Unliving Rune

Found in desecrated holy texts, an unliving rune is a Tiny construct of negative energy resembling a splotch of darkly glowing ink. The rune can be applied to your skin much like a temporary tattoo, and while attached you can channel negative energy into an attack. On a successful hit with a _melee weapon attack_ you can use your reaction to activate the rune, dealing an additional 1d4 necrotic damage and preventing the target from regaining hit points until the start of your next turn. You can’t do so again until you finish a short or long rest.

The rune feeds on your vitality while attached to your skin. You gain a slightly sickly appearance, and the rune consumes one use of your Hit Dice each dawn. During a _short rest_ , you can peel the rune off your skin, taking 1d6 necrotic damage. The rune can be stored in a book instead of your skin but offers no benefit unless attached to you. When exposed to direct sunlight for a minute or more, the rune is destroyed.

As an action you can place the rune on a humanoid corpse that has died within the last 8 hours. The rune is destroyed as its magic is absorbed by the corpse, animating it as a _zombie_ . When placing the rune, you can feed it a portion of your life force by spending hit points. The zombie obeys your spoken commands and is friendly to you and your companions for 1 round per hit point you spent when placing the rune. At the end of this duration it becomes hostile to all living creatures.

**_Curse._** The unliving rune is _cursed_ and while it is attached to you any senses or divinations that can detect undead incorrectly detect you as undead. If you die while the rune is attached to you, you are reanimated as a _zombie_ after 1d4 rounds.