Okay, so, here me out! I'm not some crazed, roguishly handsome, clever, stylish, necromancer looking to raise an army for my own deviously edgy purpose. I'm just some moderately crazed, roguishly handsome, clever, stylish, bard looking to revive one person. Perhaps some context?
So recently my party and I were captured by some warmongering group and put in front of The Warmother, a lady who really dislikes another lady who is the actual queen. We were put on trial (for bogus accounts of attacking her soldiers; they captured us first) and the NPC, named Magnus (Mavnus? One of those two), travelling with us had been beaten bloody and tortured for weeks. He was on the actual queen's side. We were told to give our case and plead whatever we thought we should plead and she would go over what she believed to be true. We obviously started kissing serious butt to not die. But then she asked how we would prove we were loyal.
If you haven't caught on already...
She had directed the question to our halfling ranger first. Before anyone could speak up for the group as a whole, he got up, walked to Magnus, and promptly snapped his neck. While Magnus had never been exceedingly useful, he did stick with us and cover our tab at the local bar and buy us transport. He had hired us in the first place. He wasn't a fighter and didn't get in combat at all, but he was still a part of the group. We all made fun of him for not fighting and he was always worried about us bleeding him dry for money. I am not even sure if he had a family. I do know that during the weeks he was tortured, he didn't open his lips for the Warmother once.
The Warmother, while understanding of the gesture of killing her enemies, claimed she was now down a prisoner and asked the halfling to pay blood for blood and kill the "fake" queen's daughter. She then asked me how I prove loyalty. I bit my hand, drew blood, and swore an oath to her. My backstory (which I won't go into right now) clashes with this slightly, or I have plans for it to affect the outcome, but I did it to stay alive.
Anyways, we were all let go and tasked to kill the princess. I understand the actions of our ranger, but Magnus was still a part of our group. I owe it to him at least. So my plan is to revive him. Problem is we're all level 3. The body will likely be tossed. I would just cast True Resurrection once I eventually get that high of a level, but that a) takes a ton of resources, and b) is only really used in very specific situations (and before you say bards can't learn True Resurrection, they can through Magical Secrets. I just think it's too situational and costly). It's going to take a minute for me to learn Resurrection, so I need to figure out how to find the body over long distances when I eventually can.
TL;DR - I need to find a corpse over a great distance (dozens or even hundreds of miles) sometime in the possibly far future (a few years or so). Any spells that can help?
I'm playing a Quarter-Elf Eldritch Knight named Xiri, and she has had to hide a couple bodies. Gnoll bodies. I will start playing a Tiefling Bard named Ariaxora this weekend, and she probably won't be burying evidence. She'll be too busy doing Bard things. If you know what I mean.
@Hellbringer_Player Yeah, in the session I described, I'm playing a half-elf bard. I accidentally died (don't ask, it's traumatizing) and now I get random urges to juggle. For about half the last session (which was today) I was making dwarf jokes at our captors in an effort to try to distract them or something. One arrow in the knee later, I am laying on the ground in a spreading pool of blood laughing my ass off. Needless to say, the dwarf members of our captors were thoroughly angry, the rest were annoyed, and our DM was done with my shit.
Totally worth it.
Odd to see that literally a session later I've devoted myself to reviving someone.
True Resurrection doesn't require a body, so if you're lucky, the bad guy feeds the bodies that crop up around her palace to her pet gelatinous cube or something and you don't need to track down a corpse.
If you're unlucky, there's still a corpse somewhere. Assuming there's a mass dumping ground where the bad guy puts all the bodies that crop up in the castle, I'd think you could make an argument to your DM that anything from Identify to Speak With Dead to Legend Lore to Contact Other Plane would help you identify which particular bones in a mass grave belonged to whom. But you're looking at an act of forensic anthropology that the US government throws millions of dollars at each year with extremely spotty results. It would honestly probably be easier to wait a few decades and hope the bones had broken down by then.
As long as you're throwing 9th level spells around, Wish is probably your best bet for recovering the corpse and it should already be on your list of desired Magical Secrets. After that, you can just get someone to cast ordinary Resurrection (a 7th level spell) on the remains.
The easier alternative would be to slip 5 gp to the bad guy's janitor to let you take the body with you. Then bury it someplace convenient for recovery.
@TimCurtin Yes, I can learn True Resurrection, but after I use it this once, it will likely not be used again, especially since it has high value material components which get consumed, so it would just end up taking a spell slot.
If I ask the bad janitor for the body, even with a bribe, I wouldn't be surprised if they snitched or if the Warmother found out anyway.
