How does one become undead?

[Milambus]

I would think that between the PHB and AV there would be something like that...

Open Grave comes out in 10 days. You might see a ritual for raising undead in there.

In fact, here you go:
Open Grave Excerpts: Rituals and Artifacts

Undead Servitor

The corpse shudders, then clambers to its feet. At your direction, it shoulders your gear and lumbers after you.

Level: 6
Category: Creation
Time: 1 hour
Duration: Permanent
Component Cost: 150 gp
Market Price: 360 gp
Key Skill: Arcana (no check)

You imbue a humanoid corpse of natural origin and Medium or smaller size with the ability to move under its own power and an understanding of one language of your choice. It has speed 6 and Strength 16, never tires, and obeys you at all times.

The undead servitor is a noncombatant. When forced onto an active battlefield, treat the servitor as an allied minion (1 hit point, never damaged on a missed attack) with all defenses of 11. It acts just after you do and never makes attacks.

You cannot have more than one undead servitor at a time from different performances of this ritual. If you attempt to create a second servitor, that ritual fails without component expenditure.

Probably not exactly what you were looking for, but it should give you an idea of what the ritual would look like. Also remember that you can use a ritual scroll at any level.

 

[DracoSuave]

I always thought the reason they don't print rituals for creating/summoning permanent monsters in the PHB/Other Player Resources was because they wanted -Players- to be the focus, not their monster pets.

The less the Players have to delve into the MM for their characters, the better it is.

 

[Rechan]

I always thought the reason they don't print rituals for creating/summoning permanent monsters in the PHB/Other Player Resources was because they wanted -Players- to be the focus, not their monster pets.

The less the Players have to delve into the MM for their characters, the better it is.

That might be in part, but, we have the Beastmaster Ranger, we have mounts in AV, we have the Invoker who will be doing summoning, etc. So, that's not precisely the case.

 

[Dinkeldog]

Let's stick to the topic here, everyone. No need to wander off into edition war territory. Besides, some people might not be able to respond.