Animate Dead

Zombie Ogres: Just as strong, but they eat less.
"Ironic. In death, your men serve me."
—Trace Legacy, Twokinds

The undead make great minions. But where are you gonna get your hands on a bunch of Skeletons or zombies? Why not go look up Animate Dead in your Tome of Eldritch Lore (it should be in chapter one, part II, "Exercises for the Aspiring Necromancer", just after "Applied Demonology"), proceed to your local graveyard, and give it a try? So long as you have enough mana, you can do this all night! Of course, easy come, easy go. Chances are that your new minions are low-durability and may even have a short lifespan. Good thing you can just raise the corpses of your slain foes, right?

If you lack the necessary skills, of course, you can always employ someone else to handle the casting for you. But watch out for your opponents to figure out what you're up to - if the caster goes down, there's a good chance the entire army will crumble into dust on the spot.

In short, when a spellcaster of some sort has a spell to create an undead minion out of a corpse (of whatever degree of freshness), that spell is some variety of Animate Dead. The usual output is a skeleton or zombie, though a mummy is another possible result if the corpse in question was embalmed.

Incidentally, this is how traditional ("Type V") zombies are made - a voodoo bokor revives a dead person, who is then under their control.

See also Necromancer, Night of the Living Mooks. Not to be confused with Praise Dead.

Examples of Animate Dead include:

Anime and Manga

  • Devil Gundam can use its nanomachine to animate corpses, turning them into zombies to pilot Death Army mobile suit.
  • Kagura from Inu Yasha can use her fan to control corpses.
  • Done by Gekko Moria in One Piece, who can reanimate zombies by putting shadows of living people inside corpses.
  • In Naruto, Orochimaru, The Second Hokage, and Kabuto can all reanimate the dead with the same jutsu, with Kabuto performing the largest scale resurrection seen in the series.


Collectible Card Game


Comic Books

  • In Nth Man the Ultimate Ninja, two powerful fragments of a malevolent Reality Warper re-animate two corpses of his childhood orphanage, who proceed to recruit mutated humans into an army to take over the world.


Film


Literature

  • A power of the Graveyard Hag granted briefly to Daine in Tamora Pierce's Tortall Universe.
  • The Dresden Files uses this trope in a really awesome way.
    • It also specifies that a drumbeat is part of the spell (to trick the zombie into thinking its heart is still beating). If the drumbeat stops, so does the zombie. Cue Cool Car.
  • Inferi in Harry Potter.
  • The titular Black Cauldron from the second book of the Prydain Chronicles (and the Disney movie) was an Artifact of Doom that could do this. Dipping corpses into the cauldron turned them into unstoppable undead soldiers.
  • The magic system in Warbreaker allows for the animation of anything made from organic material. Animated dead (called Lifeless) are particularly useful, however—ordinary Awakened objects can just be given one command, which they will then fulfill mindlessly, whereas Lifeless can be "programmed" to perform more complex tasks.
  • In The Prism Pentad the wraiths serving Borys are able to possess statues but also corpses and skeletons, resulting in this trope.
  • In The Witch Watch re-animation can be used to bring back sentient abominations but it's tricky and it can be easier just to raise your own army of feral abominations. Including undead dogs.


Tabletop RPG

  • The Trope Namer is Dungeons & Dragons. The basic "Animate Dead" spell creates skeletons and zombies. The next spell on that list is "Create Undead", which outputs ghouls, ghasts (advanced ghouls), mummies, and mohrgs (worms that coil in skeletons and control them by contorting around the bones, they look like animated intestines with clawed mandibles.) Then you get Create Greater Undead, which gives you shadows, wraiths, spectres (all varied ghosts), and devourers (sort of high-level ghouls). Those are the core spells, others allow you to awaken entire battlefields (Plague of Undead), designate one undead to lead others (Undead Lieutenant can effectively multiply the amount of undead you control several times over). There's even an EPIC spell that kills an entire army then animates them as undead, although not all of the new undead are under your control.
    • There's an even nastier epic spell that kills a single creature, then instantly animates it, with only the caster knowing at first. This can be used to infiltrate a group, though as time goes on, it becomes easier to notice ("Say Regdar, you're looking really pale. Have you been getting enough sleep lately?").
  • In Mortasheen, the fungus creature Mushtomb has this power, spreading its slimy spores on dead tissue to animate it to fllow its every whim. Fortunately its whims are mostly to be left alone and in quiet.
  • In Warhammer Fantasy Battle, this type of necromancy is a trademark of the Vampire Counts and Tomb Kings armies. Necromancers/Liche Priests are vital for holding the undead armies together, and can use their magic to replenish the ranks of their forces with freshly raised dead. They can even conjure skeletal or zombie units out of nowhere to surprise their foes. Sieges get tricky when skeletons are sprouting in your courtyard like daisies...
  • The "Zombie" and "Mass Zombie" spells in GURPS can be used to create any sort of undead. Stronger undead (mummies) take more energy than weaker ones (skeletons) and often require special preparation.
    • The Fantasy World of Yrth has the nation of Abydos. Zombies do the routine and repetitive work, which makes farming really creepy. Nobody minds much because their version of Christianity considers necromancy to be holy (BTW their neighbors think they are heretics).
  • In Warhammer 40,000 The Necron Lord can do just this, leading to many Oh Crap moments.
    • Although a Necron Lord can only animate other Necrons, not the corpses of enemies.
  • Oh so many ways in both old and new World of Darkness:
    • A few bloodlines in Vampire: The Requiem—such as the Burakunim, who originate from the Japanese underclasses that deal with "unclean" jobs such as funeral duties, and the Sangiovanni, who are just fucked up—have bloodline-exclusive Disciplines that allow them to reanimate the dead as servitors. The Lancea Sanctum also have a Theban ritual called the Gift of Lazarus that allows them to create a sentient undead servitor that's perfectly aware of its condition and wants to go back to being dead, but is still beholden to the person that raised it.
    • Mage: The Awakening has the Death Arcanum, which allows for control of ghosts and zombies. At the third level, you can pretty much create your own Zombie Apocalypse.
    • oldPromethean: The Created has Spark of Life, a high-level power of the Alchemicus Transmutations that allows you to reanimate a corpse; unlike your own reanimated corpse, however, this one just shambles and obeys your commands.
    • Geist: The Sin Eaters has a Ceremony that allows for the reanimation of corpses, as well as some interesting uses of the Marionette Manifestation.


