Clone+undeath.

[D20ragon]

Is it possible to clone yourself,kill yourself to activate the clone,then have the clone bring you back as a lich,in this way creating two of yourself.
Then,lich-you makes a clone,kills itself,the clone is activated,the lich reforms,and now there is three of you?
In the spell description of clone,it says your old body becomes inert. Does this mean no undeath?

[The Random NPC]

Is it possible to clone yourself,kill yourself to activate the clone,then have the clone bring you back as a lich,in this way creating two of yourself.
Then,lich-you makes a clone,kills itself,the clone is activated,the lich reforms,and now there is three of you?
In the spell description of clone,it says your old body becomes inert. Does this mean no undeath?

I'm not sure about the other undead, but Liches require you to put your soul in a phylactery, so no double you's via cloning.

[ShurikVch]

Why not make it the other way?
Cast Clone and then animate resulting body as Bone Creature or Corpse Creature. Spell is Create Greater Undead. Cost is 2000 gp per body (at 20th lvl) 1000 for Clone and 1000 for CGU.

[Fouredged Sword]

Inert suggest that it cannot be raised in any fashion. You are the clone, the left over body is just a pile of meat. You could use it for a flesh golem, but I would think that any undead that requires a trapped soul would be not an option. Depending on your reading of the rules, most undead trap the soul of the target creature as they cannot be raised without killing the undead creature first.

[Brookshw]

I'm not sure about the other undead, but Liches require you to put your soul in a phylactery, so no double you's via cloning.

Life force, not soul. Got that one wrong myself over the weekend.

[Duke of Urrel]

Life force, not soul. Got that one wrong myself over the weekend.

I would be interested in the discussion in which life forces and souls were determined to be two different things – which I never assumed to be the case myself. Could you direct me to that thread?

[Maginomicon]

It's worth noting that there's a Stasis Clone spell that is as Clone but the body falls into metabolic stasis after creation.

I use the spell's existence to create "Life Insurance" in my campaign setting akin to that seen in The Mesochron of Knowledge (http://www.cad-comic.com/cad/20081126).

[hamishspence]

Life force, not soul. Got that one wrong myself over the weekend.

Complete Divine describes liches as "characters who've voluntarily transformed themselves into undead, trapping their souls in skeletal bodies."

My guess is that it's the stored "life-force" in the phylactery, that attracts the soul of a slain lich to it- and allows the soul of a slain lich to recreate its body in the vicinity of the phylactery.

[Brookshw]

I would be interested in the discussion in which life forces and souls were determined to be two different things – which I never assumed to be the case myself. Could you direct me to that thread?

Came up in AfroAkuma's Planar thread over the weekend when I was wondering how a lichfiend was possible. Wasn't so much of a discussion as someone pointed out it was lifeforce, not soul. After checking, they were correct and it made some sense to me. If I were to make a case for it by RAW I suppose I'd suggest that MOP and any source I can recall that addresses what happens in the afterlife references soul (mind you I'm AFB atm so....) and that once dead you wouldn't have a lifeforce, i.e. that which keeps you alive, considering that your, ya know, dead. Strikes me as a valid distinction.


Complete Divine describes liches as "characters who've voluntarily transformed themselves into undead, trapping their souls in skeletal bodies."

Interesting, hadn't thought to check that book. If the soul is trapped in the body I'm still a bit confused by how the heck a lichfiend is possible as the soul is the body. Or maybe that just makes it that much easier.


My guess is that it's the stored "life-force" in the phylactery, that attracts the soul of a slain lich to it- and allows the soul of a slain lich to recreate its body in the vicinity of the phylactery.

Sounds reasonable enough for a traditional lich but again a bit strange to extend to the lichfiend as the soul is the body and vice versa. So if the body/soul is destroyed what would exist for the life force to pull to it? Or would it just form a new body out of, well, whatever it is that liches phylacteries form them out of. I'm probably overthinking it.

[hamishspence]

True Resurrection and Revive Outsider can resurrect even fiends- suggesting that even though the body's slain, there's still a soul.

That soul has "dissolved back into the plane" though- requiring this magic to sift through the plane and reconstitute it.

So, it's not exactly a case of "when you slay the body, you slay the soul as well"- even if that contradicts MM a bit.

[Brookshw]

Which in my mind now begs the question of what happens to an outsiders body when they die as I believe it's pretty much just a corpse sitting there. Summoned creatures go home but called creatures are actually there and can die. So I suppose the only way that the body has to return to the plane it was from for it to dissolve into it.

Yup, you can revive them through either method so there's a "something" somewhere.

[hamishspence]

In Fiendish Codex 1, there's a random table for what happens to a demon's body when that demon is slain. Most but not all involve the body being partially or completely destroyed or removed- and even if the nothing happens to the body immediately it always returns to the Abyss eventually unless trapped by magical means (like dimensional anchor)

Even called demons have an "essence" that returns to the abyss, and is reformed (though it sometimes gets demoted).

This happens even if the body is trapped on the Material Plane.