Hands of Glory, Tree of Glory

I think I originally found the idea of a candelabra of Hands of Glory at Ancient Vaults and Eldritch Secrets. Decided to expand on that idea: what if the Hands to be used belonged to the first criminals, each Hand had its own specific powers, and collecting them would boost these items even further?

The Hand of Glory from folklore is already a gruesome magic item in its own right. Take a hanged murderer's hand, render the fat and use that to turn the fingers into candles; when lit, no sleepers in a house you enter with a lit Hand of Glory can wake up. Other versions turn the bearer invisible, or can open any door, or only shed light for the wielder.

In comparison, the Hand of Glory in base D&D is very tame. Wear an extra magic ring, cast a light spell and see the invisible. We can do better. Statted for D&D 5e, but easy enough to alter.

THE TREE OF GLORY

Hollow Tree necromancers tell tall tales about the powers of the Tree. A cold iron frame hammered into the shape of a twisted, leafless tree, nine feet tall and weighing 900 lbs (25 inventory slots / strength points' worth). The branches and parts of the trunk are shaped like ash, oak, sandal, redbud and thorn apple. Other branches and knots in the trunk correspond to unidentified, maybe even extinct species. Seven fat branches drip down to form hooks where something may be hung from.

Writing in encrypted Du'van is chiseled and etched into the bark. Powerful divination spells like Divination, Legend Lore, Commune or Contact other Plane will reveal the information below. A simple Comprehend Languages spell turns the Du'van script into text in an alphabet that the caster can read, but the meaning stays encrypted. Decyphering the text would take an immense dedicated library.

Tree Design Metal Wall Hanging,Tree of Life, Metal Art of Haiti, Haitian Steel Drum Art - 34" x 34"

The Tree of Glory was created by Du'vanku corpse wizards before their civilization decided to lay siege to Heaven. The artifact has seven mounts that fit the original Seven Hands of Glory (below) and enhances the effect of these lugubrious items. Seven people may attune to the Tree at the same time via the rite to find an unclaimed Hand (below). The artifact may be torn apart by seven people of pure heart, each having fit one of the seven Hands as a prosthetic.

At the time of writing, the Tree of Glory is being investigated by the Order of the Eye, a minor and unofficial offshoot of the Gustavinian Order of secrets. The group does not have access to the divination spells needed to decrypt the instructions on the trunk.

Finding the Seven Hands

The possessor of the Tree of Glory can perform a scrying ritual to find the approximate location of the seven original Hands of Glory. The ritual requires killing an innocent and hanging them on the tree under the new moon.

At the moment of death, the hanged one turns to face the nearest Hand not currently hanging from the Tree and swings outwards in that direction. The ritual reveals a compass direction (up to 3rd order, such as NNW), and a distance in miles. If the nearest Hand is within a mile of the Tree, the distance is instead conveyed in 100 yard increments.

Carved burial tree from near Dubbo, New South Wales (from)

Lighting the Seven

Successfully mounting one or more of the original Seven Hands on the Tree and lighting them takes 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13 days per Hand lit. Once lit, the artifact produces the following effects. The Tree of Glory was  originally pulled down before more than three Hands could be lit; the effect of such an event is unknown - take lines 4 and below as speculation.

1. Keep any sleepers in a mansion or castle asleep
2. Keep any sleepers in a town asleep
3. Put everyone in a barony to sleep
4. Put everyone in a duchy to sleep? Open all locks in the area?
5. Put everyone in the kingdom to sleep? Cause the Tree to grow to Heaven? Turn users into angels or demons?
6. Put everyone in the world to sleep? Cause the tree's roots to buckle Heaven's gates? Briefly stop time?
7. Put the Authority and his Angels to sleep? Rewind time?

By Shayne of the Dead - from

Each of the seven original Hands of Glory has the following powers, in addition to unique powers listed below:

• requires attunement to function
• gives off light like a hooded lantern while lit (lighting takes five rounds, one action per finger lit)
• keeps any sleepers in a home asleep while lit (2-3 rooms, like a cottage or small house)
• burns until extinguished by the user, until doused in fresh milk, or until dawn
• can be fit as a prosthetic (either side - will gruesomely break and reverse itself) for someone missing a hand

Individual Hands and their powers

• "owner": power always works when the Hand is on the owner's person
• "user": power only works when the Hand is lit. Most are marked *
• "prosthetic": requires fitting the Hand in place of one of their own, or mounting it on the Tree of Glory. Save Difficulty to resist all its effects becomes 17.

