Evil Within (3.5e Spell)

You flood the target with negative energy, sinking it deep into his very bones and awakening it to cruel unlife, before the actual creature has even perished. The subject must make a Fortitude save, or die horribly as its own skeleton crawls out of its body, becoming an animated skeleton of appropriate size, shape, and HD as if you had animated the creature as a skeleton (this spell ignores the HD limit of animate dead, a creature of any HD may be turned into a skeleton in this way). It follows your commands and lasts for the duration of the spell, before falling apart into a useless pile of rubble. You can’t create more HD of undead than twice your caster level with a single casting of Evil Within. (The desecrate spell doubles this limit).

Even if the target succeeds on their saving throw, each subsequent round for the duration of the spell, they must make a Will save or lose control over their physical actions for 1 round. The victim may take purely mental actions, as their body is puppeted around by the skeleton inside. Each round, they may make a new Will save to see if their body falls under the control of the skeleton, or if the victim is dominant, acting otherwise like a dominate monster spell. This control can be dispelled by any effect which removes curses.

If one uses a material component within the spell, the skeleton created by this spell does not disintergrate at the end of the spells duration, but instead is permenantly under the caster's control. No matter how many times you use this spell (or similar spells), you can control only 4 HD worth of undead creatures per caster level. If you exceed this number, all the newly created creatures fall under your control, and any excess undead from previous castings become uncontrolled. (You choose which creatures are released.) If you are a cleric, any undead you might command by virtue of your power to command or rebuke undead do not count toward the limit.

Material Component: You sacrifice black onyx gem worth at least 25 gp per Hit Die of the creature you intend to animate into a skeleton. The magic of the spell turns these gems into worthless, burned-out dust.