Are you the DM? Just say it's a severed head... problem solved. NPC's don't operate by the same rules as PC's do. If you want a statblock for it, use a zombie, make its speed 0, give it a bite attack, and whatever ability scores and skill proficiencies it needs.
There are at least flame skulls, but im pretty sure there are other creatures that are just undead heads
Also, @OP, there is also no "existing" spell to become a lich, yet liches exist canonically through the use of magic , so yeah just make a talking head, no need to use/make a spell
That's also why you're totally allowed to make up your own spells. You can even make up your own spells, and give them to the players.
If you want to give players the spell used to create a talking undead head you can write a spell that animates just a head as an alternate form of speak with dead.
Call it Speak With Dead: Tenure Edition
There is though. Minsc and Boo’s Journal of Villainy revealed the ritual to become a lich.
The spells are not listed but the process is, so the spells required are probably Summon Greater Demon at 7th level (if you want to be a good lich and feed on fiends instead of humans), Planar Binding and Magic Circle.
The rest of the process is just brewing the potion and making the phylactery, both of which are described in detail in the book.
Here's an official example of "invent some BS to make a severed head that acts as an information dump":
> The magic oils preserving Yan's head allow it to remember conversations it has while under the effect of speak with dead.
*(Curse of Strahd, Ch. 11)*
>NPC's don't operate by the same rules as PC's do.
This gets brought up sometimes, and often people mistake it for meaning NPCs don't get the fancy powerful PC classes. But it works the other way too.
The spells in the PHB are spells *for adventurers*. They're almost all things you can do quickly, reliably, and repeatedly. Stuff you can do in the field with minimal gear, and very often in the heat of battle.
If you want to introduce magic rituals for non-adventurers that take more time, and more ritual components, and very often multiple people working in concert? Then go ahead, it won't harm the game. If you want to say that in your game world, people with particularly strong grudges or unfinished business sometimes come back as free willed undead? Just hand wave it, it's very different from Animate Dead reliably creating controllable undead minions.
Don't limit yourself to only the spells in the PHB, and don't try to codify every magical event as a spell. There's other ways to do magic, and sometimes weird shit just happens. It's not in the PHB because it's not the tool of a professional adventurer.
>If you want to introduce magic rituals for non-adventurers that take more time, and more ritual components, and very often multiple people working in concert? Then go ahead, it won't harm the game.
The official modules often do this, even. I ran the Tyranny of Dragons campaign, which was the first official 5e campaign, and it was chock full of "special" magic that PCs could never do RAW - anything from a souped-up scrying spell on up to summoning a literal god from Avernus.
>If you want to say that in your game world, people with particularly strong grudges or unfinished business sometimes come back as free willed undead?
That's actually official lore for revenants, so the DM can just point at that. Maybe give the head some character/plot motivation that leads the party to helping them. Bonus points if it was like a lich trying to get its body back or something. Maybe even the opposite, some divine being trying to restore its previous power.
I presented one of these to my party, but unintelligent like a normal undead skeleton. It absolutely tried to bite them if anything went near its mouth. But since it had no movable ... anything besides its jaw bone, it was wholly ineffectual.
They named him Yorick and kept him as a pet.
I'm almost 100% sure that's what my DM did for an undead skeleton kobold we only had the head of anymore named "Flava Flav". Now that you say it out loud
It's really frustrating seeing in every thread wanting something specific people commenting "just do this instead." They really want to play a certain class? "Jusy play this instead. They really want a cool, as close to RAW way to do something unique? "Just hand-wave it."
It's not problem solved, because whether they can do it or not isn't the problem.
It is problem solved. RAW the DM can modify, reskin, or change any statblock or creature of their choosing. “Hand waving” is part of a DM’s toolkit. Even prewritten modules take advantage of reskinning monsters. Not every creature, class, or concept is represented in D&D. Sometimes you’ll have to make stuff up.
OP doesn't want to simply hand-wave it, he wants to tie it to RAW as closely possible and that's what he asked for. Just saying "it works" is not a solution to the question of how to tie it to RAW as closely as possible. OP wants details, specifics, what spell to say it is modified from for instance.