* costs an action and extinguishes one of the Hand's five lit fingers. The user does not need to maintain concentration, the Hand does this for them until fully doused in fresh milk or at dawn.

There's a disturbing amount of tshirts with HoGs you can buy. Or baby onesies, if that's more your thing. From.

Hand of the Arsonist

Soot-stained and covered in burn scars

• Owner can always start a fire
• User can hurl a Fire Bolt (+5 attack, 3d10 fire) *
• As a prosthetic, the owner can use Delayed Blast Fireball 1/week (DC 17)

Hand of the Backstabber

Shudders in sudden fits as if to jump at people unaware of its owner

• The owner gains advantage on the first attack they make in a combat
• Can let the user walk through one wall (as a ghost's Incorporeal Movement) *
• As a prosthetic, the owner can snap his fingers to cast Power Word Stun 1/week (DC 17)

Hand of the Oathbreaker

Fingers appear broken, fingernails missing, skin full of burn marks

• Creates light that only the user can see. This illuminates even a Darkness spell, but only for the user
• Can turn the user invisible (as Invisibility) *
• As a prosthetic, the owner can use Glibness 1/week

Abandoned Realms / Necromancer

Hand of the Poisoner

Finger tips stained black, hand is pockmarked and partly eaten as if by acid

• Owner can safely absorb and release one dose of liquid poison from the Hand's index finger
• User can hurl Poison Spray (DC 15/17, 2d12) *
• As a prosthetic, the owner can use Cloudkill 1/week (DC 17)

Hand of the Strangler

Stubby fingers, always twitching in little grabbing movements

• A breathing target the owner is grappling with starts to choke (drops to 0 HP and receives a Fatal Wound after [Con bonus] rounds)
• User can hold a viewer immobile (as Hold Monster, DC 15/17) *
• As a prosthetic, the owner can use Finger of Death 1/week (DC 17)

Hand of the Thief

Delicate and supple, more like a bit of wax statue than a severed hand

• Its light shows anything invisible (as See Invisibility)
• User can open any lock that the Hand illuminates (as Knock, but silent) *
• As a prosthetic, the owner can use Drawmij's Instant Summons 1/week, no material component needed

Hand of the Traitor

Branded on the palm with a coin featuring a ruler's face, fingers split with iron nails

• Owner can command the Hand to disguise itself as an innocuous hand-shaped item like a wood carving, an amulet or a glove. Appears like a living hand when fitted as a prosthetic.
• User can turn a viewer pliable and forgetful (as Charm Person or Suggestion, DC 15/17) *
• As a prosthetic, the owner can use Dominate Monster 1/week (DC 17)

From

More Necromancy

I started writing up new 5E necromancy spells because regular death magic is so bare bones. Previous batch here.

Bare bones necromancy, get it?

BLOODLINK

Take a discarded bandage, curse someone from the comfort of your secluded mansion. Drawbacks, sure - you need fresh body parts of their intended victim, burn twice as many spell slots, and will need a lot of time to cast high level magic. On the plus side, you get to channel all their hate into a high gothic ritual with chanting and candles and skulls. Too bad those attract meddling hero types like flies. I see this spell being used in two ways: one, as a simple range extender to harrass too-powerful opponents; and two, as an evil working by an enemy wizard that the party will have to thwart. 

You have five days to find the necromancer before he turns the princess to stone! (Or takes over her mind via Magic Jar...)

Level 1 Necromancy - warlock, wizard
Casting time: special, components: VSM (fresh body part)
Target: someone you have a sample of flesh or blood of

Range: special

Toe nail clippings, a hair follicle, a drop of blood - enough of the soul remains in these to forge a link with the greater body. Bloodlink lets you harness that link and send another spell across it. This spell consumes the body part used to make the Bloodlink.

(Which is why cursecraft and scrying is so much easier with some fresh blood on hand. Which is why many experienced wizards never cut their nails and epilate all their hair. Freaks.)