Wishing the body to appear is probably my best bet, but then that risks me not being able to cast Wish again to due it's tremendous drawbacks. I can cast Resurrection on my own, the issue is that spell needs the body.
The only other alternative I can think of is tracking where they bring the body, hoping it doesn't get cremated, and then becoming a temporary grave robber to nab the body and hide it somewhere else. It just occurred to me that I might be able to charm the janitor with some sort of spell. That could work. There are two outcomes: I either get the body now and the problem is solved, but puts me at some risk, or I leave the body, hope they keep it intact, and try to get a spell to find it.
I think I'll just try to charm the janitor or something. I've got high enough persuasion to have a chance. Now I just need to find the janitor...
You could find the bodies in the wake of my new 1st level warlock who is running a cult that worships an extremely powerful angel that just so happens to be a disguised pit fiend. So... the warlock thinks that he is getting powers from an angel, and all the people who worshiped the "angel" are doomed to suffer in the Nine Hells for all eternity.
Wish to recover the body would just be cloning Drawmij's Instant Summons or something. I don't think there's any such risk, but your DM may feel differently.
Oh, that halfling would've earned such a *****slapping if I'd been DMing that game...
Warmother: "I see. Your answer is that you are willing to kill my enemies? Idiot. I have scores and scores of men willing to kill my enemies already. I can hire men to kill my enemies if I need more. Killing my enemies earns you nothing. What you have proven just now is that you are willing to betray your friends and allies on a whim, at the word of anyone who happens to have you in a tight spot. You're willing to break the neck of a man who withstood a week of torture on your behalf without so much as a by-your-leave from your allies, discarding the man who hired you as refuse the moment he was no longer immediately useful. That corpse at your feet is far more trustworthy than you are, little man. He did not break his oaths on a whim. What you have just proven, halfling, is that you are a traitor and a wretch who cannot be trusted the moment someone doesn't have a blade to your neck."
At which point the halfling would get one single chance to talk his way out of being executed on the spot. . .. ...but yeah. The surest way is Wish, which has its perils, but a DM could probably be convinced to be on the more lenient side with Wish when you're culminating your character's story arc and using multiple high-level spells and a pile of expensive material components in an almost entirely selfless attempt to undo an injustice done by your own allies. Elsewise your only real chance is to find the body almost immediately, before it's decayerd/destroyed and unrecognizable.
Resurrection (not true res) doesn’t need the whole body. It restores missing body parts. What if you take a finger from the guy and carry it with you. I guess there’s a bit of DM interpretation since it may be a stretch to say that his entire body, Basically, is missing and then restored, or if that’s maybe pushing it too much. But it might work.
@Xalthu Yeah, that was my original idea, but I didn't think it would work. My DM can be a little picky about some things. Such as dwarf puns: 6 piercing damage to the knee. Worth it though. I can still try it though.
@Yurei1453 Yeah, that's almost how it went down. She was like, "You killed my prisoner and I should have you killed for a warcrime (or something along those lines)" but he somehow pulled it off and now we have to kill someone else.
And yeah, I mean, I am only summoning a dead body. Like, as a DM, I would be hesitant, because they could summon a body of a powerful archmage or something, but I would just be summoning a commoner/soldier's body. He might let it slide.
@TimCurtin I totally forgot about Drawmij's Instant Summons, though now hearing about it would probably be a good spell. I have to look over that one again, but if it's the spell I need, then it comes with no risk to Wish since I at least remember that it's a lower level spell.
Yeah, if I were DMing I wouldn't allow Resurrection with only a finger either. There's a difference between restoring missing body parts and restoring a missing body from a small piece. After all, the spell requires touching a dead creature, not a piece of a dead creature. Reincarnate would definitely do the trick, but you'd have to find the corpse within 10 days. If you do find it and you've got the head, Gentle Repose can buy you more time.
As far as finding the corpse goes, don't overlook the power of Speak With Animals and Animal Friendship. There's a good chance some stray cat, bird or rodent will witness the body being moved. Best to start asking right away though; you don't know how long a creature with 1-2 intelligence will remember something like that, or when they'll be eaten by a predator.
@InquisitiveCoder Yeah, it seemed to overpowered to be able to make the rest of the body from a finger. True Resurrection would allow that, but it's also a 9th level spell that specifically says that it allows the person to be restored even without the body. I would choose Reincarnate, but I am wanting him to be the same as he was. I'm hoping to get him back in a year, toss him a pouch of gold, and tell him to go back to whatever family he has, hoping he never has to find us again.