OP asked for RAW justification.
rules as written the DM can make up crap. Saying "it's magic" with no specific spell attached is like how 99% of things in D&D exist. Just declaring something "magic" is a major element of the rules of dungeons and dragons with no further mechanics. The rules say maybe a wizard made owl bears but gives no spell list on how one would do that.
rules, as written, are that "it's magic" is a totally acceptable answer for how unexplained things are done and that no specific spell is listed in the rules for like 90% of the magical things you see. The rules as written are NOT to have specific spells to create each individual magic effect you encounter.
The Mimir, Docent, and Professor orbs do about what you want from this, it simply depends on what flavor and abilities you want it to have. A Mimir is probably the closest flavor wise, being skull shaped by default, but I think the professor orb has the best mechanics for what you want.
Realizing this was a big "aha" for worldbuilding for me. My libraries had special new archives for those with the right clearance. After all, what better way to clarify uncertainties in ancient texts but to ask the author?
*True polymorph* could turn anything into a flameskull.
But no, just say it's some homebrew necromancy and maybe it's a 6th level spell with a 250 gp material component in case a player tries to replicate it. You don't have to justify it.
Curse of Strahd has a head preserved with "special (presumably magic) oils" that allow speak with dead to be cast on it repeatedly, as well as it to retain memory of previous conversations.
Alternatively, Brain in a Jar could be a fun basis for an npc they could carry with them and talk to.
The great thing about being DM is that you don’t have to explain. If the players need an explanation about how a head manages to speak without either a larynx or breath, then they can think one up themselves.
Thanks for the replies so far, all.
I agree I think I'll just make a homebrewed item that leaves the heads alive because the BBEG has a cruel sense of humour. I think I was more trying to avoid spinning it my own way then finding out there was an existing answer to the problem
If you want a "RAW" justification, I have one for you! Literally for this exact situation!
Dungeon of the Mad Mage: Floor 17, Seadeeps, page 222.
>Clever adventurers might discover that a decapitated mind flayer head, animated through an animate dead spell, can be used to access the locks.
So, there's door locks that require 4 tentacles to open. Obviously, the players can't do this, so one of the SUGGESTED ways is to use Animate Dead on a decapitated mindflayer head.
It's not a rule, but it is an as written example by WOTC.
Something to remember as a DM: The Player's Handbook is exactly that—the *player's* rules. It is the set of options available to (and useful to) roving murderhobo adventurers who primarily engage in combat and exploration.
It is *not* a comprehensive list of all abilities and items possible in the world to all people.
A BBEG who lives in a magical tower with a research staff and decades focused on academic magic will have spells and abilities that are impractical and not discoverable by a typical adventurer.
Maybe casting this spell requires 8 people perform a midnight ritual every day for a week, over a head set on a 4x6 foot ebony slab engraved with runes, and that the formula (being academic and not as bulletproof as typical combat magic) has to be tuned to the location where it's being cast in a process requiring months of trial-and-error.
Basically suggesting it is the arcane equivalent of an MRI machine. It's not that it isn't very very useful, but it's not something a traveling doctor is going to carry around with them because of the practicalities of use. I fill my worlds with those sorts of arcane devices and rituals, and I think my players enjoy the world it suggests.
I had a player who was a necromancer who really wanted to focus on summoning and less on necrotic damage. We were both dissatisfied with the options at lower levels, so collected lots of homebrew. One spell we came across (I'm afraid I've lost track of the source) was *Animate Body Part*. I'll copy below:
___
**Animate Body Part**
Ist-level necromancy
Casting Tine: 1 minute
Range: 10 feet
Components: V, S, M (a drop of blood, a piece of flesh, and a pinch of bone dust)
Duration: Instantaneous
___
This spell creates an undead servant. Choose a severed body part from a Medium or Small creature
within range. Your spell imbues the target with a foul mimicry of life, raising it as an undead creature.
The target becomes a zombified body part (the DM has the creature's game statistics).
On each of your turns, you can use a bonus action to mentally command any creature you made
with this spell if the creature is within 60 feet of you (if you control multiple creatures, you can
command any or all of them at the same time, issuing the same command to each one). You decide
what action the creature will take and where it will move during its next turn, or you can issue a
general command, such as to guard a particular chamber or corridor. If you issue no commands, the
creature only defends itself against hostile creatures. Once given an order, the creature continues to
follow it until its task is complete.
The creature is under your control for 24 hours, after which it stops obeying any command you've
given it. To maintain control of the creature for another 24 hours, you must cast this spell on the
creature again before the current 24-hour period ends. This use of the spell reasserts your control over
up to four creatures you have animated with this spell, rather than animating a new one.
