Obsession of Necromancy

Necromancers are those that are drawn to returning the dead to life. For whatever reason, your character has chosen to pursue this as an obsession, a specialty, forsaking the typical training of wizards, and solely focusing on the school of Necromancy and the art of raising the dead.

Some notes before continuing:

• A Note for the DM: This subclass relies equally on material components and participation of the DM. If you decide to allow your player to use this subclass, keep in mind that you should add corpses or skeletons to encounters, or keep notes on creatures that may be buried below the earth for your Necromancer to raise. (Also consider letting them raise sentient flora for more versatility and flavor.)

• Alternate Spellcasting: The spellcasting on this subclass is purposely limited to give more space to the major ability, however, if this is not your style, you can supplement and add necromantic flavor with versions of certain spells (i.e. Animal Friendship but for the undead, Conjure Celestial but undead, Evard's Black Tentacles but skeleton hands).
  Furthermore, to spare myself the herculean task of going through all of individual Necromancy spells and applying them to this subclass, I simply added the spell lists of all classes; so please keep in mind that this subclass limits the choice of spells to Necromancy spells only.

• On Disrupt Life:  Disrupt Life is purposely strong, as it is one of the few offensive actions a necromancer using this subclass can make themselves, without the aid of a risen creature.

• Original Creator: I did not make this homebrew subclass, I am merely translating it to DnD Beyond for my own personal use and thought that I might as well publish it in the homebrew library here. The original creator can be found on Tumblr under the username of @homebrewlesbian who made this subclass for one @fusedread.

Necromantic Niche

At 2nd level, due to your unusually particular interest in necromancy, mainly the practice of raising the dead, you have specialized your spellcasting to aid your goals and experience the following changes to Wizard spellcasting: 

• You can only learn or copy Necromancy spells, however, these spells can he of any spell list. You may learn cantrips of any spell school from the Wizard spell list.
  
  
• You are capable of using your spell slots to raise the dead. If you have a complete skeleton within range of touch, you may use your bonus action and a spell slot to raise that creature, or potentially creatures from the grave.

The level of the spell slot expended equals the maximum CR of the total raised creature. For example: using a 1st level spell slot, you can raise one CR 1 creature or four CR 1/4 creatures.

Roll Initiative for the risen, which has its own turns. It will obey any verbal commands that you issue to it (no action required by you). If you don't issue any commands to the elemental, it defends itself from Hostile creatures but otherwise takes no Actions. They retain all abilities they had when they were alive. Learned spellcasting is not included however, innate spellcasting is. If there is no complete skeleton in front of you, you may use an action to use your Drawn to Death ability with a DC determined by your DM depending on the location to reach out to a corpse buried under the earth and raise it. The identity of this creature is chosen by your DM, and the total CR will be equal to the spell slot expended

Your risen creatures can be sustained until they reach 0 Hit Points or 24 hours since their resurrection, whichever occurs first.

Drawn to Death

Additionally, at 2nd level you can passively sense undead in a 60 ft. radius, as well as the creature type of dead creatures buried beneath the earth. You also learn the Find Familiar spell as a ritual, and can raise a skeletal version of any creature that is not a construct or humanoid with a CR of 0.

Skin and Bones

At 6th level, you no longer require full corpses to raise bodies. Instead, you can use simple shards of bone, teeth, or claws, pieces of a wing, etc. collected from the dead.

Player's Note: This, while seemingly useless, is a very powerful feature. Make sure to keep and harvest small pieces of monsters that your party encounters and this ability will increase the versatility of your necromancy.

Empowered Risen

Additionally, at 6th level, when you raise a creature from the dead, they gain temporary hit points equal to twice your Wizard level.

Slow Rot

Beginning at 10th level, your necromantic powers sustain your body. You gain resistance to necrotic damage, your maximum hit point total cannot be lowered by any means. Additionally, your lifespan is slowed; for every 10 years that pass, your body ages only 1 year.

Disrupt Life

At 14th level, you've mastered life and death, and can even cull the energy inside living creatures.

As an action, you may force each non-undead creature within 20 ft of you to make a Constitution saving throw against your spell save DC, taking 6d6 damage on a failed save or half as much damage on a successful one. Any creature reduced to zero hit points by failed save is immediately risen under your command.

You may use this ability a number of times equal to your Intelligence modifier per long rest.