Undead Minion

Using the basics of Necromancy, you create a Minion to serve you after it's life has ended. Upon casting this spell, you lose the use of 1 hit dice as long as the minion remains bound to you. You touch 1 corpse or pile of bones that you raise with the use of this spell, raising either a Zombie (corpse) or Skeleton (bones). You can only get one undead creature from this source.

The Minion cannot speak, but it can understand languages its creator knows.

On each of your turns, you can use a bonus action to mentally command any creature you made with this spell if the creature is within 60 feet of you (if you control multiple creatures, you can command any or all of them at the same time, issuing the same command to each one). You decide what action the creature will take and where it will move during its next turn, or you can issue a general command, such as to guard a particular chamber or corridor. If you issue no commands, the creature only defends itself against hostile creatures. Once given an order, the creature continues to follow it until its task is complete.

When the Undead creature is destroyed and its corpse remains intact (i.e. not disintegrated), that corpse/pile of bones is treated as the corpse/pile of bones of the original creature for the purposes of creating another Minion and you regain the use of the hit die bound in this manner (though it's exhausted).

At Higher Levels: When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 4th level or higher you can produce different undead forms at increasing Hit Die binding costs:

• 4th - 2 Hit Dice: Gnashing Death's Head (Skull), Skeletal Giant Owl (Bones)
• 5th - 3 Hit Dice: Boneless (Corpse), Ghoul (Corpse)
• 7th - 4 Hit Dice: Ghast (Corpse), Ogre Skeleton (Bones) Ogre Zombie (Corpse)
• 8th - 5 Hit Dice: Wight (Corpse)
• 9th - 5 Hit Dice: Mummy (Corpse)