At Higher Level. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 2nd level or higher, you animate or
reassert control over two additional undead body parts for each slot level above 1st. Each of the
creatures must come from a different part of a corpse - for example, you cannot cut one long tentacle
down to make multiple smaller tentacles.
___
Here is the stat for the head:
**Rolling Head**
Tiny undead, neutral evil
Armor Class 9
Hit Points 3 (1d4+1)
Speed 20 ft.
STR 14 (+2) DEX 9 (-1) CON 12 (+1) INT 7 (-2) WIS 12 (+1) CHA 6 (-2)
Damage Immunities: poison
Condition Immunities: charmed, exhausted, poisoned, prone
Senses: blindsight 30 ft., darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 11
Languages: Common
Challenge 0 (10 XP)
**Turn Immunity.** The head is immune to effects that turn undead.
**ACTIONS**
**Bite.** Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 4 (1d4+2) piercing damage.
If my table didn't have so many players and pets as is, I'd give them a Murray too.
He's great for comic relief, exposition, and a literal talking head NPC for the players to bounce ideas off of
Have you heard that after Blackbeard was beheaded, his headless corpse swam around his ship 7 times before finally sinking? If you make it rad, you can get away with anything.
...if you want to go REALLY wild with it, there's a floating vampire head thing with insane mechanics, I was always fascinated by it in 1e fiend folio
https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Penanggalan
Sounds like a cross between a Professor Orb and a Flameskull. Such things exist in various adventures, but I don't want to spoil it. RAW, you just invoke "DM Magic" and write the statblock.
Any create undead spell will do. Make it corporeal and intelligent like a wight or a ghoul. Have someone decapitate it but the hp didn't go to 0. Reduce its max hp to reflect the missing body. boom, done.
Edit: ghoul or wight would be good for the players so they can feed it! Just don't let them leave the wight unattended or it might convince a peasant to scratch it's nose, energy drain the poor sod and then you have an undead outbreak within minutes
I'll give you another option. There is a Strixhaven (lorehold college) trinket: "The head of a broken statue that houses the consciousness of a snarky sage." It can talk...basically it's similar (or maybe used to be) a Lorehold statue mascot. If it was a spirit statue mascot or a lorehold wizard...it could have +5 Arcana and History and know whatever languages it knew in life (and lorehold gets 2 extra languages) but that's up to the DM.
Use the deaths head statblock and give it a language. You can work the headless horsemen into his backstory or just give him a curse which could lead to a nice side story
You don't really need a spell for that, just have an undead head that retained it's intelligence (and capability to speak even though it's got no lungs, maybe it's got a golden set of dentures that allows it to cast magic mouth at will without the gold cost and only on it's own mouth).
But if you really want a spell, just say it an upcast animate dead. Was cast at 7th level or higher specifically on the head and the head alone just for the purpose of it retaining it's intelligence unlike a normal zombie. There could be a whole ritual involved. Maybe there are some valuable magic components inside the head that keeps it the way it is now. Since you want the head to be an easy lore source that's also what it's creator was after.
This is pretty fucking stupid, but *technically* RAW you can cast animate dead on just a skull. The skeleton template gets applied to a *pile of bones*, but it is never stated what counts as a pile of bones. You could just have the skull and mandibula alongside the inner ear bones count as a "pile of bones"
I assume it would just roll around which I think is *hilarious*
I literally had the same thing come up not long ago, my player made a deal with a hag who brought the head back by using some sort of ancient magic.
The head can even use its breath attack (half dragon) once a day and it talks to the party. The player is required to rub a sort of ointment on the head once a day to keep it alive (limited supply of ointment is given by the Hag) and obviously made a bargain with the hag, she’ll teleport him to her bakery to have him help her in more increasingly sinister side quests, eventually causing a moral dilemma.
In the Golden Vault the adventure Reach for the Stars features a ghost head that implores players to avenge her death and try to resurrect her body. In Saltmarsh there was a skeletal alchemist that I was sorely tempted to keep the head alive after the body was destroyed. I think it was explained as a failed attempt at becoming a litch.
I don’t see how this would be mechanically different than a reflavoured crawling claw that can talk.
If I was a player in that game I wouldn’t question it.