What Bloodlink does for you

Bloodlink lets another spell  with a single target ignore the distance to the target - see the "at higher levels" section for the range. Bestow Curse yes; Fireball or Cloudkill no. If the spell requires an attack roll, you roll this at advantage. The body part must be fresh; generally, no longer than a day old. Gentle Repose can help out here. Undead flesh comes pre-preserved - liches are extra careful with lost body parts, and extra vindictive if you try to target them this way. Constructs or Elementals have no souls.

You need to power Bloodlink with a spell slot at least equal to the level of the spell that will travel across it. Want to Vampiric Touch someone at range? Pay an extra 3rd level spell slot or higher.

Thoth-Amon

How to defend against Bloodlink
Targets can sense Bloodlink by a growing sense of foreboding; an Arcana roll (difficulty 20) by themself or another makes it clear that there is a Bloodlink being formed.

These feelings of unease happen once every [largest lower category] of time remaining, so a ritual taking 1 hour to cast would give a warning every 10 minutes, then once per minute, then once per round. A year-long ritual first pings every season, then every month, week, day, hour, and so on.)

Scrying attempts by the target on the caster of Bloodlink work as if they were very familiar with them. If the target is in a Magic Circle powered with at least the same spell slot as Bloodlink, they gain advantage against any saves and the attacker rolls any attack at disadavantage. At higher levels, counter-striking via scry/teleport becomes viable.

Casting time per spell level:
L1 - 1 round. L2 - 1 minute. L3 - 10 minutes. L4 - 1 hour. L5 - 8 hours. L6 - 1 week*. L7 - 1 month*. L8 - 1 season*. L9 - 1 year*.

* 8h/day; can cast take short breaks and cast other spells during this period, maximum 10 minutes between stopping this spell and picking it up again.

I've been fiddling with a way to lower the casting town of higher level spells down to a full day, but got hung up on pricing. 10% of total character wealth (I used 1 XP --> 1 gp) sounds not unreasonable for lowering the casting time all the way, but XP progression is nonlinear and I didn't want to calculate polynomials at the table.

At higher level:
level 1-3: range 1 mile/level
level 4-6: range 10 miles/level
level 7-9: range anywhere on same plane

Again, I was tempted to tack extra effects onto the spell, like higher levels ignoring saves or even resistances. In the end I decided that this was turning Bloodlink into the one tool every wizard would want to use for getting rid of rivals - no save against Disintegrate cast from 100 miles away? No thanks. You'll get a week's worth of premonitions to prepare. Either scry for the person attacking you, or sleep in a warding circle.

The Magic Circle by John William Waterhouse (1886)

BONE CHIMES

Let's do a simpler spell. This is basically Alarm, but more freaky and useful as an early warning system against torchbearing mobs. Of course it means hiding bird bones all around your house, which may raise the kind of questions that lead the mob to form in the first place.


Level 2 Necromancy, wizard / warlock / druid
Range: jackdaw bones touched, 1 mile range from central skull
Duration: 24h

A good host is always prepared for guests - especially those of the torch and pitchfork persuasion. While Skullsight helps to spy on the mob from afar, Bone Chimes lets a necromancer know they should start paying attention in the first place.

Bone chimes enchants the bones of a jackdaw, which can then be hidden around a necromancer's abode. Each bone functions as the centre of an Alarm spell (range 20ft from the bone). The jackdaw's skull will caw the name of a triggered bone. The caster can enchant one bone per level of the spell slot used (so 2 bones minimum).

Once the bones are hidden, recasting the spell means visiting them all with the jackdaw's skull in hand. Individual bones can be included and excluded at each casting.

More creepy precautions. "Ribcage! Wing bone! Spine! Ankle!" Also works with monkey skeletons or fishbones, for necromancers in other climes.

Totally inconspicuous. From.

DEATH CURSE

Quite the opposite of subtle necromancy, this is a last all-out strike before you die. Put the fear of the Authority in the witch hunters that decide to come after you.

Level 3 Necromancy - cleric, warlock, wizard

Range: 30 feet

You die without any hope of resurrection. A Wish or Miracle can maybe rebuild something approximating you, but there will be clear personality changes and memory gaps.

That's the bad news.

