[Necromancy] Item - Doll of Resurrections

Necromantic theory of "astra" use thin needles to manipulate spirit and reanimate flesh. Before lichdom and soul preservation became the dominant form of unlife, ancient necromancers inserted hundreds of magical needles to prolong their own existences.

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Doll of Resurrections
Wondrous item, rare

When first found, this doll has 1d4 + 2 needles. Each needle ranges between 5 to 10 inches long, made of a variety of arcane materials.

Over the course of 10 minutes, you can carefully insert a needle into a humanoid corpse and activate the needle's necromantic magic. The needle revives the creature with a temporary surge of life. The target must have been dead no longer than a century, cannot be undead, and cannot be missing its head. If the target's soul is willing and at liberty to rejoin the body, it regains consciousness with 1 hit point. Any magical curses or similar effects that have not been removed from the corpse resume their effects. The target keeps its original statistics except for the following changes:

• The target becomes undead. It no longer needs to eat, drink, or breathe to survive.
• The target is immune to poisons and diseases.
• The target's Dexterity score decreases by 2.

A needle's magic is finite. The target creature dies 4d10 days after revival. Additional needles inserted into the target can delay this death, with each needle extending the duration by another 4d10 days. The target also dies if any of its inserted needles are removed. A creature can use an action to pull out the needle by succeeding on a DC 24 Strength check. Once a needle is removed, it becomes a nonmagical object.

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Legendary Variant: Doll’s Bargain. The legendary version of the doll has this property. The doll produces its own needles, conjuring a needle every 2d20 days.

The needles also exerts some control over corpses they revive. As an action, a creature holding the doll can attempt to control an undead revived by the doll’s needles. The creature makes a Charisma check against a DC equal to 50 minus the number of the doll’s needles inserted in the target. On a success, the creature takes control of the target for 1 hour as outlined by the dominate person spell. The creature must maintain concentration for the duration (as if concentrating on a spell). Once taken, this action can’t be taken again until the next dusk.

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DESIGN COMMENTARY

This item came about as an intersection of two things: a unique method of resurrection and a scary-looking creature/villain. At its core, it revolves around a necromancer doing unspeakable things to continue creating new needles to extend their life. As a utility item, it can be used to revive teammates (along with a nice adventure drive) or temporarily revive dead people for conversation. The number of needles and life duration was hard to balance since most games rarely take months into consideration.

The legendary version allows the necromancer villain to concretely serve as a viable villain, along with a built-in plot quest for finding its doll version of a lich's phylactery.