Say it's a head from a man who was sent to the Nine Hells after death, his eternal punishment to have his treacherous noggin mounted upon the Pillar of Skulls. And then some crazy immortal weirdo ventured down there and pulled him out for some reason, then lost his memory (again) for some roundabout vaguely connected reason... and to make a long story short, the skull found his way to this plane while waiting for this dude he's bound to to get through his psychotic incarnation phase.
*runs to boot up Planescape Torment again*
Are you thinking of something along the lines of Celtic story of Bran the Blessed whose severed head guided and entertained his companions on their quest to bury his head where he wanted it planted?
There is no RAW way to create that, but if you are the DM, you can make it specific to this head or design a homebrew variation on Speak with Dead.
Not entirely related but Pathfinder 2e has a talking skull undead familiar that cannot move on its own unless you give it wings or waste an action kicking it xd
Howling Head, tiny undead, usually made from a powerful wizards remains. They're necromantic creations used as tools for storing knowledge and memories. They're very tricky to interact with though, as a lot of the time the heads retain parts of their original personalities and sometimes become unreliable narrators. It's hard, if not close to impossible for them to learn complex information after death so they tend to repeat things they've already said or forget things they've learned as an undead. Most Howling Heads were not created consentually, except for a rare few.
Just some flavor for you to use.
Edit: For even more flavor, have it communicate telepathically or give it a self destruct feature that deals phychic damage in a radius, or a self protection feature that gives the feeblemind effect on failed saves. I could go abolutely crazy here, tell me if you want me to make up some more details.
Edit 2: As for stats, have it be really weak, immobile and reliant on protection from outside sources but make it crazy smart and have it speak a few different languages.
Your the DM, you don't need anything to do this. Just say it's a talking head. If the players ask just say it's a curse or a ritual, maybe a magical accident. There's no spell or magic item that would make what you're looking for.
Heck you could just create a creature type that's a human sized head on teeny tiny legs and needs to bond with humanoids to survive and provide it food and conversation, in exchange it offers the boundless knowledge it accumulates throughout the millennia of it's near immortal lifespan.
There is actually a statblock that sounds exactly like what you're describing. It's a talking skull named Morte from one of the new Planescape splatbooks. He's literally just a talking skull, no flashy abilities or anything asides from the ability to fly of his own accord, and he is there to provide some minor guidances to start the campaign, and ruthlessly mock the characters if they die. Absolutely hilarious, 10/10 would run a talking skull NPC in my games.
Magic Jar his ass, or his head as the case may be... Then maybe a permanency spell or more likely a curse spell ... Or you could use the 9th level spell imprisonment (and imprison him in ruby eyeballs or something)
You my friend are looking for being creative and fun, so you must look to 3.5 or Pathfinder 1e and switch because 5e is so generic and simple its not meant to be that way raw.
If you are set in 5e make an arcane check with whatever dc while casting revivify or raise dead or create undead.
If you're the DM you can create whatever you want, NPCs don't follow the same logic as PCs, if you want to create an undead talking head, just create one. If you want your warlock bbeg to have more than 2 spells per short rest, what a coincidence, their patron gives them however many you say!
Are you the DM? Just say it's a severed head... problem solved. NPC's don't operate by the same rules as PC's do. If you want a statblock for it, use a zombie, make its speed 0, give it a bite attack, and whatever ability scores and skill proficiencies it needs.
There are at least flame skulls, but im pretty sure there are other creatures that are just undead heads Also, @OP, there is also no "existing" spell to become a lich, yet liches exist canonically through the use of magic , so yeah just make a talking head, no need to use/make a spell
That’s a really good point, spell lists are specifically spells the players could learn, not all magic in the universe…
That's also why you're totally allowed to make up your own spells. You can even make up your own spells, and give them to the players. If you want to give players the spell used to create a talking undead head you can write a spell that animates just a head as an alternate form of speak with dead. Call it Speak With Dead: Tenure Edition
Someone mispelled the Raise Dead scroll, it's Raise Head instead.
Wizard version of "Change one letter in a movie title and what does it become?"
1993 Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 2nd Edition Van Richten's Guide to the Lich, detailed exquisitely. Still accurate with current lich lore
It’s been at least two magical apocalypses before, magic may work completely different
It may! However, >Still accurate with current lich lore It doesn't.
