Animate Hand

When a necromancer first begins their training, they lack the talent to raise and control multiple undead at once. However, some rush to raise whatever undead servants they can before they become capable of casting animate dead. While some novice necromancers may wait until they can animate a single body, others will gleefully practice their dark magic on whatever severed body parts they can get their hands on. Of these, the most useful body part is a hand- especially one taken from a murderer.

This spell creates a single undead servant. Choose a hand severed from a Medium or Small humanoid that you can see within range. Your spell imbues the target with a foul mimicry of life, raising it as an undead creature. The target becomes a crawling claw (the GM has the creature's game statistics).

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.

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 a single creature you have animated with this spell, rather than animating a new one. You can only control one creature you have animated with this spell at a time. Creating more creatures than you can control results in the oldest created creature dying, the magic sustaining its existence leaves it.

You can control one additional creature when you reach 5th level, 11th level, and 17th level.