Interestingly, your corpse cannot even be animated as an undead - this spell shreds every last part of your soul as you die in agony.

Or you can try and use Death Curse to overclock a Passwall spell. Who am I to judge. From

Good to know you won't come back to haunt people, I guess. So what's the good news?

Death Curse is lightning fast and releases enough energy to power a hefty geas or curse. The standard spell functions like Bestow Curse, but if you have other curse-like spells prepared (see below), you can use those instead.

This spell is fast enough to cast as a reaction (5E) to something that would kill you; a fatal wound, an incoming fireball, a deadly axe swipe, a dragon landing on you. Can use this after you hear how much damage you will take, but otherwise has to be used right away or not at all.

You can target anyone within 30 feet with your Death Curse, up to the number of targets allowed by the spell effect. Make an attack if the spell effect calls for one, and targets make any save to resist the spell at disadvantage. If you only target the person who kills you, they do not get a save at all.

Can you make every spell a Death Curse if you're undead? I'd rule no, but my players don't need to know that.

Powering this spell with a higher spell slot lets you unleash more inventive curses. Spell effects last for 1 day per level of the spell slot unless permanent (i.e. death spells).

Good spell effects for Death Curse are:

(3rd level slot) - Bestow Curse, Fear, Slow
(4th level slot) - Confusion, Polymorph
(5th level slot) - Geas, Nightmare, Modify Memory
(6th level slot) - Eyebite, Otto's Irresistable Dance
(7th level slot) - Etherealness*, Sequester, Symbol
(8th level slot) - Antipathy**/Sympathy***, Feeblemind, Maze****
(9th level slot) - Imprisonment, Power Word Kill

Obviously these spells need some ruling to make them work well as ongoing curses. Here's my take on things:

* target becomes ethereal -a ghost- for the duration. Does not need food or drink.

** "may you never know love"

*** "may you smell delicious"

**** target still needs food and drink for the duration. Escape checks rolled once per day, not per round. Planar travel spells should also work, or try Banishing yourself to your home plane.

A death spell? You'll wish it was a death spell. Now Otto's Irresistable Dance forever.

Slightly subtler Necromancy

A fireball can cook an enemy platoon, polymorph can turn a bishop into a frog. But only a necromancer can rip out your soul and reanimate your husk to hunt down your friends. Necromancy spells in 5th edition D&D are wicked but vulgar. They are spectacular; they are terrifying; and apart from some of the curses* they are hard to disguise.

* curses: such as blindness/deafness, bestow curse, ray of sickness/enfeeblement, or eyebite.

Use necromancy in front of a crowd and you will be feared, then hunted as an abomination. There has to be more to this school than slinging death spells like a culty loon. Why do subtler people get into death magic and what spells do they learn?

The hand? I don't need the hand. This talisman though... (FeliciaAcano / Deviantart)

I may be trying to inject too much realism into a fantasy game, but if your magic isn't of much mundane use** and cannot be used openly, why study it at all? A necromancer should be subtle if they want to survive. Their spells should make that possible, and better: they should be worth learning even with the taboo on necromancy.  Here are low-key spells*** for the hidden death wizard.

** you can question the daily usability of other arcane schools. Abjuration - how many demons are running around anyway? Evocation - I know that there's a war on, but do we need artillery on daily standby? And so on. At least an evoker can help out by protecting a village from bandits and a diviner can find smugglers for the lord. There's little use for a witch who can raise undead at a whim.

*** consider this post an homage to Goodberry Monthly's excellent post of necromancy spells.

WHAT NECROMANCY CAN BE ABOUT

Death; souls; life force; memories. Necromancy is concerned with what is in the blood or in the bones. Visceral stuff, more than superficial enchantment or transmutation.

A necromancer learns to find the memories locked in the lower soul, the soul that stays with a body. They learn from the dead, call up spirits to advise them, let themselves be partially possessed, splice a foreign soul onto their own to power a graft.

Fine, sometimes a huge zombie is exactly what you need. (Dresden Files / Dead Beat. Awesome.) - DSillustration / Deviantart

JUST GIMME THE SPELLS I NEED THE SPELLS

My Father’s Axe

1st level Necromancy (wizard/warlock)

1 minute to cast, range: touch, components: VSM (the item)

Concentration up to 1 round / level

Binds the spirit of a dead owner to an heirloom tool - an axe, scythe, pen , etc. For the duration, you have proficiency in using the tool or weapon, or advantage if already proficient.

