Clone + Necromancy spells and the nature of souls in D&D

[Roentgen]

My character is a level 15 Dread Necromancer and as therefore capable of creating fully sentient undead such as vampires, ghouls etc. The DM and I haven't been able to come to a consensus on what exactly happens to the soul of sentient undead once they're created as the materials we've read are vague at best and contradictory at worst. I'll present a few scenarios, some of which have happened and some of which are currently theoretical for you to pore over and hopefully illuminate us at the end.

Theoretical 1 - Clone then Create Undead

Using a scroll I cast clone on Test Subject A after removing the necessary amount of flesh from her still living body. One day before the clone is set to be finished I kill Test Subject A and using Create (Greater) Undead I apply the Vampire template to her dead body (or similar), bringing her back as a completely sentient, free willed undead, no different mentally than she was before outside of being fundamentally Evil (if she wasn't before). One day later the clone is complete and her soul rushes from wherever it ended up in the planes to occupy the cloned body. Now we have the clone of Test Subject A with her soul back and Vampire Test Subject A. Which one is now the 'real' Test Subject A?

Theoretical 2 - Clone and Create Undead

As above with the key difference of applying a fully sentient, free willed undead template to the cloned body as it, once complete, is only so much inert dead flesh that will actually rot away without Gentle Repose or similar. Perhaps in this case it could be argued that the original Test Subject A who never died in the first place is the 'real' one.

Actual 1 - Janessa the Vampire Scion

This is the example that the DM and I are most intensely interested in finding out about because she is set to revive from her coffin as a vampire scion within the next session. My Dread Necromancer offered her the chance at becoming a 'proper' undead, i.e. not a mindless shambling corpse and she accepted. The process involved my PC transmuting the necessary amount of onyx into an onyx goblet filled with his own blood. He then cast Create Undead on the goblet and ordered her to drink it. This acted as an intensely painful poison that rapidly killed her but as per the rules she will come back as a vampire scion within 1d4+1 days. After this we started wondering about what happened to her soul now that she's clinically dead in a coffin and what will happen to it when she revives. Is the 'real' Janessa now being subjugated in the Abyss for her chaotic evil ways in life? Is what will emerge from the coffin a mere copy, created and fuelled by negative energy?

Actual 2 - The Zombie Dragon and Awaken Undead

My PC recently duped a mature adult red dragon into letting itself be polymorphed into a tiny bird via a PAO wand. It's neck was quickly snapped and later I dispelled the PAO and reanimated the body. The Skeleton/Zombie templates in the Draconomicon reduce WIS to 10 and takes 6 away from CHA and makes INT disappear completely. I then cast Awaken Undead on it and rolled a 6+4 meaning it now on the whole has the mental stats of a slightly above average human and is fully aware of itself. There's a pattern forming now, is the 'real' dragon now in the Inferno being berated by Tiamat for its profound stupidity and gullibility? Awaken Undead raises this question with many different types of undead.

Actual 3 (Planned) - Lichdom

The capstone of the Dread Necromancer class is of course Lichdom. In light of the lack of clarity on the issue the DM is positing that when my PC finally does become one, with his soul in the phylactery (other sources state this is filled with 'life force') the undead body will be an identical copy fuelled by negative energy with the 'real' PC being the soul in the phylactery. This concept rankles me because it suggests two separate consciousnesses and two different forces of will, with my functional undead PC now being a fake in essence.

Finally, what is the true nature of a soul in D&D, what does it constitute? In particular is there a clear cut fluff explanation of how Necromancy spells interact with the soul? Are those spells used to create skeletons innately evil because it binds and tortures the souls of the deceased into service for example? Please let me know!

