Mummy Rot and Reincarnation Question

[Nobistik]

Good Day All,

I'm a first time poster long time reader of the community and have often come here for answer/advice. However, I can't seem to find an answer on something my party came across last night and it's left some of the party with a bit of a bad taste in their mouths as we can't quite find the refs we're looking for.

In short we came across 4 mummies last night and one of the PC's contracted mummy rot. Ultimately before the rot could kill the PC he opted to go for a mercy killing vice before fully succombing to the rots effects (he still had a couple minutes of fun trying to think of ways to try to get out of it so he did take the con and cha dmg). The PC's intent for this "mercy" killing was so that a piece of him could be taken to be reincarnated by a druid in a town a couple hours away. This was under the guise that since he didn't die due to mummy rot it technically didn't turn to sand and since he was dead the effects of mummy rot stop happening (if this is supposed to be the case or not we're not fully sure and would really appreciate any info to further prove or disprove this possibility). We then got said member to that town a couple hours away and had him reincarnated by a druid. The druid took the part of the body that was chopped off from the mercy killing and reformed a new body without having any effects from the mummy rot. Does all of this seem to jive in accordance with the rules?


A couple of the players (myself included) think that this is a little fishy. Ultimately we know it's up to the DM (who does try to follow the rules as close as possible) but we just want to make sure that this is plausible as he wasn't 100% sure himself. Any info with a ref would be greatly appreciated.


Cheeers and thanks. :smallsmile:

[Deox]

Relevant part of Reincarnate from the SRD:


The condition of the remains is not a factor. So long as some small portion of the creature’s body still exists, it can be reincarnated, but the portion receiving the spell must have been part of the creature’s body at the time of death.

[Nobistik]

Fair enough, we thought that too for the disease aspect but we weren't sure on the aspect of a curse being implemented on a person's "soul" vice a persons body. So in this case it'd be a person with a new body but the same soul (which is how they describe it in the reinc spell description).

[Deox]

For a cleric with a fair wisdom and the heal skill (for disease), it's not unreasonable for them to think about a reincarnation...

...depending on deity, that is.

[Nobistik]

....not quitew tracking, I think that might also be part of me not providing enough info but basically there is no cleric. We only got a 9th lvl druid to rely on.

[Deox]

Sorry, I think I inserted cleric into your words.

A 9th level druid would still be able to come to the same conclusion, however.

[Nobistik]

Sorry I'm not quite catching can you ellaborate? Just to clarify in order to remove mummy rot you need to remove curse (which druids can't do) and remove disease afterwards.

From the SRD:

Mummy rot is a powerful curse, not a natural disease. A character attempting to cast any conjuration (healing) spell on a creature afflicted with mummy rot must succeed on a DC 20 caster level check, or the spell has no effect on the afflicted character.

To eliminate mummy rot, the curse must first be broken with break enchantment or remove curse (requiring a DC 20 caster level check for either spell), after which a caster level check is no longer necessary to cast healing spells on the victim, and the mummy rot can be magically cured as any normal disease.

An afflicted creature who dies of mummy rot shrivels away into sand and dust that blow away into nothing at the first wind.

[MesiDoomstalker]

Then so long as you could collect some dust before the first wind (highly depends where he ultimately falls), it be sufficient for the Druid's Reincarnation. The dust was part of its body upon death.

[dascarletm]

I think they're justifying character knowledge of the spell Reincarnation.

[Deox]

The character in question dies to execution by <insert method>, not mummy rot.

A piece of the character's corpse is taken to be brought back to life via Reincarnate (so long as the piece meets the requirements).

No more mummy rot.

A seasoned cleric or druid is capable of knowing what Mummy Rot is (especially a cleric or druid of 9th level), along with knowing Reincarnate (since Last Breath is effectively the same thing, but with a limited window and available to a 9th level druid since Last Breath is a 4th level spell).

I suppose an argument could be made whether or not the mummy rot persists to the part of corpse being utilized for reincarnate, however the SRD gives us:


The magic of the spell creates an entirely new young adult body for the soul to inhabit from the natural elements at hand. This process takes 1 hour to complete. When the body is ready, the subject is reincarnated.

and


A creature that has been turned into an undead creature or killed by a death effect can’t be returned to life by this spell. Constructs, elementals, outsiders, and undead creatures can’t be reincarnated. The spell cannot bring back a creature who has died of old age.

That being said, the character was not turned into an undead creature, nor killed by a death effect, so the spell can still complete as normal and the character's new body would not be affected by the rot.

[Hunter Noventa]

Well if he's dying from a Coup De grace, he's not dying FROM Mummy Rot. The only way to die form Mummy Rot would be to have your constitution reduced to zero by it.

But it could go either way, either the body doesn't dry up and you're fine. It does dry up and you have to capture some of the dust.

If I were the DM, I'd call it a good idea to escape annihilation, and flavor it up by having part of the body rot away, likely scaring the pants off the PCs until it stops. But you're not the DM. However it does seem like a reasonable idea.

[Nobistik]

Awesome, thanks for the info all. I really appreciate it and can kind of put this to rest. I work with one of the players in our campaign and we were both kind of disscussing it on and off all morning haha.

Cheers and thanks once again.