Now, Speak With Animals might be good. Another party member (who I did not mention above) can cast it at will as part of his class. While we were all imprisoned, he befriended some rats and convinced them he was The Cheese Lord, foretold to return by the prophecy (no joke, he got them to steal some royal's crown on accident and hid it in his loincloth during our trial; we're all very special). I can probably ask him to send some rats and get them to track the body for the day. If they toss the body somewhere, I can break in (if that is so required) and nab it, and bury it somewhere to come back to later (I'm hoping to finish my plan in a few in-game years, around 5-ish, and tell his family that I got him released from prison, or something). So, thanks for suggesting that!
Seriously, if you have a cleric, this spell is a lifesaver in cases like this. It'll stop the corpse from decaying for a week and also extend the time for a resurrection, so if you get it cast quickly, you'll be able to save your friend with a simple Raise Dead!
As for getting the body, try politely asking the Warmother if you can take his remains back to his homeland. If she's at all reasonable, she should agree—that's pretty common in medieval times and fantasy stories.
@NaivaraArnuanna Lol, now that you explain it, that sounds good, and costs a lot less. I would just have to check in on the body frequently. The material components are not consumed, which is great. That said, I am a bard. I have to wait 3 more levels to even get Magical Secrets (thus, allowing me to get it), so the body will likely expire (or, I guess, expire again) by that time. We have no clerics or wizards, so nobody in my group can cast it. So, it's kinda off the table.
As for asking the Warmother for the body, I'd be better off asking for her hand in marriage. She would likely argue that traitors deserve no traditional burial and I wouldn't be surprised if she tossed him into a mass grave. I'll be lucky if they don't just burn him. If his body gets cremated, this whole plan goes up in smoke (excuse the unintentional pun). I could find a way, but it would definitely be costly and/or a long time coming. Either way, she didn't show much interest in talking to any of the party members, so I doubt she'd be too keen on me asking for the body of an enemy. I could try to ask her with some sort of other excuse, but I doubt she wants the body to be respected in any way, and would likely be entirely against my plan.
Alright, here's what you do. You try a Locate Creature spell at which point your picky DM says that Magnus is not a creature, he's dead. Oh right, I use Locate Object to find his dead body!
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Okay, so, here me out! I'm not some crazed, roguishly handsome, clever, stylish, necromancer looking to raise an army for my own deviously edgy purpose. I'm just some moderately crazed, roguishly handsome, clever, stylish, bard looking to revive one person. Perhaps some context?
So recently my party and I were captured by some warmongering group and put in front of The Warmother, a lady who really dislikes another lady who is the actual queen. We were put on trial (for bogus accounts of attacking her soldiers; they captured us first) and the NPC, named Magnus (Mavnus? One of those two), travelling with us had been beaten bloody and tortured for weeks. He was on the actual queen's side. We were told to give our case and plead whatever we thought we should plead and she would go over what she believed to be true. We obviously started kissing serious butt to not die. But then she asked how we would prove we were loyal.
If you haven't caught on already...
She had directed the question to our halfling ranger first. Before anyone could speak up for the group as a whole, he got up, walked to Magnus, and promptly snapped his neck. While Magnus had never been exceedingly useful, he did stick with us and cover our tab at the local bar and buy us transport. He had hired us in the first place. He wasn't a fighter and didn't get in combat at all, but he was still a part of the group. We all made fun of him for not fighting and he was always worried about us bleeding him dry for money. I am not even sure if he had a family. I do know that during the weeks he was tortured, he didn't open his lips for the Warmother once.
The Warmother, while understanding of the gesture of killing her enemies, claimed she was now down a prisoner and asked the halfling to pay blood for blood and kill the "fake" queen's daughter. She then asked me how I prove loyalty. I bit my hand, drew blood, and swore an oath to her. My backstory (which I won't go into right now) clashes with this slightly, or I have plans for it to affect the outcome, but I did it to stay alive.
Anyways, we were all let go and tasked to kill the princess. I understand the actions of our ranger, but Magnus was still a part of our group. I owe it to him at least. So my plan is to revive him. Problem is we're all level 3. The body will likely be tossed. I would just cast True Resurrection once I eventually get that high of a level, but that a) takes a ton of resources, and b) is only really used in very specific situations (and before you say bards can't learn True Resurrection, they can through Magical Secrets. I just think it's too situational and costly). It's going to take a minute for me to learn Resurrection, so I need to figure out how to find the body over long distances when I eventually can.
TL;DR - I need to find a corpse over a great distance (dozens or even hundreds of miles) sometime in the possibly far future (a few years or so). Any spells that can help?
Don't you mean where to hide the body?
Hello! I am just a relatively new D&D player, who also likes SimplePlanes and War Thunder.
