Create direguard

Create direguard was a divine magic spell available to clerics of Cyric, Prince of Madness. It animated a direguard out of an intact skeleton. Other ways of creating a direguard were discovered, but this spell was specific to Cyric and a jealously guarded secret.

Effects
This spell took one minute to cast and the cleric had to touch the skeleton that was to be animated. Upon completion, flames of red ignited in the skeleton's eye sockets and the direguard rose ready to attack, wearing armor that was shadowy black but with the bones visible through it.

Components
In addition to verbal and somatic components, this spell required an intact skeleton of approximately human size or smaller, and 20 drops of blood from a true dragon.

History
This spell was an improved version of the create baneguard spell used by priests of Bane, the Black Hand. Eventually other evil faiths learned this spell or a variant of it, and it was often called just create undead, although the caster who wanted to create a direguard had to be more experienced than a caster that could just learn create baneguard.