Serpentine Necromancer

“A serpent represents death itself.”

A serpentine necromancer is a practitioner of the black arts who specializes in serpentine undead. Blending the dark powers of the undead with the deadly aspects of serpents, these individuals wield truly terrifying and potent magic. Thankfully, their knowledge is so esoteric that they are few in number. Some believe the first serpentine necromancers were the pupils of the cobra queen Mehneet.

Hit Die: d6

Requirements

To qualify to become a serpentine necromancer, a character must fulfill all of the following criteria:

Class Skills

The class skills for this class (and the key ability for each skill) are Appraise (Int), Bluff (Cha), Craft (Int), Fly (Dex), Intimidate (Cha), Knowledge (all skills taken individually) (Int), Linguistics (Int), Profession (Wis), Spellcraft (Int), and Use Magic Device (Cha).

Skill Ranks at Each Level: 2 + Int modifier

Table: The Serpentine Necromancer
Class Level BAB Fort Save Ref Save Will Save Special Spells per Day
1st +1 +0 +0 +1 Serpentine Necromancy
2nd +1 +1 +1 +1 Undead Serpent Animation +1 level of existing class
3rd +2 +1 +1 +2 +1 level of existing class
4th +2 +1 +1 +2 Undead Familiar +1 level of existing class
5th +3 +2 +2 +3 +1 level of existing class
6th +3 +2 +2 +3 Command Serpentine Undead +1 level of existing class
7th +4 +2 +2 +4 +1 level of existing class
8th +4 +3 +3 +4 Undead Serpent Summoning +1 level of existing class
9th +5 +3 +3 +5 +1 level of existing class
10th +5 +3 +3 +5 Create Serpentine Undead +1 level of existing class

Class Features

All of the following are class features of the serpentine necromancer prestige class.

Weapon and Armor Proficiency

A serpentine necromancer gains no additional proficiencies in any weapon or armor.

Serpentine Necromancy

At 1st level, the serpentine necromancer begins focusing his research and thoughts upon necromancy and its uses in conjunction with serpents. When casting any necromancy spell with a snake or snake-like creature as the spell’s target, or that includes a snake or snake-like creature in it’s area of effect, his caster level counts as one level higher. Some examples of snake-like creatures include: couatl, marilith demon, naga, xocouatl, or any creature whose anatomy includes a snake’s head or body. Merely having tentacles, slit eyes, scales or a forked tongue is not enough to qualify a creature as snake-like. Undead Serpent Animation: At 2nd level, whenever the serpentine necromancer uses animate dead or create vampiric serpent* on the remains of snake or snake-like creatures, his caster level counts as two levels higher. However, from now on, whenever he animates any other type of creature, his caster level counts as three levels lower.

Undead Familiar

At 4th level, if the serpentine necromancer has a snake familiar, he gains the spell-like ability to temporarily transform it into an undead creature for one round per prestige class level. The familiar’s type changes to undead and it gains all the immunities of an undead creature. All of its other statistics and abilities remain unchanged. This ability is usable once per day as a standard action. If the serpentine necromancer does not have a familiar, he may instead use this ability to temporarily transform any dead snake whose hit dice is equal to or less than his own prestige class level into a skeleton or zombie. While transformed, the undead snake can understand all the serpentine necromancer’s verbal commands and will obey him without question. It can also share spells and gains an empathic link with its master. The transformation lasts for one round per prestige class level.

Command Serpentine Undead (Su)

At 6th level, the serpentine necromancer gains the supernatural ability to command serpentine undead creatures, once per day. This ability functions the same way as a command undead spell, but works only on undead snakes and Serpentine Undead. The caster level is equal to the serpentine necromancer’s prestige class level.

Undead Serpent Summoning

At 8th level, when using one of the summon monster spells to summon a snake or snake-like creature, the serpentine necromancer may choose to summon a version with the skeleton or zombie template. This template stacks with any other templates, so it is possible to summon a fiendish skeletal snake, for example. In addition, the creature retains its poisonous bite or constriction attack if it normally has one.

Create Serpentine Undead

At 10th level, when the serpentine necromancer casts animate dead, summon monster, create undead or create greater undead, certain types of creatures can be given the Serpentine Undead template and his usual penalty for animating non-serpentine creatures does not apply when doing so. This template stacks with any other templates, so it is possible to summon a fiendish serpentine undead snake, for example.

Spellcasting

Starting at 2nd level, when a new serpentine necromancer level is gained, the character gains new spells per day as if he had also gained a level in a spellcasting class he belonged to before adding the prestige class (either wizard or sorcerer). He does not, however, gain any other benefit a character of that class would have gained (metamagic or item creation feats, hit points beyond those he receives from the prestige class, and so on), except for an increased effective level of spellcasting. If a character had more than one spellcasting class before becoming a serpentine necromancer, he must decide to which class he adds each level of serpentine necromancer for purposes of determining spells per day.

Section 15: Copyright Notice

Grimoire Viperian: A Tome of Exotic Lore Copyright 2021 Magic Skull Games Author: Steven F. Johnson

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