My characters are:
@Hellbringer_Player Ha! That will come in due time, but not for Magnus.
I'm playing a Quarter-Elf Eldritch Knight named Xiri, and she has had to hide a couple bodies. Gnoll bodies. I will start playing a Tiefling Bard named Ariaxora this weekend, and she probably won't be burying evidence. She'll be too busy doing Bard things. If you know what I mean.
Hello! I am just a relatively new D&D player, who also likes SimplePlanes and War Thunder.
My characters are:
@Hellbringer_Player Yeah, in the session I described, I'm playing a half-elf bard. I accidentally died (don't ask, it's traumatizing) and now I get random urges to juggle. For about half the last session (which was today) I was making dwarf jokes at our captors in an effort to try to distract them or something. One arrow in the knee later, I am laying on the ground in a spreading pool of blood laughing my ass off. Needless to say, the dwarf members of our captors were thoroughly angry, the rest were annoyed, and our DM was done with my shit.
Totally worth it.
Odd to see that literally a session later I've devoted myself to reviving someone.
I'm not great at roleplaying, because the adventure that I'm on right now is my first with people other than my brother and the DM. :(
Hello! I am just a relatively new D&D player, who also likes SimplePlanes and War Thunder.
My characters are:
True Resurrection doesn't require a body, so if you're lucky, the bad guy feeds the bodies that crop up around her palace to her pet gelatinous cube or something and you don't need to track down a corpse.
If you're unlucky, there's still a corpse somewhere. Assuming there's a mass dumping ground where the bad guy puts all the bodies that crop up in the castle, I'd think you could make an argument to your DM that anything from Identify to Speak With Dead to Legend Lore to Contact Other Plane would help you identify which particular bones in a mass grave belonged to whom. But you're looking at an act of forensic anthropology that the US government throws millions of dollars at each year with extremely spotty results. It would honestly probably be easier to wait a few decades and hope the bones had broken down by then.
As long as you're throwing 9th level spells around, Wish is probably your best bet for recovering the corpse and it should already be on your list of desired Magical Secrets. After that, you can just get someone to cast ordinary Resurrection (a 7th level spell) on the remains.
The easier alternative would be to slip 5 gp to the bad guy's janitor to let you take the body with you. Then bury it someplace convenient for recovery.
@TimCurtin Yes, I can learn True Resurrection, but after I use it this once, it will likely not be used again, especially since it has high value material components which get consumed, so it would just end up taking a spell slot.
If I ask the bad janitor for the body, even with a bribe, I wouldn't be surprised if they snitched or if the Warmother found out anyway.
Wishing the body to appear is probably my best bet, but then that risks me not being able to cast Wish again to due it's tremendous drawbacks. I can cast Resurrection on my own, the issue is that spell needs the body.
The only other alternative I can think of is tracking where they bring the body, hoping it doesn't get cremated, and then becoming a temporary grave robber to nab the body and hide it somewhere else. It just occurred to me that I might be able to charm the janitor with some sort of spell. That could work. There are two outcomes: I either get the body now and the problem is solved, but puts me at some risk, or I leave the body, hope they keep it intact, and try to get a spell to find it.
I think I'll just try to charm the janitor or something. I've got high enough persuasion to have a chance. Now I just need to find the janitor...
You could find the bodies in the wake of my new 1st level warlock who is running a cult that worships an extremely powerful angel that just so happens to be a disguised pit fiend. So... the warlock thinks that he is getting powers from an angel, and all the people who worshiped the "angel" are doomed to suffer in the Nine Hells for all eternity.
Hello! I am just a relatively new D&D player, who also likes SimplePlanes and War Thunder.
My characters are:
Wish to recover the body would just be cloning Drawmij's Instant Summons or something. I don't think there's any such risk, but your DM may feel differently.
Oh, that halfling would've earned such a *****slapping if I'd been DMing that game...
Warmother: "I see. Your answer is that you are willing to kill my enemies? Idiot. I have scores and scores of men willing to kill my enemies already. I can hire men to kill my enemies if I need more. Killing my enemies earns you nothing. What you have proven just now is that you are willing to betray your friends and allies on a whim, at the word of anyone who happens to have you in a tight spot. You're willing to break the neck of a man who withstood a week of torture on your behalf without so much as a by-your-leave from your allies, discarding the man who hired you as refuse the moment he was no longer immediately useful. That corpse at your feet is far more trustworthy than you are, little man. He did not break his oaths on a whim. What you have just proven, halfling, is that you are a traitor and a wretch who cannot be trusted the moment someone doesn't have a blade to your neck."
At which point the halfling would get one single chance to talk his way out of being executed on the spot.
