Necromancy offers ways to raise both the lesser and the greater undead but there are times when Abyssals and other nefarious agents of death need access to more immediate or more unusual followers.
The still living blood of the unfortunates used in it''s construction is then fed to the beast filling it with a relentless thirst for blood.
These spells are also helpful in making soulsteel as they can torture their victims for much longer so they are ready to be transubstantiated into that ethereal material or just for recreational purposes.
Zombie Motivation Consume the flesh of the living
They'll keep eating corpses they've killed until all the flesh is consumed. They usually don't bother killing the before eating. Although their intellect is limited, driven by one of their most basic desires they are extremely strong in pursuing what they want and frighteningly resilient as their minds and partially reanimated bodies no longer sense pain. 'They are created en masse by a spell with limited effect, it's doesn't do a very good job of reanimation or the process of reanimation is not perfect or as developed as used for skeletons or other undead creations. But despite their poor (read negligible) intelligence and undisciplined hunger they are quite effective on the battlefield and in war, particularly as terror troops.'
Zombies are often raised then a Necromancer immediate servants although they are often retained for as long as they can sustain themselves afterwards. They are the lowest form of undead reanimation with necromantic power and possessed by only the most basic instincts and absolutely no intelligence. 'This may be a result of an early necromantic formula that worked on a more physical level literally restoring incomplete and imperfect life to the dead rather than more advanced spiritual magic that was created later for use on skeletons. Perhaps the presence of the roughly complete victim's corpse prevents use of different Necromantic principles, or the limited age after death and something to do with the proximity of the body's spirit limit the intelligence it can possess. Much older bodies can be imbued with a element of the deceased's soul, and the greater the age or the strength the dead had in life the more complete the link.'
Skeletons are far too decomposed to reanimate in such a way. Instead the Necromancer locates a trinket associated with the victim's soul and binds a fraction of it to the newly risen deceased. As a result skeletons can function as servants, perform basic tasks and hold weapons and wield them in battle. Skeletons of warriors are used to staff undead legions following instructions hammered out by their greater undead leaders.
The horrid magic that reanimates these things allows for the most unnatural creatures. The twisted genius of the Mortificers shape amalgamations that work in ways that were never intended, or even conceivable to onlookers.
