The Amulet of the Dead was created by a wizard named Vothra many years ago. Vothra made many specialty items with the arcane knowledge he had obtained over decades of study. When Vothra died he left all of his magical wealth in several tombs so no one person could ever get all of it. He also cursed each tomb so that any thief could only enjoy their bounty for a short time.

   The amulet was placed in an underwater vault near the hamlet of Derelorn. Twenty years ago a group of adventures happened upon the tomb by accident while exploring the caves. They were in there looking for a hidden orc camp, instead they found the vault. They retrieved the amulet and collapsed the vault so humanoids could not use it.

   The curse took affect on the group's wizard that owned the amulet taken from the tomb. The wizard died within 2 weeks and became an uncontrolled Himbda. Needless to say his friends had to destroy the creature and sold the amulet to avoid its gaining more of its curse. its been passed on from owner to owner ever since. Mysteriously each owner has met a fatal end after a few years.

Abilities: the amulet is made of 3 separate parts, left, right, and the gem stone. Each have their own powers and when put all together create a 4th power. It is made from an unkown smooth stone with a quartz like gem in its center.

   The left side of the amulet allows the casting of one improved animate dead spell like ability once per week. creatures raised by this power are +1 hit dice, +1 melee, +1 damage and suffer no initiative penalty (zombies)

   The right side of the amulet allows a true necromancer to control triple his normal amount of undead as under the animate dead spell.

   The gem protects the wearer from undead, they must make a will power save (DC 27, death magic 2E) in order to attack the wearer.

   When all the parts are placed together they give its wearer the ability to turn in to a shadow MM 161 3E of their own level. This effect lasts 1 hour per day and the wearer but the wearer can be turned.