At least it isn’t essential to cut a piece of yourself off anymore.

Imagine being a lich and finding out that you can become immortal in a completely ethical way through necromancy without needing to sacrifice souls regularly. To be fair though, being a lich removes the need to sleep, eat or drink, and doesn't require constant monetary investment, you just revive over and over again and never have to be distracted from your magical research again.

Wait if 10 days In the Deep Ethereal equals 1 day in the Material plane couldn't you just shunt a clone vat into the Deep Ethereal cast this spell then plane shift back to the Material Plane and 12 days later you have a completed clone

And with a wish spell you can effectively cast this spell for free immortality 

And honestly just make 10ft cube made of lead and cast  private sanctum on it and there's not really anything anyone can do about it

I mean can you imagine trying to find a 10ft cube you can't scry on in the infinite expanse of the deep ethereal

You can literally become immortal if you know this spell. You keep the same spells, so just always have a clone ready for when you die. And if your old, make the clone younger and kill yourself. As long as you don't die during the 120 day wait, you're immortal.

Quote from Nereze >>

At least it isn’t essential to cut a piece of yourself off anymore.

I know, that was a strange and dark feature of it.

Quote from TheDjinni >>

Quote from Nereze >>

At least it isn’t essential to cut a piece of yourself off anymore.

I know, that was a strange and dark feature of it.

You're.....creating a clone of yourself. The spell was growing that clone from the flesh, presumably using the DNA from that flesh.

Is that dark? Sure, which is to be expected from a necromancy spell on the wizard list. But I don't see how it's strange, when this is one of those spells that points to high-level wizards being basically mad scientists.

Love this spell and not taking it. Maybe I would if I was playing in an actual game, rather than building a 20th level character from the get go, but waiting another two Wizard levels for wish, therefore allowing you to cast it for free, is a much cheaper alternative!

Everyone talks about immortality, but what about cloning for capitalism? 

For a one time 2000 GP investment for a large vessel, you could repeatedly spend 1000 GP and four months to make a full (inert and soulless) copy of that creature, which you can then harvest for high end parts. Maybe you have a friendly dragon that you can convince to be a business partner, giving half the proceeds back to their horde. Scales, horns, fundamentum, you can take your time to cleanly extract them all without worry of parts being damaged from combat. Maybe you had a fight with an dragon and, while you didn't kill them, you were able to take a chunk of flesh with you and now you're a one wizard component farm, with rotating clones going every week to keep the supply pipeline going.

Plot hook: maybe a wizard fights a dragon, wounds it just enough to grab a chunk of flesh, throws a gentle repose on it, and flees the continent to start a high end materials trade. The dragon has learned of this defilement of their body and bristles theft of its own form, but is tied to their region. They implore/command/hire the party to hunt them down and shut down the flesh factory once and for all.

Story hook: Seeking to finally bring the Tarrasque to heel, the world's most powerful research wizards unite with the singular goal of getting their hands on a piece of flesh from the monstrosity so they can clone their one inanimate versions that they can poke, prod, dissect, and otherwise experiment to probe for any weaknesses on without fear. Does this work? What consequences will their hubris inflict on the realm?

Imagine the Dragon dies and now you have an angry ancient red dragon in your tower.