Relaxing your concentration on this spell voluntarily lulls the animating spirit to sleep, recasting wakes it again. Breaking concentration because of damage or a distraction risks the spirit running wild; Wisdom save versus the spell DC, or act without proficiency (or with disadvantage if you didn't have proficiency to begin with). In this case, can only put down the item on a successful save; it stays wild and uncontrolled until the maximum duration lapses.

At higher level: level 2 - duration 1 minute per caster level, level 3 - the item will work for another than yourself, level 4 - duration 10 minutes per caster level, level 5 - duration 1 hour per level and no more concentration required (or chance of the spirit breaking its binding). 

For when you don't dare to bind a spirit to its own corpse or allow yourself to be ridden by it. A utility spell to get temporary proficiency in a tool or weapon. Limited in that you need to find an actual heirloom, useful because it lets you function as a Jack of All Trades, using thieves' tools, a poisoner's kit, a sword and so on. Can double as a curse if you break concentration while someone else is using the item. I'd allow this spell to automatically decypher a code or disable a trap if they had a tool from the creator.

Now you know why necromancers steal grave goods. That cup's owner used to mix some brilliant poisons. Found here.

Bone Memory

2nd level Necromancy (wizard/warlock)

10 minutes to cast, range: self/touch, components: VSM (remains and 50 gp scrimshawed bone piercing)

Concentration up to 10 min / level

Bones remember how they moved in life. You bind someone's lower soul to a piece of their scrimshawed bone and wear it as a piercing. (Actually it just needs to taste your blood once and stay in skin contact.) For the duration of the spell, you can use one Str/Dex/Con skill the deceased knew in life. (Athletics, Acrobatics, Sleight of Hand, Stealth).

At higher level: level 3 - can grant this spell to a willing target (who you need to pierce), level 4 - also gain proficiency in a physical saving throw the deceased had (may be for another ability than the skill is associated with).

Generally useful to have a piece of bone of a famous thief, acrobat or strongman. More specifically, if you have a bone of someone who knew the traps in a hallway, I'd allow this spell to show which trapped tiles and locks to avoid. Good way for the DM to feed information to a party. "The bone anklet sucks in another drop of your blood and nudges you to a painting. Behind it, you find a hidden alcove."

A scrimshaw magnifying glass - smear blood on it and you'll be amazed at what it shows you. From.

Crow's Brew

2nd level Necromancy (wizard/warlock)

1 round to cast, range: touch, components: VSM (a dead person's eye)

Concentration up to 1 round / level

Pluck a corpse's eye and drink it. You can mash and mix the eye with ale or spirits if you like, but you need to consume it entirely. The spell lets you see what the deceased saw right before they died: starting at the moment of death, each round you maintain this spell shows you what happened one round earlier.

At higher level: level 4 - duration becomes 1 minute per caster level, level 5 - 1 hour per level

A lesser version of Speak with Dead - you gain more limited information but without having to haggle with some obnoxious spirit. This is visual only, so try and pick up lip reading.

From

Little Messenger

2nd level Necromancy (wizard/warlock)

10 rounds to cast, range: touch, components: VSM (a tiny dead animal)

1 hour / level

Reanimates a small animal (cat-sized or smaller) as a messenger. Anoint a mostly intact animal corpse with a salve of cow fat and boiled frog meat. The little monstrosity that claws itself back to animation will carry a package up to one inventory slot (a longsword, a couple of potions) to a location or direction you command. Once it reaches its destination or when the spell runs out, the thing escapes your binding and runs amock for 1d10 rounds, then collapses. 

Ok, not subtle but definitely creepy fun. A necromancer's version of Animal Messenger. Frenzied ghoul rabbits in your enemy's bed aside, this allows you to deliver messages and light weight packages. Lasts shorter than Animal Messenger, and doesn't convey your voice, but on the plus side you can have the beastie carry anything up to the weight limit.

Dead mice in your bed? You wish it were mice.

