Monthly Spell: Breath of Undeath

5th Level Necromancy
Casting Time: 1 Hour
Range/Area: Touch
Components: V, S, M
Duration: Instantaneous

 You awaken a dead creature you touch into a state of undead being, provided that it has been dead no longer than 10 days. If the creature's soul is both willing and at liberty to rejoin the body, the creature regains consciousness with full hit points.
  The awakened creature recalls its former life and experiences, and it retains the capabilities it had as a living being. This spell doesn't remove magical diseases, curses, or similar effects; if these aren't first removed prior to casting the spell, they take effect when the creature regains consciousness. The character is permanently cursed with Undead Decay, detailed below.
  Undead Decay. You lose your original creature type and are considered undead. You are immune to poisons, poison damage, and nonmagical diseases. You don't need to drink, sleep, or breathe, and you suffer no consequences from Exhaustion unless they would result in death. However, your body constantly decays and requires upkeep to remain in its current state.
  Each day at midnight, your hit point maximum is reduced by 1d4 plus 1 for each time you received healing from any source that day. No spell or effect can halt or counteract this decay, except for the following: each day before midnight, you must eat the flesh of a creature that has been dead for no more than 24 hours. For every hit point the consumed creature possessed in life, the decrease in your maximum hit points is reduced by 1. For instance, if at midnight your hit point maximum would be reduced by 5, but you ate a goat during the day that possessed 4 hit points in life, your maximum hit points would instead be reduced by 1.
  If you are ever reduced to zero hit points, you receive no death saving throws and are immediately considered dead. For the sake of resurrection-type spells that have a time constraint, consider yourself dead at the time of your previous death before you received this curse.
  This curse can only be removed by the effects of a True Resurrection or Wish spell. If it is removed by such means, you regain any maximum hit points lost as a result of the curse.
Material. A black diamond worth at least 500 gp, which the spell consumes.

  Class List • Cleric, Paladin

Illustrated by LLOPX.