Toys

  • Matoro's Mask of Reanimation in Bionicle.
    • Also the Mask of Undeath, technically. It lets its user live after they've been killed, but only 'till they finish their task at hand. Then they die.

Video Games

  • In Warcraft 3, Scourge Necromancers can raise Skeleton Warriors from corpses, and the Graveyard is a building which produces an infinite number of corpses. Thus the only limiting factor is mana. Inexplicably, one corpse of any unit type produces two humanoid skeletons with swords.
    • Similarly, Warcraft 2 has Raise Dead, which produces a single humanoid skeleton warrior with a sword.
    • Warcraft 3 also features the Avatar of Vengeance, which spams a shorter-duration Animate Dead spell while not being squishy at all.
    • The Death Knight, a Scourge hero unit in Warcraft 3, has as his Ultimate move "Animate Dead" which raises up to six nearby dead units to fight for the Death Knight for forty seconds. One update made them invulnerable for the duration.
    • Death Knights in World of Warcraft have several spells that allow them to raise undead Ghouls from corpses. The basic raise dead spell creates an NPC Ghoul that will follow the player around and attack his target (there's a talent that will turn it into a permanent pet under the player's control), raise ally raises a dead group/raid member as a Ghoul they have control over. And the army of the dead summons about 20 Ghouls at once (although they're individually weaker than the ones summoned through raise dead).
    • Because the Undead people cannot reproduce by usual means, their queen uses Valkyries to, you guessed it, animate dead.
  • In Guild Wars, Necromancers have a variety of spells to create undead minions of various sizes and strengths out of "fleshy" enemy corpses.
  • Romancing SaGa - Animate Dead is Exactly What It Says on the Tin and is irreversible unless the character in question is killed again. Often spammed by Death and Saruin
  • The website for Diablo 3 gives an interesting justification: instead of animating individual skeletons (which might be damaged, too small, etc.), skeletons are actually amalgamated bone dust and dirt, held together by the magician.
  • In Heroes of Might and Magic 3, the Necromancy skill raises a percent of the (non-undead) casualties from each successful battle as skeletons (or, in the case of dragon casualties, Bone Dragons). There is also a structure in the Necropolis (Necromancer/Undead City) that allows you to do this with 100% efficiency using your own troops.
  • This is how the undead other than death knights and possibly ghouls are created in Battle for Wesnoth.
  • City of Villains has the Necromancy power set for Masterminds, which allows the player to summon up to three zombies, two grave knights (armored zombies with broadswords and some dark powers), a ghost, and a lich. Also, there's Mr. Bokor in Port Oakes who gives you a temporary power that lets you summon a zombie to fight for you.
  • In Dragon Age: Origins, there's a literal Animate Dead spell. It raises the corpse of a single humanoid dead foe (e.g. Drakspawn counts, bears do not) as a skeleton the same class of the corpse, armed with the same weapons, and lasts until it's dead, or you deactivate the spell, or you travel to another area.
  • In Fable II, a Hero can summon the spirits of the dead to fight for him for a short time with the Raise Dead ability. These are not skeletons or zombies, but literal spirits. Shades can be summoned from thin air, but the spirits that come from the corpses of slain foes are stronger and more durable. Eventually, however, the spirits disappear.
  • In Sacrifice, the spell "Animate Dead" is available to your wizard if they serve Charnel.
  • Paladins from the Clonk fan-mod Metal and Magic can do this. They create ghosts or skeletons, depending on which god they serve.
  • Clive Barker's Undying has the Invoke spell, which raises dead enemies to fight on your side for a little while. It also insta-kills skeletons.


Web Comics

Richard: In case you weren't sure, the skeletons are on our side.

    • Does it count if you animate the skeletons before the owners are dead? Immediately before?
  • In Sluggy Freelance the demon K'Z'K just has to cry out, and every dead person in the tri-state area is up, walking around, and making more people dead for the greater evil.
  • In Twokinds, Trace seems to manipulate corpses of the Bastin royal guard with magic telekinesis, mimicking this.


Web Original

  • In Adult Swim's Viva Caligula, Caligula may resurrect the skeletons of his slain citizens foes to go forth and destroy.
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