I’ve been making an artifact with the random properties table in the DMG, I rolled 18 on the major detrimental properties and now the item contains a “bodiless life force that is hostile towards you” the item was already planned to have been belonging to someone who was partly entrapped in the item so it works really well thematically. However the process through which they were trapped was not through death but rather magical soul extraction, and beyond that the life force belongs to a neutrally aligned Humanoid.
The table in the DMG suggests if they possess the user of the artifact they can be banished with dismiss evil and good, but i do not think any part of the spell’s description covers a soul which has not died. I also tried looking at the Magic Jar spell for any precedent in this matter but apart from people discussing Magic Jar and stating: (which I cannot find in the spell’s description at all) “According to the magic jar spell, only sentient undead have (or are) souls.” But even with that as possible clarification, it still only states sentient undead can be a soul, and not whether all disembodied souls are undead.
My question is, If the soul of a living being is removed from their still living body via magical means and not death, eg. Magic Jar, does their creature type then become “undead” just by being a discorporated soul? And if that’s the case, what is the CR of their soul, and can a Magic Jar soul or other magically extracted soul that is possessing a creature be banished by turn undead or spells which banish undead?
I feel like this distinction is important, especially for others who might roll this detriment, as by default it is on an artifact, which often cannot be effected by things like anti-magic fields, which might work against something like Magic Jar possession.
Edit- the soul being still living and not undead answered. Now more interested in the specificity of the method of dismissal for the possession in the Major Detrimental Property table in the DMG if the bodiless life force is not that of a good or evil celestial, elemental, fey, fiend, or undead.
My question is, If the soul of a living being is removed from their still living body via magical means and not death, eg. Magic Jar, does their creature type then become “undead” just by being a discorporated soul?
No.
And if that’s the case, what is the CR of their soul, and can a Magic Jar soul or other magically extracted soul that is possessing a creature be banished by turn undead or spells which banish undead?
1) CR -, like anything else with an undefined CR - that is, it hasn't got one, so it can't meet any CR-based criteria. 2) No, anything that specifically targets undead won't work on it in general unless it happens to be undead. It's possible for the artifact to have a special rule on it responding to anything, though, including turn undead. You seem to be the DM, so you could declare that the artifact is particularly vulnerable to turn undead.
Undead are once-living creatures brought to a horrifying state of undeath through the practice of necromantic magic or some unholy curse. Undead include walking corpses, such as vampires and zombies, as well as bodiless spirits, such as ghosts and specters.
So undead by default are creatures that may be 1) animated or otherwise still moving corpses, or 2) bodiless spirits. While the fact that bodiless spirits count as undead might seem like your instance would count, I think the real question here is "is this thing a creature"? I'd say no, because it doesn't have a statblock or the means to generate one. You could change this by making one for the spirit or tying the spirit to an existing one, and I'd say it would then qualify as undead regardless of the means of its extraction. But that is part of the homebrewing process and isn't necessarily part of the random table item from the DMG.
Regarding the interaction with Dismiss Evil and Good, note that it is fairly common for special "one off" effects to interact with spells in ways not in the spell's description (see the very many effects that only Wish can undo, the effects of Disintegrate on Wall of Force, and the special afflictions that remove curse, greater restoration, etc work on). These are considered specific exceptions to the general spell rule.
Functionally speaking, D&D essentially operates on a principle of duality, where the "Soul" represents your immaterial, conscious being.
The soul and body of a living being are collectively whatever type the creature itself is. Thus, a soul taken from a Humanoid is a "Humanoid soul".
From the spell description:
If the container is destroyed or the spell ends, your soul immediately returns to your body. If your body is more than 100 feet away from you, or if your body is dead when you attempt to return to it, you die. If another creature's soul is in the container when it is destroyed, the creature's soul returns to its body if the body is alive and within 100 feet. Otherwise, that creature dies.
This essentially means that a the soul of a living creature can not exist without a body. While it is trapped within the Magic Jar, the Jar itself satisfies the body requirement, but if the jar breaks, the soul must immediately bond to another vessel, or it dies. The Magic Jar essentially hold a living creature in stasis as a living creature.
Thank you, and everyone with the input on the state of the soul, that is for the most part what I thought so just good to have that clarified.
More specifically for the possession the table however, it says “you become an NPC under the DM’s control until the intruding life force is banished using magic such as the dispel evil and good spell” it’s not quite as cut and dry of a special interaction as “only with a wish spell” than it is more of a suggestion of a magical method of dismissal. I know that as a DM I could rule that the mention is enough, but it seems to be trying to say “any spell like this one could work” but if the reason for why it works is that the criteria of Dispel Evil and Good are at least enough of an umbrella to fit similar banishing magic. Like is a simple Dispel Magic enough against this possession like it would be for Magic Jar even considering that the source of the possession is an artifact?
Thank you, and everyone with the input on the state of the soul, that is for the most part what I thought so just good to have that clarified.
More specifically for the possession the table however, it says “you become an NPC under the DM’s control until the intruding life force is banished using magic such as the dispel evil and good spell” it’s not quite as cut and dry of a special interaction as “only with a wish spell” than it is more of a suggestion of a magical method of dismissal. I know that as a DM I could rule that the mention is enough, but it seems to be trying to say “any spell like this one could work” but if the reason for why it works is that the criteria of Dispel Evil and Good are at least enough of an umbrella to fit similar banishing magic. Like is a simple Dispel Magic enough against this possession like it would be for Magic Jar even considering that the source of the possession is an artifact?
As for this, it is basically saying possession ending effects work even though it doesn't meet the normal specifications of such effects (not undead, fey, fiend, etc).
Dispel magic would not work because the possession is not a spell.