.
..
...but yeah. The surest way is Wish, which has its perils, but a DM could probably be convinced to be on the more lenient side with Wish when you're culminating your character's story arc and using multiple high-level spells and a pile of expensive material components in an almost entirely selfless attempt to undo an injustice done by your own allies. Elsewise your only real chance is to find the body almost immediately, before it's decayerd/destroyed and unrecognizable.
Please do not contact or message me.
Resurrection (not true res) doesn’t need the whole body. It restores missing body parts. What if you take a finger from the guy and carry it with you.
I guess there’s a bit of DM interpretation since it may be a stretch to say that his entire body, Basically, is missing and then restored, or if that’s maybe pushing it too much. But it might work.
@Xalthu Yeah, that was my original idea, but I didn't think it would work. My DM can be a little picky about some things. Such as dwarf puns: 6 piercing damage to the knee. Worth it though. I can still try it though.
@Yurei1453 Yeah, that's almost how it went down. She was like, "You killed my prisoner and I should have you killed for a warcrime (or something along those lines)" but he somehow pulled it off and now we have to kill someone else.
And yeah, I mean, I am only summoning a dead body. Like, as a DM, I would be hesitant, because they could summon a body of a powerful archmage or something, but I would just be summoning a commoner/soldier's body. He might let it slide.
@TimCurtin I totally forgot about Drawmij's Instant Summons, though now hearing about it would probably be a good spell. I have to look over that one again, but if it's the spell I need, then it comes with no risk to Wish since I at least remember that it's a lower level spell.
As far as finding the corpse goes, don't overlook the power of Speak With Animals and Animal Friendship. There's a good chance some stray cat, bird or rodent will witness the body being moved. Best to start asking right away though; you don't know how long a creature with 1-2 intelligence will remember something like that, or when they'll be eaten by a predator.
The Forum Infestation (TM)
@InquisitiveCoder Yeah, it seemed to overpowered to be able to make the rest of the body from a finger. True Resurrection would allow that, but it's also a 9th level spell that specifically says that it allows the person to be restored even without the body. I would choose Reincarnate, but I am wanting him to be the same as he was. I'm hoping to get him back in a year, toss him a pouch of gold, and tell him to go back to whatever family he has, hoping he never has to find us again.
Now, Speak With Animals might be good. Another party member (who I did not mention above) can cast it at will as part of his class. While we were all imprisoned, he befriended some rats and convinced them he was The Cheese Lord, foretold to return by the prophecy (no joke, he got them to steal some royal's crown on accident and hid it in his loincloth during our trial; we're all very special). I can probably ask him to send some rats and get them to track the body for the day. If they toss the body somewhere, I can break in (if that is so required) and nab it, and bury it somewhere to come back to later (I'm hoping to finish my plan in a few in-game years, around 5-ish, and tell his family that I got him released from prison, or something). So, thanks for suggesting that!
Gentle Repose!
Let me say it again, for all you non-clerics:
Gentle Repose!
Seriously, if you have a cleric, this spell is a lifesaver in cases like this. It'll stop the corpse from decaying for a week and also extend the time for a resurrection, so if you get it cast quickly, you'll be able to save your friend with a simple Raise Dead!
As for getting the body, try politely asking the Warmother if you can take his remains back to his homeland. If she's at all reasonable, she should agree—that's pretty common in medieval times and fantasy stories.
Wizard (Gandalf) of the Tolkien Club
@NaivaraArnuanna Lol, now that you explain it, that sounds good, and costs a lot less. I would just have to check in on the body frequently. The material components are not consumed, which is great. That said, I am a bard. I have to wait 3 more levels to even get Magical Secrets (thus, allowing me to get it), so the body will likely expire (or, I guess, expire again) by that time. We have no clerics or wizards, so nobody in my group can cast it. So, it's kinda off the table.
As for asking the Warmother for the body, I'd be better off asking for her hand in marriage. She would likely argue that traitors deserve no traditional burial and I wouldn't be surprised if she tossed him into a mass grave. I'll be lucky if they don't just burn him. If his body gets cremated, this whole plan goes up in smoke (excuse the unintentional pun). I could find a way, but it would definitely be costly and/or a long time coming. Either way, she didn't show much interest in talking to any of the party members, so I doubt she'd be too keen on me asking for the body of an enemy. I could try to ask her with some sort of other excuse, but I doubt she wants the body to be respected in any way, and would likely be entirely against my plan.
Alright, here's what you do. You try a Locate Creature spell at which point your picky DM says that Magnus is not a creature, he's dead. Oh right, I use Locate Object to find his dead body!