Commanding Mask

You place one of your masks upon a corpse within reach, causing the body to rise as a maskbearer under your control for the duration. This spell is powered by the mask used as its material component, not by spell slots.

The maskbearer is not the original creature. It does not contain the creature's soul, memories, personality, full class levels, legendary actions, lair actions, mythic traits, divine power, or magic item properties. It is a corpse moved by the mask's command-echo.

Unlike a normal zombie, a maskbearer does not appear rotten unless the body was already visibly ruined. While the mask remains on the body, the maskbearer appears preserved, composed, and purposeful. It can stand, walk, gesture, perform simple tasks, and follow spoken commands. A creature that closely inspects the maskbearer can make a Wisdom (Insight) or Intelligence (Investigation) check against your spell save DC to realize something is wrong.

The maskbearer uses the original creature’s token and a simplified version of the original creature’s stat block, as approved by your DM. Its creature type becomes Undead, and its Intelligence becomes 8 if it would normally be lower.

The maskbearer’s hit point maximum equals half the original creature’s normal hit points, but it cannot exceed five times your druid level unless your DM allows otherwise.

The maskbearer can use the original creature’s basic movement, senses, armor, weapons, ordinary actions, and cantrips listed in the original stat block. If the creature had spellcasting, the maskbearer can use its cantrips as normal, but it cannot cast leveled spells unless your DM specifically allows it.

The maskbearer cannot use legendary actions, lair actions, mythic traits, divine power, magic item properties, recharge abilities, boss-level traits, or unusually powerful abilities unless your DM specifically allows it. If the original creature had abilities that would be too strong for your level, the DM may remove, weaken, or simplify those abilities.

The maskbearer is an echo of the corpse, not the full creature restored to life.

As a bonus action on your turn, you can command one maskbearer under your control to move and take an action. If you control multiple maskbearers, you can command any number of them with the same bonus action, but each maskbearer must receive the same general command, such as attack, move, guard, help, or retreat. If you give no command, a maskbearer takes the Dodge action or continues its last simple command.

Temporary Masks. If the material component is a Temporary Mask, the mask crumbles when the spell ends and the body collapses.

Permanent Masks. If the material component is a Permanent Mask, the mask does not break. When the spell ends, the body collapses and the mask falls free and can be recovered.

While a mask is animating a maskbearer, it cannot be worn, activated, or used for any other mask feature. Maskbearers cannot use the mask's borrowed ability scores, skill proficiencies, Strong Echoes, Deepened Echoes, Major Echoes, or spell Echoes unless your DM specifically allows it.

Mask Limit. Before 6th level, you can control only one maskbearer at a time. If you create another maskbearer while you already control one, the oldest maskbearer immediately collapses.

Starting at 6th level in the Circle of the Many Masks subclass, you can control a number of maskbearers equal to your total available masks, including both Temporary Masks and Permanent Masks. Each mask can animate only one body at a time. If you exceed your maskbearer limit, the oldest maskbearer immediately collapses.