Variant Skeleton

It resembles an ordinary skeleton but weighs only about a fifth as much, its bones dried nearly to powder. A faint haze of poisonous blue-gray dust hangs behind it as it walks, and anyone within 10 feet feels slightly sick. Undead commanders use them to break up enemy formations by disabling troops in large numbers.

Dust skeletons carry no weapons and do very little harm in melee, and blades and points hurt them fully, unlike normal skeletons. At 0 hit points one bursts into a dust cloud 10 feet in radius. Anyone inhaling it saves vs. poison; on a failure, paralysis sets in for 2d6 rounds, while on a success the victim only loses a round to coughing and choking, with no attacks or spellcasting during it.

To make one, the bones are dried until they crumble, then coated in a resin laced with paralytic venom, and transmute water to dust is cast alongside animate dead.

From a distance it seems an unarmed skeleton, but up close its bones bristle with inch-long thorns of bone. Armies use them to shock and demoralize enemy ranks.

Those spikes hurt as much as an ordinary skeleton's weapon would. Each time it strikes or is struck, 1d3 spikes blast outward in a bonespray, each dealing 1d4 points to those within 5 feet (halved by a save vs. breath weapon), and the skeleton loses 1 hit point per spike shed.

The bonespray exists to draw blood for its blood burn. Once blood flows, the closest wounded creature within 5 feet must make a -3 save vs. spell or take 3d4 points as its blood ignites. The victim saves again as each round ends, for as many as three rounds, and the first success puts out the fire. The skeleton can use blood burn only once before it must be recharged. Spike skeletons are turned as shadows.

Each spike is carved from the bones of the same creature type as the skeleton (a human skeleton needs human bone) and engraved with a glyph before being attached. Shatter is cast with animate dead during animation, and afterward burning blood is cast alongside imbue undead with spell ability, a 6th-level necromancy. Those same two spells recharge the blood burn.

Each has an obsidian gem set in its forehead, and many have charred-looking black bones. All carry weapons, usually clubs or swords. On the desert world they are called defiling skeletons.

These skeletons regenerate by stealing life energy. At 0 hit points one collapses and lies inert for one full round. On the next, the gem flares brightly and every plant within 10 feet crumbles to ash (on the desert world, defiling the same area as a 3rd-level spell). Any living creature in that radius must save vs. spell or take -3 on their next initiative roll. The following round it stands up at full hit points.

Hitting it while it lies inert or regenerates does nothing and does not slow the process, and turning and holy water are useless then. Only destroying the gem stops it. The jewel is AC 4 with 6 hit points that never regenerate, can be targeted with a called shot in melee, and is harmed by holy water. Dispel magic drops the skeleton and halts regeneration for one round per caster level, but if the gem survives that window the cycle resumes. They are turned as wights.

Creation requires an obsidian gem engraved with a special glyph set into the forehead, a second animate dead cast with the first, and vampiric touch.