| erenthia |
So, I've noticed that some variants of the walking dead explicitly mention that they can be created through animate dead and tell you how to do it. Others (such as the Zombie Magus of Skeletal Champion) explicitly say that they cannot be.
Then there's the ones in Classic Horrors revisited that don't say either way. Thing is, since they still don't possess an intelligence score, Command Undead can snap them up at will so it's not like they can't wind up under player control.
Were these skeleton/zombies intended to be unable to be controlled by players? (I'm specifically thinking about the Relentless Zombie, but I'd like to know for all of them). I'm trying to look at this from a RAI perspective, because the RAW are very confusing. "You can *have* them, and you *might* be able to create them but we aren't telling you how."
(semi unrelated side note: any opinions on if you can inflict zombie rot with something like a Limited Wish spell or other means?)