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Skulks have the Fallible Invisibility trait, which makes them invisible under most conditions.

RAW, do their corpses become visible upon death?

The animate dead spell states:

The target becomes a skeleton if you chose bones or a zombie if you chose a corpse (the DM has the creature's game statistics).

Is there anything stopping a beneficent and cool DM from ruling that a dead skulk that has been raised as undead using animate dead retains this invisibility?

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    \$\begingroup\$ "Is there anything stopping a beneficent and cool DM from ..." ... In general, in D&D 5th, the only thing that can stop DM from doing something in a gaming group is, if the players leave so there's no more group... So maybe refine that part a bit. \$\endgroup\$ Mar 31, 2021 at 8:20

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Looking at RAW, no and maybe

To answer the first question:

I'm working under the assumption you're not asking about summoned skulks - because summoned skulks don't leave corpses in our plane, but rather they're returned to the Shadowfell upon death (as stated in Mordekainen's Tome of Foes, page 227):

A summoned skulk can't return to the Shadowfell until it dies

The text for a skulk says:

They are so devoid of identity that they have become permanently invisible.

If the lack of identity was the key factor here, any summoned skulk would become visible automatically because they'd get a portion of the summoner's identity. So, aside from the 3 ways to circumvent it, I'd rule the skulk's corpse is still invisible.

Now onto your second question: animate dead says:

Choose a pile of bones or a corpse of a Medium or Small humanoid within range.

The first problem, if we go with the above that the skulk's corpse is invisible, is how would you choose an invisible corpse? You'd have to use one of the 3 ways to circumvent the invisibility to even cast the spell on it.

Secondly, based on RAW and this answer the raised creature takes on the statistics of a skeleton or a zombie, so it would lose the invisibility to gain the abilities of a zombie.

If the DM wishes to retain the invisibility it would have to be a different template than a basic zombie or skeleton, and increases the challenge rating of such a creature. One suggestion would be to replace other zombie or skeleton abilities, or weaken the raised create further, if the goal is to retain the invisibility.

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    \$\begingroup\$ Animate dead doesn't say "choose ... a corpse you can see ...". RAW there's no reason a player can't choose an invisible corpse. \$\endgroup\$ Mar 31, 2021 at 11:57
  • \$\begingroup\$ @dbx Correct it says choose a corpse within range, so imo you'd need a way to know the corpse is there. That's why I mention the option to circumvent the invisibility of the corpse, since the caster might not be the one who kills the skulk, right? \$\endgroup\$ Mar 31, 2021 at 13:49

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