Necromancers have long sought to be able to create lephurtae, but the art is extremely difficult. Gathering the appropriate bones (skull of a horse, crocodillian, or dragon; bladed bones for the arms; skeletal wings) can be challenging, but the power to make them turn into a lephurtae requires either the necromancer's own soul (which they are loathe to give up for such as a lephurta) or 12 souls of either elves or akhs, which must be gathered by murdering them with the bone blades and using any necromantic art to capture the soul. The bones must be arranged into the appropriate shape, bound together by freshly gathered tendons and muscles, and the souls infused into the skeleton. To infuse the souls, the necromancer must murder one final victim as the heart of the lephurta, usually a smaller victim in order to fit it inside the rib cage.

It is much easier to summon lephurtae. A circle of necromantic energies, three souls from freshly murdered victims, and the bones of a freshly stolen corpse, one stolen before any religious rite has been practiced over it. But not one murdered by the necromancer. It must have died by natural causes, accident, or illness not inflicted intentionally. Once summoned, the lephurta can be controlled if the necromancer's will is greater than the lephurta's, and if the necromancer has a mortal heart burning in a censer made of griseomy. If the necromancer prefers to capture the lephurta, they must surround the summoning circle with a spiral of blood from their own veins.

Once captured, they can draw power from the lephurta, if they can best its will, by touching the spirals of blood.