Essential Saltes

3rd level Necromancy (wizard/warlock)

13 hours and 3 rounds to cast, range: touch, components: VSM (a body and 150 gp in lab supplies)

Indefinite duration

“The essential Saltes of Animals may be so prepared and preserved, that an ingenious Man may have the whole Ark of Noah in his own Studie, and raise the fine Shape of an Animal out of its Ashes at his Pleasure; and by the lyke Method from the essential Saltes of humane Dust, a Philosopher may, without any criminal Necromancy, call up the Shape of any dead Ancestour from the Dust whereinto his Bodie has been incinerated.”

–H.P. Lovecraft, The Case of Charles Dexter Ward

You reduce a corpse to its essential saltes to revive them later. The alchemical preparations take 13 hours and 150 gp of supplies (doubled per larger size category) from a well-stocked lab worth 1000 gp (tomes, retorts, foci, astrolabes etc). With this urn of fine blue-grey powder, you can recall the creature to life and return it to dust at any time. The corpse must be whole for the rendering to work (dessicated mummy or skeleton is ok, but a lone skull is not) and can belong to an animal or sentient creature.

Label your urns carefully, because this spell gives no direct control over the reconstituted creature. A magic circle in binding configuration may be used to hedge in the summoned creature and negotiate terms of service. Cthulhufiles has inspiration for set dressing.

As the warning goes:

"I say to you againe, doe not call up Any that you cannot put downe; by the Which I mean, Any that can in Turne call up somewhat against you, whereby your Powerfullest Devices may not be of use. Ask of the Lesser, lest the Greater shall not wish to answer, and shall commande more than you."

Abilities: 

• The creature remembers all that it knew in life but remembers the time since its death only as a vague nightmare. 
• The creature has all statistics and abilities it had in life, but none of its belongings. Any missing body parts or broken bones are reflected as permanent injuries.
• The creature knows spells prepared at the time of death but reconstitutes with all spells slots expended.

Weaknesses:

• The creature reconstitutes suffering from 4 levels of exhaustion, which can only be cured by feeding it blood from a living victim of its own species. Every day of drinking blood cures one level of exhaustion. (Exhaustion level 1: Disadvantage on ability checks - 2: Speed halved - 3: Disability on saves and attacks - 4: hit points halved). Happens even if the creature is normally immune to exhaustion.
• While in sunlight, the creature has disadvantage on Attack rolls and Ability Checks. 
• Is, and can be turned as, an undead. Vulnerable to radiant damage. Has its bodily functions restored: can be poisoned or diseased, needs food and drink. Gods save you if it procreates. 
• Casting the spell's formula in reverse causes the creature horrific pain (half speed and disadvantage on all rolls) and can be used to unbind the magic. Full unbinding costs three rounds; every round, the creature loses 1/3 of its maximum hit points. It dissolves into its essential saltes at the end of the third round of chanting.

The classic, lifted directly from Lovecraft's Case of Charles Dexter Ward. Both more powerful and way more dangerous than Animate Dead. This spell returns a creature to life with its mind intact*. Can be used to interrogate dead sages or to call up some monster and set it loose.

*What went wrong with this resurrection? (d12)

1. Resents you for bringing it back to blood-dependent unlife.
2. Turned sociopathic (chaotic evil) by the trauma.
3. Wants to evade your control over it.
4. Seeks to find and awaken a hidden monstrosity.
5. Inhabited by strange and malevolent spirit, d6+2 HD.
6. Lost its mind. Animalistic, shuns light, hunts victims for blood and sport.
7. Lost many memories.
8. Murderous. Convinced it can reclaim its life by condemning others to the pit.
9. Convinced it is still in hell.
10. Wants to use this second chance at life to save its soul and enter heaven.
11. Obsessed with finding its descendants and rightful belongings.
12. Seems perfectly rational and sane.

Label these. You wouldn't want to mix up the sage and the axe murderer. (etsy)

Untiring Flesh / Awakened Spirit

3rd level Necromancy (wizard/warlock)

1 round to cast, range: self or touch, components: VSM (a talisman crafted from a corpse)

Concentration up to 1 hour

You or the target will need to wear a mummified body part for this spell to work. A Hand of Glory or a minor relic will both work - the latter being infinitely easier to explain away to curious priests. Each talisman corresponds to one ability that can be boosted. Talismans need to be harvested from someone famous for the ability to be boosted (a strongman, a wisewoman, a silvertongued rogue, a sage).

