The Dark Art (CBN)

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: Mirtul 17, Year of the Bow
: Three days after skirting Carcathen, we sighted a westward sail—a Nelantherese caravel, Retaliatior, standing high in the wind with a full complement of pirates. We tried to beat them to the Race, but they caught us off Nemesser's Tower, though not within sight of land, or we would have surely been lost. As I was calling the crew to clear for action, one of our passengers, the Lady Doctor Tolbert, came on deck and watched the approaching ship with a look of mixed disgust and annoyance.
: "My husband hated pirates," the Lady said. I hastily agreed, for she was a sorceress of sorts, as well as a surgeon. In the past, when the topic of her husband came up, her eyes became distant and sad, almost dangerous. "Gerard's last action was against pirates in these waters," she said to no one in particular, before withdrawing below.
: The final action with Retaliator came as a surprise. Once the caravel closed to boarding distance and called for our surrender, Lady Ellandra came back on deck, this time shielded by a cold, blue aura. She began to speak in a soft and deadly whisper, her gaze fixed on the wildly shouting men on the pirate ship's quarter deck. Many of the rogues had climbed up into the rigging, where they fired arrows onto our ship. One of the bolts struck Ellandra square in the face, but it was brushed aside by her magical warding.
: As the Lady intoned the last syllable of her dreadful spell, a greenish vapor formed in the rigging above the pirate's quarter deck. Wailing resounded from the skyward cloud, like a distant chorus of lamentations. Ghostly images swirled in the haze. The billowing mist quickly descended onto the decks of Retaliator, and horrific screams rose in a deafening crescendo from the ghastly cloud, echoed now by the terrified men in its midst. Shriveled bodies plummeted from the rigging, each with a sickening thud, onto the decks below. One by one, the pirates' flesh withered like burned paper, and the scant survivors beheld many more vaporous ghosts now swirling in the foul mist around them. And after the eternity of a few seconds, the howling cloud began to dissipate, leaving behind the wracked and twisted corpses of Retaliator's crew. The pirate ship sailed on, crewed only by the dead, fixed in its final course by a blasted corpse whose corrupted hands still clenched the helm.
: Once the distant screaming abated, the Lady warned us to leave their ship behind as a warning to others. She then demurely withdrew again to her cabin, where she stayed for the rest of the voyage to Calimshan. But the remainder of the trip was not a happy one, for every night we could hear her muffled sobs, calling out to her long-dead husband, echoing throughout the ship.
: —From the log of Waterdeep's Pennance, Captain George Toal commanding
The most dreaded powers of a wizard come from the spells at his or her disposal. The Dark Art has many uses, the least of which brings death in a horrible and excruciating manner. The necromancer can drain the life force of a victim, command shadowy spirits of the netherworld, or animate the remains of the dead. Yet, for all the attention focused on the manifestly evil spells of the archetypal sorcerer, little concern has been devoted to exploring the more useful and even beneficial applications of the so-called Dark Art. In addition to its stereotypical negative uses, necromancy can also heal the afflicted, provide protection from the dead, and inform the living.
This chapter explores both the beneficial and baneful sides of this feared school of magic. First we present a few guidelines for choosing necromantic spells to reflect a wizard's alignment. Finally, the majority of the chapter describes over two dozen new wizard spells.
The massive amount of necromantic spells available to wizards can be a bit overwhelming for DMs accustomed to the limited selection in the PHB. Appendices at the end of the book have been designed to ease the burden of NPC spell selection for the DM. Appendix One contains all spells available to necromancer wizards, listed by level and general application. Appendix Two lists all of the spells in the expanded school of Necromancy, compiled from this and other sources. Finally, the DM may use the spell index in Appendix Four to easily locate necromantic spells in this book and other references.