Animate Claw

You bind the life force of a murderer to its own severed hand, haunting and animating it into a crawling claw.  The claw is undead and is entirely bound to your will, therefore it cannot be turned or be controlled by spells that control undead. 

The claw acts independently of you, but always obeys your commands.  In combat, it rolls its own initiative and acts on its own turn.  As described in the crawling claw entry under "Malign Intelligence," the claw may be driven by hate, jealousy or greed, and may recreate some of the same murderous acts it committed in life if left to its own devices for too long.

Special.  The spell automatically fails (if the the murderer's spirit already manifests as another undead creature, if the murderer is raised from death, or if the spirit has passed on to another plane more than one month prior to casting.  If the murderer's spirit later inhabits another undead creature or is raised from death, the claw immediately becomes inanimate once again.

If the spell is cast and the murderer belonging to the hand is still alive, the ritual binds the law to the murderer's soul rather than vice-versa.  The disembodied hand attempts to return to its former body and otherwise acts as noted in the crawling claw's description under "Living Claws."