Targets have the boosted ability raised to 18 and make all checks with this ability with advantage. Also:

• Strength - encumbrance 36, triple jump distance
• Dexterity - speed +10, can run across water as long as you start and end your turn on land
• Constitution - +2d6 temporary hit points, and tireless: immune to exhaustion
• Intelligence - hypercognition*: can ask the DM one answer and receive a short but truthful answer (as Divination).
• Wisdom - mindreader*: can cast detect thoughts or tongues
• Charisma - silvertongued*: can cast suggestion

* Using this ability ends the spell for you.

At higher level: add one target OR one hour of duration per spell level over 3rd. New targets will also need to have a dedicated talisman.

A boosted version of Enhance Ability. The spellcasting ability for mental abilities may be a bit powerful. On the other hand, this encourages social interaction rather than hacking, so I'll keep it.

Sure, you could go for one of the classics...

...or make one item with all the bone fetishes you might need.

Skullsight

3rd level Necromancy (wizard/warlock) (edit: originally 4th level, felt like too high)

10 minutes to cast, components: VSM (the skull and 100 gp powdered opal in milk)

Concentration up to 1 min / level, range: prepared skull on this plane

You can see out of the eye sockets of a skull that you personally prepared by casting this spell over it (which expends the 100 gp in powdered opal). Your vision works as if you were present, including factors such as darkness or mist or coverings. The skull can be anywhere on the same plane as you when you cast this spell. While you maintain this spell, your own senses are dulled to the point of uselessness.

At higher level: level 4 - duration becomes 10 min / level, level 5 - can access up to 5 skulls at a time, level 6 - duration becomes 1 hour / level and you can also hear sounds near a skull.

Somewhere between level 3 Clairvoyance (strictly close range) and level 5 Scrying (for which you only need to know your target, or have something that belonged to them).

Yes, very dread. But did you check who sourced all the skulls for your fortress? (From)

Wizards: the Hollow Tree

Gravedigger. Corpse Stealer. Ghoul.

Necromancer.

As a member of the Hollow Tree, you learn arcane secrets of death and the soul. The church of the Authority will hunt you for your practices. But your order is older than the church and knows its rotten secret. One day, the world will know what it lost and the Hollow Tree will blossom again. Until then, this is the most dangerous Wizardly Order to belong to.

By Lotte Teusink

Membership in the Hollow Tree should feel like equal parts mystery sect and unlicensed nuclear operator. Admittance is by sponsorship and secret vote. You maybe know one or two higher members and a handful of fellow apprentices - and that's in the thicker branches of the Tree. Most likely you just know your Master and some scraps of lore. Initiation into the deeper mysteries takes years of earning trust. And for that trust, society will hunt you as an abomination.

Why did you want this, again?

HERITAGE

The Hollow Tree is a loose underground network of death wizards. Most are part of single master-apprentice chains, with some larger cabals bringing members together and sharing knowledge. Members are chosen for brains, subtlety and a relaxed attitude towards what society calls vile heresy.

The Tree teaches how they are the lone survivors of the shining Du'vanku civilization, unfairly laid low by the Creator. How serious you take all this secret history is up to you - maybe you nod along and see it all as a metaphor, maybe you're indignant and want to reclaim your lost heritage.

Meanwhile the Hollow Tree is the world's biggest repository of necromantic knowledge outside the Nightlands. They dabble in all schools, and most of their necromancy is about contacting spirits, reviving old memories, strengthening the soul. These are some of their spells.

Necromancy is like getting into nuclear physics to give medical treatments, and learning about applications for enriched uranium along the way. The player handbook's weaponized necromancy is a terror weapon - it's there, but it's not all that necromancy is about and it's rarely used. The motto of the Tree is to be subtle, grow and spread. A member raising an army of the undead is off the deep end, at best a useful decoy so the real necromancers can slip away.

Maybe you were trained to be that useful idiot.

TEACHINGS

You are taught the truth of things. (Highlight to read.)
Also check out the Church's take on Wizardry.