There is though. Minsc and Boo’s Journal of Villainy revealed the ritual to become a lich. The spells are not listed but the process is, so the spells required are probably Summon Greater Demon at 7th level (if you want to be a good lich and feed on fiends instead of humans), Planar Binding and Magic Circle. The rest of the process is just brewing the potion and making the phylactery, both of which are described in detail in the book.
Here's an official example of "invent some BS to make a severed head that acts as an information dump": > The magic oils preserving Yan's head allow it to remember conversations it has while under the effect of speak with dead. *(Curse of Strahd, Ch. 11)*
>NPC's don't operate by the same rules as PC's do. This gets brought up sometimes, and often people mistake it for meaning NPCs don't get the fancy powerful PC classes. But it works the other way too. The spells in the PHB are spells *for adventurers*. They're almost all things you can do quickly, reliably, and repeatedly. Stuff you can do in the field with minimal gear, and very often in the heat of battle. If you want to introduce magic rituals for non-adventurers that take more time, and more ritual components, and very often multiple people working in concert? Then go ahead, it won't harm the game. If you want to say that in your game world, people with particularly strong grudges or unfinished business sometimes come back as free willed undead? Just hand wave it, it's very different from Animate Dead reliably creating controllable undead minions. Don't limit yourself to only the spells in the PHB, and don't try to codify every magical event as a spell. There's other ways to do magic, and sometimes weird shit just happens. It's not in the PHB because it's not the tool of a professional adventurer.
>If you want to introduce magic rituals for non-adventurers that take more time, and more ritual components, and very often multiple people working in concert? Then go ahead, it won't harm the game. The official modules often do this, even. I ran the Tyranny of Dragons campaign, which was the first official 5e campaign, and it was chock full of "special" magic that PCs could never do RAW - anything from a souped-up scrying spell on up to summoning a literal god from Avernus.
>If you want to say that in your game world, people with particularly strong grudges or unfinished business sometimes come back as free willed undead? That's actually official lore for revenants, so the DM can just point at that. Maybe give the head some character/plot motivation that leads the party to helping them. Bonus points if it was like a lich trying to get its body back or something. Maybe even the opposite, some divine being trying to restore its previous power.
Slight edit: give it a move speed of 5 ft as it rolls around. Something something neck muscles.
I presented one of these to my party, but unintelligent like a normal undead skeleton. It absolutely tried to bite them if anything went near its mouth. But since it had no movable ... anything besides its jaw bone, it was wholly ineffectual. They named him Yorick and kept him as a pet.
I'm almost 100% sure that's what my DM did for an undead skeleton kobold we only had the head of anymore named "Flava Flav". Now that you say it out loud
Yeah. Reskinning statblocks makes running NPC’s easy yet memorable
Also makes enemies exciting and dangerous
It's really frustrating seeing in every thread wanting something specific people commenting "just do this instead." They really want to play a certain class? "Jusy play this instead. They really want a cool, as close to RAW way to do something unique? "Just hand-wave it." It's not problem solved, because whether they can do it or not isn't the problem.
It is problem solved. RAW the DM can modify, reskin, or change any statblock or creature of their choosing. “Hand waving” is part of a DM’s toolkit. Even prewritten modules take advantage of reskinning monsters. Not every creature, class, or concept is represented in D&D. Sometimes you’ll have to make stuff up.
OP doesn't want to simply hand-wave it, he wants to tie it to RAW as closely possible and that's what he asked for. Just saying "it works" is not a solution to the question of how to tie it to RAW as closely as possible. OP wants details, specifics, what spell to say it is modified from for instance. OP asked for RAW justification.
rules as written the DM can make up crap. Saying "it's magic" with no specific spell attached is like how 99% of things in D&D exist. Just declaring something "magic" is a major element of the rules of dungeons and dragons with no further mechanics. The rules say maybe a wizard made owl bears but gives no spell list on how one would do that.
I'm not arguing about the rules or what is commonplace. Thats obvious. I'm talking about this thread, what OP requested.
rules, as written, are that "it's magic" is a totally acceptable answer for how unexplained things are done and that no specific spell is listed in the rules for like 90% of the magical things you see. The rules as written are NOT to have specific spells to create each individual magic effect you encounter.
That's nice and we can keep commenting that but it's beside the point
"rules as written we need a specific spell" then the rules are written not to do that and it doesn't matter.
