Animate Dead Animals

This spell is often a necromancer's first experience animating corpses. For this to work, the animal bodies or skeletons must be intact. The material components are a blood drop and bone chip from the same species as the target remains (only animals belonging to the same species may be animated per spell).

This spell creates undead skeletons and zombies from the bones and bodies of dead animals, specifically vertebrates (fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals). The animated remains obey simple verbal commands given by the caster, regardless of the language employed. Only naturally occurring animals of no higher than semi-intelligence can be animated with this particular spell (lizards, cats, frogs, weasels, tigers, and so on), including minimals and non-magical, giant-sized animals. These undead remain animated until they are destroyed in combat or turned; the animating magic cannot be dispelled.

The number of undead that a wizard can animate depends on the animal's original hit dice, the caster's level, and the type of undead being created. The caster can create the following number of animal skeletons:

    0 CR animal  4 that have the same as the living conform to those same statistics, with the following changes: AC 9, HP 1, Dmg 1.
    1/8 CR animal 2 that have the same as the living conform to those same statistics, with the following changes: AC -2 (AC 10 maximum), HP -2 (1 hp minimum), Dmg -2 (1 Dmg minimum)
    1/4 animal: 1 that have the same as the living conform to those same statistics

Skeletal and zombie animals gain the standard undead immunities (resistance to cold-based, sleep, charm, and hold spells), but lose any normal defenses that the living animal might have had. They also lose any special attacks (raking of rear claws, swallowing whole, and so on) and cannot inject poison or emit fluids, such as musk or saliva. Swallowing does no further damage to the creature swallowed, except to trap it within the swallower's rib cage.

The creature is under your control for 24 hours, after which it stops obeying any command you've given it. To maintain control of the creature for another 24 hours, you must cast this spell on the creature again before the current 24-hour period ends. This use of the spell reasserts your control over up to four creatures you have animated with this spell, rather than animating a new one.
* - (blood drop and bone chip from the same species as the target remains)