A character in my game died and has been brought back to life through True Resurrection. He has an irreplaceable chest tattoo and is wondering if that will be erased?
The tattoo seems to be something the DM allowed as a bit of flavor to the spell being cast. This is something you'll have to take up with your DM and figure out what they are planning, if there's a way to remove it, and any other pertinent information. Per the spell, there's nothing in it about generating a tattoo upon resurrection.
Unless there is some sort of magical or divine reason that tattoo needs to be there, I don't see why getting a whole fresh new body would also come with old tattoos.
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"The mongoose blew out its candle and was asleep in bed before the room went dark." —Llanowar fable
True Resurrection brings back the body in full, limbs repaired, diseases cured, and so forth. I would argue that, unless the area of the body which is tattooed has been utterly destroyed, you would return to life with the marking.
I think the rules do not decide, or even suggest one way or the other. It depends on how you interpret things like scars and tattoos (are they damage to be repaired, or part of the body to be replaced). It is DM call. Personally, I would interpret things with a mystical, spiritual bent. The body is being formed as a home for the returning spirit. That spirit retains a sense of self-image and the body will reform to match that appearance - healing all damage that didn't match the image, but retaining any scars or markings that the spirit considers part of its identity. A Harry Potter lightning scar, or a Barbarian's ancestral tattoos are examples of things that I feel a spirit would replicate into any new body it came to inhabit.
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A character in my game died and has been brought back to life through True Resurrection. He has an irreplaceable chest tattoo and is wondering if that will be erased?
The tattoo seems to be something the DM allowed as a bit of flavor to the spell being cast. This is something you'll have to take up with your DM and figure out what they are planning, if there's a way to remove it, and any other pertinent information. Per the spell, there's nothing in it about generating a tattoo upon resurrection.
Sorry for being unclear. The character had a pre existing tatoo. Will it be erased when the new body is created?
Unless there is some sort of magical or divine reason that tattoo needs to be there, I don't see why getting a whole fresh new body would also come with old tattoos.
True Resurrection brings back the body in full, limbs repaired, diseases cured, and so forth. I would argue that, unless the area of the body which is tattooed has been utterly destroyed, you would return to life with the marking.
I think the rules do not decide, or even suggest one way or the other. It depends on how you interpret things like scars and tattoos (are they damage to be repaired, or part of the body to be replaced). It is DM call. Personally, I would interpret things with a mystical, spiritual bent. The body is being formed as a home for the returning spirit. That spirit retains a sense of self-image and the body will reform to match that appearance - healing all damage that didn't match the image, but retaining any scars or markings that the spirit considers part of its identity. A Harry Potter lightning scar, or a Barbarian's ancestral tattoos are examples of things that I feel a spirit would replicate into any new body it came to inhabit.