I'm rolling a character for an evil campaign I'm about to join and while researching potential concepts, I stumbled across Bodhi's guide to the antipaladin. I read his Dread Lord role and was really taken with the idea of playing an evil knight hellbent on raising his very own kingdom of undead to rule.
Over the last few days I've been assembling the character and so far I've got a human black-blooded oracle of nature 1/antipaladin (Lord of Darkness 3rd party variant) 7 and it's looking pretty good. I recently realized, however, that I don't get the ability to cast 3rd level spells, specifically Animate Dead which is the keystone ability of the build, until 10th level. I was wondering if anyone could recommend any tactics I could implement to start obtaining my army of undead to begin realizing my concept, until I can get to 10th level and Animate Dead.
I'll be honest, I've been a bit demoralized on the idea if I have to wait two more levels before I can start acting on my ambitions. Any help would be appreciated, thanks.