On the Authority:

• There is one true god, and He is the Authority. There are thousands of minor gods, hunted for power by the Church. The Sleeping Priests of the Olmadicians keep some of them in a coma until they can be properly tamed.
• The Authority created all that is. Hardly. He is a lowly, underqualified bureaucrat who took over when the Creator suicided.
• The Church of the Authority has always existed. It is barely 700 years old. The world, 5.000 years at least. Those are the oldest Du'vanku settlements. The world might be older still.
• Faith in the Authority will get you into heaven. True Heaven was a separate plane. It was destroyed or lost by the Creator when the Du'vanku journeyed to join him there. The Authority's Heaven is a hastily constructed shack on a cloud. It is way too small to house all the souls of the righteous.
• Blasphemy against the Authority will land you in hell. Sin and Hell were invented by the Church to divert the flood of souls that should all be allowed into True Heaven.

Blessed Be the Host of the King of Heaven, a Russian icon from the 1550s

 

On the Du'vanku empire:

• The Du'vanku were arch-blasphemers. These necromancers tried to usurp heaven. More like stable adults who didn't appreciate the Creator imposing his rules on their civilization.
• Their homelands are the Nightlands, filled with blasted unlife. Whose suicide wrecked True Heaven and cursed our ancestral lands again?
• The Authority broke the Du'vanku empire at the day of First Dawn, when he founded our Church and gave us new rules for just behavior. Please. The Authority was starving on a cloud after the Creator suicided. He forced his cult on a broken population to get his daily dose of mana.
• The Authority changed the nature of magic after the Du'vanku rebellion. That is why there are no arcane spells of the 7th Circle or higher. More like these are the spells we need to reach other planes and see the truth with our own eyes. The Authority didn't change anything, the Church just burned the libraries and anyone who knew these spells. But we keep looking... 

On Necromancy:

• Necromancy is a crime against divine and natural law. It's simply the best tool we have to save our souls from Hell.
• Necromancers strive for Undeath, a ceaseless torture of the soul. That's not completely wrong. Undead are a last-resort option we sometimes need to use to protect ourselves from our enemies. Binding a soul to a rotting frame is distasteful and pretty hard to do right. That is why lower order zombies and skeletons are almost mindless. Higher magics exist that make more intelligent undead, but even those aren't all too stable.
• Necromancy spells are a tool of terror, suitable only to curse, kill or raise as a foulness. Lies. There are many spells of the soul that have nothing to do with death or undeath. (Here's some of those spells!)

Last resort, honest. from

DUBIOUS BENEFITS OF BEING IN THE HOLLOW TREE

• Your enemies know many things, but likely not high grade Necromancy. This is good. You know what that shit can do to someone.
• You get to experience the Dark Sun wizard's thrill of having to hide the source of your power or be hunted down. Disguise your wand as a cane, your staff as a scythe or shovel, your crystal sphere as a glass eye.
• You have no formal papers as a wizard, unless you obtained fakes somehow (500 gp debt, monthly 10 gp down payment.) In this case, you can have a job as a wizard - disgraced or even part of another Order - as long as you play the part.
• You have a master (mentor) who sponsored your membership in the Hollow Tree. Every wizard level (including first), they will teach you one Necromancy spell for free. You and your DM will work out this spellbook together.
• Hollow Tree wizards write their spells in Du'van, the speech of the Du'Vanku empire. This is incredibly dangerous: all it takes is one church rat to recognizes the language in your spellbook and the mob will form. 
• As a dubious bonus, you are proficient in History (Du'vanku) and can read, write and speak Du'van. 
• You can whisper your spells so that listeners do not immediately spot that you're speaking Du'van.
• Keeping a decoy spellbook in Elemental is a wise choice - you will need to pay 25 gp per spell level to copy your Du'van spells into Elemental. You always write new spells in Du'van first.
• Necromancy spells were optimized for Du'van and the oath you take when joining the Hollow Tree forbids you to translate them. Make sure your enemies don't get access to this magic.
• Translating Necromancy into Elemental anyway would take twice as much gold as other spells from other schools. You'll still have Necromancy spells in your new Elemental spellbook and recognizably so, now that you've helpfully translated them for the inquisition.
• The Linguist feat lets you build a personal cypher to hide the details of your spellbook. Encrypting spells to prevent them secrets being stolen isn't all that uncommon for wizards.