Right, should have though of that, it’s not a spell being cast from the item so dispel magic isn’t applicable. Guess i knew that. On the point you mentioned though, possession ending effects aren’t very numerous. Are there other’s i’m not thinking of that are more or less general as to possibly fit the criteria for ending it without the special mention? I’m also wondering because of that implication with DEaG if Protection from Evil and Good can prevent the Possession? The table says an attempted possession is a 50% chance when you use one of the artifact’s actions and only mentions ending the possession, not preventing it. I would interpret it to not be able to prevent it.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Up to DM to decide. This is mostly a social/plot/RP feature that isn't available to PCs to exploit. Those tend to be a little open for DM to use however is most interesting.
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I’ve been making an artifact with the random properties table in the DMG, I rolled 18 on the major detrimental properties and now the item contains a “bodiless life force that is hostile towards you” the item was already planned to have been belonging to someone who was partly entrapped in the item so it works really well thematically. However the process through which they were trapped was not through death but rather magical soul extraction, and beyond that the life force belongs to a neutrally aligned Humanoid.
The table in the DMG suggests if they possess the user of the artifact they can be banished with dismiss evil and good, but i do not think any part of the spell’s description covers a soul which has not died. I also tried looking at the Magic Jar spell for any precedent in this matter but apart from people discussing Magic Jar and stating: (which I cannot find in the spell’s description at all) “According to the magic jar spell, only sentient undead have (or are) souls.” But even with that as possible clarification, it still only states sentient undead can be a soul, and not whether all disembodied souls are undead.
My question is, If the soul of a living being is removed from their still living body via magical means and not death, eg. Magic Jar, does their creature type then become “undead” just by being a discorporated soul? And if that’s the case, what is the CR of their soul, and can a Magic Jar soul or other magically extracted soul that is possessing a creature be banished by turn undead or spells which banish undead?
I feel like this distinction is important, especially for others who might roll this detriment, as by default it is on an artifact, which often cannot be effected by things like anti-magic fields, which might work against something like Magic Jar possession.
Edit- the soul being still living and not undead answered. Now more interested in the specificity of the method of dismissal for the possession in the Major Detrimental Property table in the DMG if the bodiless life force is not that of a good or evil celestial, elemental, fey, fiend, or undead.
1) CR -, like anything else with an undefined CR - that is, it hasn't got one, so it can't meet any CR-based criteria. 2) No, anything that specifically targets undead won't work on it in general unless it happens to be undead. It's possible for the artifact to have a special rule on it responding to anything, though, including turn undead. You seem to be the DM, so you could declare that the artifact is particularly vulnerable to turn undead.
The Monster Manual defines undead as:
Undead are once-living creatures brought to a horrifying state of undeath through the practice of necromantic magic or some unholy curse. Undead include walking corpses, such as vampires and zombies, as well as bodiless spirits, such as ghosts and specters.
So undead by default are creatures that may be 1) animated or otherwise still moving corpses, or 2) bodiless spirits. While the fact that bodiless spirits count as undead might seem like your instance would count, I think the real question here is "is this thing a creature"? I'd say no, because it doesn't have a statblock or the means to generate one. You could change this by making one for the spirit or tying the spirit to an existing one, and I'd say it would then qualify as undead regardless of the means of its extraction. But that is part of the homebrewing process and isn't necessarily part of the random table item from the DMG.
Regarding the interaction with Dismiss Evil and Good, note that it is fairly common for special "one off" effects to interact with spells in ways not in the spell's description (see the very many effects that only Wish can undo, the effects of Disintegrate on Wall of Force, and the special afflictions that remove curse, greater restoration, etc work on). These are considered specific exceptions to the general spell rule.
No. A "soul" is not inherently undead.
Functionally speaking, D&D essentially operates on a principle of duality, where the "Soul" represents your immaterial, conscious being.
The soul and body of a living being are collectively whatever type the creature itself is. Thus, a soul taken from a Humanoid is a "Humanoid soul".
From the spell description:
This essentially means that a the soul of a living creature can not exist without a body. While it is trapped within the Magic Jar, the Jar itself satisfies the body requirement, but if the jar breaks, the soul must immediately bond to another vessel, or it dies. The Magic Jar essentially hold a living creature in stasis as a living creature.
Thank you, and everyone with the input on the state of the soul, that is for the most part what I thought so just good to have that clarified.
More specifically for the possession the table however, it says “you become an NPC under the DM’s control until the intruding life force is banished using magic such as the dispel evil and good spell” it’s not quite as cut and dry of a special interaction as “only with a wish spell” than it is more of a suggestion of a magical method of dismissal. I know that as a DM I could rule that the mention is enough, but it seems to be trying to say “any spell like this one could work” but if the reason for why it works is that the criteria of Dispel Evil and Good are at least enough of an umbrella to fit similar banishing magic. Like is a simple Dispel Magic enough against this possession like it would be for Magic Jar even considering that the source of the possession is an artifact?
Like others said: soul ≠ undead.
As for this, it is basically saying possession ending effects work even though it doesn't meet the normal specifications of such effects (not undead, fey, fiend, etc).
Dispel magic would not work because the possession is not a spell.
Right, should have though of that, it’s not a spell being cast from the item so dispel magic isn’t applicable. Guess i knew that. On the point you mentioned though, possession ending effects aren’t very numerous. Are there other’s i’m not thinking of that are more or less general as to possibly fit the criteria for ending it without the special mention? I’m also wondering because of that implication with DEaG if Protection from Evil and Good can prevent the Possession? The table says an attempted possession is a 50% chance when you use one of the artifact’s actions and only mentions ending the possession, not preventing it. I would interpret it to not be able to prevent it.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Up to DM to decide. This is mostly a social/plot/RP feature that isn't available to PCs to exploit. Those tend to be a little open for DM to use however is most interesting.