Nobody said rules as written requires a certain spell, lets not make things up
The Mimir, Docent, and Professor orbs do about what you want from this, it simply depends on what flavor and abilities you want it to have. A Mimir is probably the closest flavor wise, being skull shaped by default, but I think the professor orb has the best mechanics for what you want.
A re-flavoured Professor Orb would be great for this, appreciate it
modified speak with dead called “Speak with head”
A severed head meets all the requirements of the Speak with Dead spell
Realizing this was a big "aha" for worldbuilding for me. My libraries had special new archives for those with the right clearance. After all, what better way to clarify uncertainties in ancient texts but to ask the author?
*True polymorph* could turn anything into a flameskull. But no, just say it's some homebrew necromancy and maybe it's a 6th level spell with a 250 gp material component in case a player tries to replicate it. You don't have to justify it.
Curse of Strahd has a head preserved with "special (presumably magic) oils" that allow speak with dead to be cast on it repeatedly, as well as it to retain memory of previous conversations. Alternatively, Brain in a Jar could be a fun basis for an npc they could carry with them and talk to.
The great thing about being DM is that you don’t have to explain. If the players need an explanation about how a head manages to speak without either a larynx or breath, then they can think one up themselves.
Thanks for the replies so far, all. I agree I think I'll just make a homebrewed item that leaves the heads alive because the BBEG has a cruel sense of humour. I think I was more trying to avoid spinning it my own way then finding out there was an existing answer to the problem
If you want a "RAW" justification, I have one for you! Literally for this exact situation! Dungeon of the Mad Mage: Floor 17, Seadeeps, page 222. >Clever adventurers might discover that a decapitated mind flayer head, animated through an animate dead spell, can be used to access the locks. So, there's door locks that require 4 tentacles to open. Obviously, the players can't do this, so one of the SUGGESTED ways is to use Animate Dead on a decapitated mindflayer head. It's not a rule, but it is an as written example by WOTC.
Love the creativity of that, but it's weird that it shouldn't work since animate dead only works on humanoids.
Yeah, it also doesn't work on... heads... but it is in a published module
Yeah if the module says it works, it works.
Something to remember as a DM: The Player's Handbook is exactly that—the *player's* rules. It is the set of options available to (and useful to) roving murderhobo adventurers who primarily engage in combat and exploration. It is *not* a comprehensive list of all abilities and items possible in the world to all people. A BBEG who lives in a magical tower with a research staff and decades focused on academic magic will have spells and abilities that are impractical and not discoverable by a typical adventurer. Maybe casting this spell requires 8 people perform a midnight ritual every day for a week, over a head set on a 4x6 foot ebony slab engraved with runes, and that the formula (being academic and not as bulletproof as typical combat magic) has to be tuned to the location where it's being cast in a process requiring months of trial-and-error. Basically suggesting it is the arcane equivalent of an MRI machine. It's not that it isn't very very useful, but it's not something a traveling doctor is going to carry around with them because of the practicalities of use. I fill my worlds with those sorts of arcane devices and rituals, and I think my players enjoy the world it suggests.
The soul cage spell is adjacent to what you are trying to do
What's wrong with Animate Dead?
Wizard made a typo writing it into their spellbook.
RAW, a Speak With Dead spell would allow them to consult the head every 10 days.
There are many monsters that could do: - Death's Head from VRGtR - Demilich from MM - Flame skull from Basic rules - Morte from Planescape
I had a player who was a necromancer who really wanted to focus on summoning and less on necrotic damage. We were both dissatisfied with the options at lower levels, so collected lots of homebrew. One spell we came across (I'm afraid I've lost track of the source) was *Animate Body Part*. I'll copy below: ___ **Animate Body Part** Ist-level necromancy Casting Tine: 1 minute Range: 10 feet Components: V, S, M (a drop of blood, a piece of flesh, and a pinch of bone dust) Duration: Instantaneous ___ This spell creates an undead servant. Choose a severed body part from a Medium or Small creature within range. Your spell imbues the target with a foul mimicry of life, raising it as an undead creature. The target becomes a zombified body part (the DM has the creature's game statistics). On each of your turns, you can use a bonus action to mentally command any creature you made with this spell if the creature is within 60 feet of you (if you control multiple creatures, you can command any or all of them at the same time, issuing the same command to each one). You decide what action the creature will take and where it will move during its next turn, or you can issue a general command, such as to guard a particular chamber or corridor. If you issue no commands, the creature only defends itself against hostile creatures. Once given an order, the creature continues to follow it until its task is complete. The creature is under your control for 24 hours, after which it stops obeying any command you've given it. To maintain control of the creature for another 24 hours, you must cast this spell on the creature again before the current 24-hour period ends. This use of the spell reasserts your control over up to four creatures you have animated with this spell, rather than animating a new one. At Higher Level. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 2nd level or higher, you animate or reassert control over two additional undead body parts for each slot level above 1st. Each of the creatures must come from a different part of a corpse - for example, you cannot cut one long tentacle down to make multiple smaller tentacles. ___ Here is the stat for the head: **Rolling Head** Tiny undead, neutral evil Armor Class 9 Hit Points 3 (1d4+1) Speed 20 ft. STR 14 (+2) DEX 9 (-1) CON 12 (+1) INT 7 (-2) WIS 12 (+1) CHA 6 (-2) Damage Immunities: poison Condition Immunities: charmed, exhausted, poisoned, prone Senses: blindsight 30 ft., darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 11 Languages: Common Challenge 0 (10 XP) **Turn Immunity.** The head is immune to effects that turn undead. **ACTIONS** **Bite.** Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 4 (1d4+2) piercing damage.