[Raishoiken]

Not 100% on either theoretical (afb) but am very interested. I have a similar(ish) process I've been cooking that involves polymorphing clone bodies before the soul transfer

[shawshank]

My character is a level 15 Dread Necromancer and as therefore capable of creating fully sentient undead such as vampires, ghouls etc. The DM and I haven't been able to come to a consensus on what exactly happens to the soul of sentient undead once they're created as the materials we've read are vague at best and contradictory at worst. I'll present a few scenarios, some of which have happened and some of which are currently theoretical for you to pore over and hopefully illuminate us at the end.

Theoretical 1 - Clone then Create Undead

Using a scroll I cast clone on Test Subject A after removing the necessary amount of flesh from her still living body. One day before the clone is set to be finished I kill Test Subject A and using Create (Greater) Undead I apply the Vampire template to her dead body (or similar), bringing her back as a completely sentient, free willed undead, no different mentally than she was before outside of being fundamentally Evil (if she wasn't before). One day later the clone is complete and her soul rushes from wherever it ended up in the planes to occupy the cloned body. Now we have the clone of Test Subject A with her soul back and Vampire Test Subject A. Which one is now the 'real' Test Subject A?

Theoretical 2 - Clone and Create Undead

As above with the key difference of applying a fully sentient, free willed undead template to the cloned body as it, once complete, is only so much inert dead flesh that will actually rot away without Gentle Repose or similar. Perhaps in this case it could be argued that the original Test Subject A who never died in the first place is the 'real' one.

Actual 1 - Janessa the Vampire Scion

This is the example that the DM and I are most intensely interested in finding out about because she is set to revive from her coffin as a vampire scion within the next session. My Dread Necromancer offered her the chance at becoming a 'proper' undead, i.e. not a mindless shambling corpse and she accepted. The process involved my PC transmuting the necessary amount of onyx into an onyx goblet filled with his own blood. He then cast Create Undead on the goblet and ordered her to drink it. This acted as an intensely painful poison that rapidly killed her but as per the rules she will come back as a vampire scion within 1d4+1 days. After this we started wondering about what happened to her soul now that she's clinically dead in a coffin and what will happen to it when she revives. Is the 'real' Janessa now being subjugated in the Abyss for her chaotic evil ways in life? Is what will emerge from the coffin a mere copy, created and fuelled by negative energy?

Actual 2 - The Zombie Dragon and Awaken Undead

My PC recently duped a mature adult red dragon into letting itself be polymorphed into a tiny bird via a PAO wand. It's neck was quickly snapped and later I dispelled the PAO and reanimated the body. The Skeleton/Zombie templates in the Draconomicon reduce WIS to 10 and takes 6 away from CHA and makes INT disappear completely. I then cast Awaken Undead on it and rolled a 6+4 meaning it now on the whole has the mental stats of a slightly above average human and is fully aware of itself. There's a pattern forming now, is the 'real' dragon now in the Inferno being berated by Tiamat for its profound stupidity and gullibility? Awaken Undead raises this question with many different types of undead.

Actual 3 (Planned) - Lichdom

The capstone of the Dread Necromancer class is of course Lichdom. In light of the lack of clarity on the issue the DM is positing that when my PC finally does become one, with his soul in the phylactery (other sources state this is filled with 'life force') the undead body will be an identical copy fuelled by negative energy with the 'real' PC being the soul in the phylactery. This concept rankles me because it suggests two separate consciousnesses and two different forces of will, with my functional undead PC now being a fake in essence.

Finally, what is the true nature of a soul in D&D, what does it constitute? In particular is there a clear cut fluff explanation of how Necromancy spells interact with the soul? Are those spells used to create skeletons innately evil because it binds and tortures the souls of the deceased into service for example? Please let me know!

It depends on your definition of soul. Does the soul include your mind? Technically that is just the firing and wiring of your brain. So, if cloned, you could create endless versions of yourself with the same personality and mental thinking. The soul is the energy that powers it perhaps. So, now you are using negative energy to power it instead.

It is certainly wonky as the soul has to choose to go back to the body for resurrection and your soul is what goes to whichever plane you belong to. Perhaps it is a residual copy of yourself of a non-physical sort that can exist where your body can not.

