system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
[General] How many undead "things" can result from a single person/being?

For example, a lich binds their soul to their phylactery, which is the source of their power, and their body is still around, which means that the body can't become a skeleton and the soul can't become a ghost. But if a normal person dies, can their ghost leave and haunt somewhere, before a necromancer turns up and reanimates their body to make a skeleton or zombie? What's the most optimal solution for an aspiring necromancer?
gpt
>can their ghost leave and haunt somewhere, before a necromancer turns up and reanimates their body to make a skeleton or zombie?

Depends on the quality of servant you want.

 The best ones are made by enslaving the soul and forcing it back into it's former body. Then you have an actual mind piloting the body, which is great. 

 But if you want to go for a cheap army you can also just animate the bodies with nothing but pure magic. Focus on the sympathetic connection to the already departed soul and empower it with magic. The result will be a *very* pale imitation of a soul, only able to repeat actions the body already did in life.

You can also use dead bodies to craft golems of course. The harvested components are usually more conductive to magic than inorganic substances ,better at imitating life and so far less clunky. Flesh Golems, Bone Golems, stitched together abominations, that sort of thing. Magical robots piloted by a crude magical A.I.

When it comes to that the body is nothing but a resource. You can use it to craft a thousand tiny golems or one big one.


So all in all I'd say if you go for pure quantity, you enslave the soul to get a wraith or ghost or some such, sympathetically empower the skeleton to get a zombie and use the flesh and organs to make a horde of very tiny flesh golems.

Good luck and have fun spreading dread and terror across the lands and all that.