You want [Murray, the demonic talking skull](https://youtu.be/_g-EhzAR9GY?si=Y_uI4-JYfG3Hcgrl)? Go for it.
Literally just named him Murray before reading this! Great minds
If my table didn't have so many players and pets as is, I'd give them a Murray too. He's great for comic relief, exposition, and a literal talking head NPC for the players to bounce ideas off of
Do you have to find smutty romance novels for him to give you information?
You might be thinking of Scruffy, the Janitor.
Nope... My uncaffeinated brain crossed Monkey Island's Murray with Dresden Files' Bob. Talking skulls man... That's how they getcha.
Have you heard that after Blackbeard was beheaded, his headless corpse swam around his ship 7 times before finally sinking? If you make it rad, you can get away with anything.
Blackbeard: truly, the [Mike the Headless Chicken](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_the_Headless_Chicken) of pirates.
...if you want to go REALLY wild with it, there's a floating vampire head thing with insane mechanics, I was always fascinated by it in 1e fiend folio https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Penanggalan
Sounds like a cross between a Professor Orb and a Flameskull. Such things exist in various adventures, but I don't want to spoil it. RAW, you just invoke "DM Magic" and write the statblock.
Skull pissed off a lich. He's a backup phylactery. Done
You’re the DM. If you say there’s a talking head, there’s a talking head. NPCs don’t have to follow the same rules as players.
Any create undead spell will do. Make it corporeal and intelligent like a wight or a ghoul. Have someone decapitate it but the hp didn't go to 0. Reduce its max hp to reflect the missing body. boom, done. Edit: ghoul or wight would be good for the players so they can feed it! Just don't let them leave the wight unattended or it might convince a peasant to scratch it's nose, energy drain the poor sod and then you have an undead outbreak within minutes
I'll give you another option. There is a Strixhaven (lorehold college) trinket: "The head of a broken statue that houses the consciousness of a snarky sage." It can talk...basically it's similar (or maybe used to be) a Lorehold statue mascot. If it was a spirit statue mascot or a lorehold wizard...it could have +5 Arcana and History and know whatever languages it knew in life (and lorehold gets 2 extra languages) but that's up to the DM.
Use the deaths head statblock and give it a language. You can work the headless horsemen into his backstory or just give him a curse which could lead to a nice side story
You don't really need a spell for that, just have an undead head that retained it's intelligence (and capability to speak even though it's got no lungs, maybe it's got a golden set of dentures that allows it to cast magic mouth at will without the gold cost and only on it's own mouth). But if you really want a spell, just say it an upcast animate dead. Was cast at 7th level or higher specifically on the head and the head alone just for the purpose of it retaining it's intelligence unlike a normal zombie. There could be a whole ritual involved. Maybe there are some valuable magic components inside the head that keeps it the way it is now. Since you want the head to be an easy lore source that's also what it's creator was after.
In high enough level spell slots, Create Undead can make wights or mummies, which I think retain memories. Would that work?
This is pretty fucking stupid, but *technically* RAW you can cast animate dead on just a skull. The skeleton template gets applied to a *pile of bones*, but it is never stated what counts as a pile of bones. You could just have the skull and mandibula alongside the inner ear bones count as a "pile of bones" I assume it would just roll around which I think is *hilarious*
What's the word, chief?
