Magical Items
Necromancers and death priests have an awesome arsenal of magical items at their disposal. In the DMG, all varieties of enchanted daggers (particularly the dagger of venom), darts of homing, swords of wounding, life stealing, and the planes would be ideal weapons for such characters; the axe of hurling is a favorite among high priests of the Murder Goddess. Necromancers would also collect or manufacture scrolls of protection from poison, possession, and undead, rings of wizardry, staves of the magi or power, wands of illumination, conjuration or paralyzation, amulets of life protection or versus undead, and mirrors of life trapping. Death priests seek similar items (providing they are usable by clerics), including rods of resurrection, staves of curing, the serpent, swarming insects, and withering, and the phylactery of long years.
The Tome of Magic also contains a number of magical items that are particularly appropriate to necromancers or death priests: powder of coagulation, the ring of necromantic resistance, bag of bones, claw of magic stealing, jar of preserving, school caps of necromancy, and the tapestry of disease warding.
Undead Masters, Philosophers, and other necromancers who favor conjuration and summonings may own or create rings of djinni summoning, efreeti bottles, and other elemental-summoning devices (bowls, censers, stones, and so on). Many of these items can be modified to work on the evil denizens of the Lower Planes as well, containing one or more imprisoned fiends who are bound to serve the owner of the device. Other items that merely summon a fiend from the nether regions may require some form of sacrifice in order to appease the creature and secure its willing service for some period of time. Note that elemental or fiendish prisons will usually be enchanted with protections for the user; summoning devices, on the other hand, may not be fitted with such amenities and (at the very least) will require the wise user to be warded in a circle of protection from evil.
Many necromantic items are strongly tied to the practice of the Black Arts and, as such, are only appropriate for evil characters. These items may still function if wielded by good PCs, but they usually bring some form of curse on the user (see Chapter Three). A dagger of venom, for instance, may slip in battle and strike an ally (or even the user). All of the dangers associated with criminal necromancy apply to magical items as well as spells. Items created for use by members of a specific religious cult may simply fail to operate when used by a member of a different faith.
The DM is the final arbiter in terms of what items are appropriate for PCs in a particular campaign. He or she must ultimately decide what baneful side-effects and curses (if any) will befall adventurers who rely upon necromantic devices far beyond their understanding and formal magical training. For the remainder of this section, we present a number of new magical items that are appropriate for necromancers, death priests, and other practitioners of ancient and forbidden magic (although they may occasionally be used by any unscrupulous sort of character).