. And the army of the dead summons about 20 Ghouls at once (although they're individually weaker than the ones summoned through raise dead).
• Erfworld, being a RPG-Mechanics Verse, does this with "uncroaking" and the more powerful and permanent "decrypting".
• In Guild Wars, Necromancers have a variety of spells to create undead minions of various sizes and strengths out of "fleshy" enemy corpses.
• Subversion in Army of Darkness: The titular army, of undead, is accidentally spawned when Ash screws up the pronunciation of a time travel spell that was meant to get him home.
• In Warhammer, this type of necromancy is a trademark of the Vampire Counts and Tomb Kings armies. Necromancers/Liche Priests are vital for holding the undead armies together, and can use their magic to replenish the ranks of their forces with freshly raised dead. They can even conjure skeletal or zombie units out of nowhere to surprise their foes. Sieges get tricky when skeletons are sprouting in your courtyard like daisies...
• Plenty of Necromancy spells from Dungeons & Dragons, of course. With all the various Undead monsters, you never know exactly what the Big Bad is going to turn your fallen henchman into next.
• The Dresden Files uses this trope in a really awesome way.
• The website for Diablo 3 gives an interesting justification: instead of animating individual skeletons (which might be damaged, too small, etc.), skeletons are actually amalgamated bone dust and dirt, held together by the magician.
• In Heroes of Might and Magic 3, the Necromancy skill raises a percent of the (non-undead) casualties from each successful battle as skeletons (or, in the case of dragon casualties, Bone Dragons). There is also a structure in the Necropolis (Necromancer/Undead City) that allows you to do this with 100% efficiency using your own troops.
• This is how the undead other than death knights and possibly ghouls are created in Battle for Wesnoth.
• Looking for Group
  Richard: In case you weren't sure, the skeletons are on our side.

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