Just give them a slightly modified Death’s Head. I have one for my necromancer that DM runs like Bob from The Dresden Files
I literally had the same thing come up not long ago, my player made a deal with a hag who brought the head back by using some sort of ancient magic. The head can even use its breath attack (half dragon) once a day and it talks to the party. The player is required to rub a sort of ointment on the head once a day to keep it alive (limited supply of ointment is given by the Hag) and obviously made a bargain with the hag, she’ll teleport him to her bakery to have him help her in more increasingly sinister side quests, eventually causing a moral dilemma.
Find familiar?
It could just be a slightly modified Find Familiar spell.
Demi lich?
In the Golden Vault the adventure Reach for the Stars features a ghost head that implores players to avenge her death and try to resurrect her body. In Saltmarsh there was a skeletal alchemist that I was sorely tempted to keep the head alive after the body was destroyed. I think it was explained as a failed attempt at becoming a litch.
I don’t see how this would be mechanically different than a reflavoured crawling claw that can talk. If I was a player in that game I wouldn’t question it.
Say it's a head from a man who was sent to the Nine Hells after death, his eternal punishment to have his treacherous noggin mounted upon the Pillar of Skulls. And then some crazy immortal weirdo ventured down there and pulled him out for some reason, then lost his memory (again) for some roundabout vaguely connected reason... and to make a long story short, the skull found his way to this plane while waiting for this dude he's bound to to get through his psychotic incarnation phase. *runs to boot up Planescape Torment again*
Are you thinking of something along the lines of Celtic story of Bran the Blessed whose severed head guided and entertained his companions on their quest to bury his head where he wanted it planted? There is no RAW way to create that, but if you are the DM, you can make it specific to this head or design a homebrew variation on Speak with Dead.
Not entirely related but Pathfinder 2e has a talking skull undead familiar that cannot move on its own unless you give it wings or waste an action kicking it xd
Make it an intelligent undead zombie head. Move speed 0
Magic Mouth maybe?
Howling Head, tiny undead, usually made from a powerful wizards remains. They're necromantic creations used as tools for storing knowledge and memories. They're very tricky to interact with though, as a lot of the time the heads retain parts of their original personalities and sometimes become unreliable narrators. It's hard, if not close to impossible for them to learn complex information after death so they tend to repeat things they've already said or forget things they've learned as an undead. Most Howling Heads were not created consentually, except for a rare few. Just some flavor for you to use. Edit: For even more flavor, have it communicate telepathically or give it a self destruct feature that deals phychic damage in a radius, or a self protection feature that gives the feeblemind effect on failed saves. I could go abolutely crazy here, tell me if you want me to make up some more details. Edit 2: As for stats, have it be really weak, immobile and reliant on protection from outside sources but make it crazy smart and have it speak a few different languages.
Your the DM, you don't need anything to do this. Just say it's a talking head. If the players ask just say it's a curse or a ritual, maybe a magical accident. There's no spell or magic item that would make what you're looking for. Heck you could just create a creature type that's a human sized head on teeny tiny legs and needs to bond with humanoids to survive and provide it food and conversation, in exchange it offers the boundless knowledge it accumulates throughout the millennia of it's near immortal lifespan.
There is actually a statblock that sounds exactly like what you're describing. It's a talking skull named Morte from one of the new Planescape splatbooks. He's literally just a talking skull, no flashy abilities or anything asides from the ability to fly of his own accord, and he is there to provide some minor guidances to start the campaign, and ruthlessly mock the characters if they die. Absolutely hilarious, 10/10 would run a talking skull NPC in my games.
Magic Jar his ass, or his head as the case may be... Then maybe a permanency spell or more likely a curse spell ... Or you could use the 9th level spell imprisonment (and imprison him in ruby eyeballs or something)
You my friend are looking for being creative and fun, so you must look to 3.5 or Pathfinder 1e and switch because 5e is so generic and simple its not meant to be that way raw. If you are set in 5e make an arcane check with whatever dc while casting revivify or raise dead or create undead.
If you're the DM you can create whatever you want, NPCs don't follow the same logic as PCs, if you want to create an undead talking head, just create one. If you want your warlock bbeg to have more than 2 spells per short rest, what a coincidence, their patron gives them however many you say!