To say it another way: there is no right or wrong answer. DND 3.5 is unclear on this as well. You can not resurrect someone that is being animated however they can be the same person while animated as they were when alive... This would follow with my initial thoughts about the soul being a way to power your conscious self. Negative energy is another way. You can only be powered by one or the other. The soul apparently has no type or perhaps it has an alignment type based on the alignment you chose. Yet another question for your DM.

Just my 2 cents.

[Raishoiken]

P.S. would you mind if i borrowed/tweaked one of these concepts as a dm? You just struck me directly in the face with an idea

[Roentgen]

P.S. would you mind if i borrowed/tweaked one of these concepts as a dm? You just struck me directly in the face with an idea

The clone ones? Certainly. What do you have in mind?


It depends on your definition of soul. Does the soul include your mind? Technically that is just the firing and wiring of your brain. So, if cloned, you could create endless versions of yourself with the same personality and mental thinking. The soul is the energy that powers it perhaps. So, now you are using negative energy to power it instead.

It is certainly wonky as the soul has to choose to go back to the body for resurrection and your soul is what goes to whichever plane you belong to. Perhaps it is a residual copy of yourself of a non-physical sort that can exist where your body can not.

To say it another way: there is no right or wrong answer. DND 3.5 is unclear on this as well. You can not resurrect someone that is being animated however they can be the same person while animated as they were when alive... This would follow with my initial thoughts about the soul being a way to power your conscious self. Negative energy is another way. You can only be powered by one or the other. The soul apparently has no type or perhaps it has an alignment type based on the alignment you chose. Yet another question for your DM.

Just my 2 cents.

This is interesting and simplifies things a bit. If you imagine a dead body as a toy with the battery (soul: any alignment) removed and then a necromancer arrives and places a different kind of battery in (negative energy: almost always evil) to make the toy function. In this scenario the 'realness' of the toy is never in question. A lich keeps his original battery safe and hidden and has an endless supply of his own negative energy batteries as long as the original battery remains intact. Hmm!

[Raishoiken]

The clone ones? Certainly. What do you have in mind?

Adventure hook where a holy character is cloned for some reason or another and is later killed by their necromancer worst enemy who then raises the original body as an undead. Holy character learns of this and requests help to destroy the risen body and necromancer

[Roentgen]

Adventure hook where a holy character is cloned for some reason or another and is later killed by their necromancer worst enemy who then raises the original body as an undead. Holy character learns of this and requests help to destroy the risen body and necromancer

It has been put to me by another member of my D&D group that a clone can't be animated as undead because it has never been 'alive' before. Again this is from another vague source of information but you're the DM and we both prefer the idea that a clone can be animated because, why not? It creates many different interesting scenarios. If you follow the battery analogy above it's merely a copy of another toy except the clone comes without batteries included.

[Draconium]

Well, you could argue that the clone could be a "once-living creature" by the rules - or at least, part of one. Doesn't the Clone spell need a piece of flesh from the original creature to be created? And that piece of flesh was once a part of a living creature, although it's certainly not alive anymore...

[Roentgen]

Well, you could argue that the clone could be a "once-living creature" by the rules - or at least, part of one. Doesn't the Clone spell need a piece of flesh from the original creature to be created? And that piece of flesh was once a part of a living creature, although it's certainly not alive anymore...

You are correct. It requires 1 cubic inch of flesh taken from the still living target of the clone spell. The clone spell description ends with this:

"A duplicate can be grown while the original still lives, or when the original soul is unavailable, but the resulting body is merely a soulless bit of inert flesh, which rots if not preserved."

What is a dead body if not a soulless bit of inert flesh?

[Segev]

My best RAW analysis is that a cloned body is not dead, because when the original dies, the clone comes to life. This implies to me that the clone body is actually poised on the verge of life; it's pre-alive, not dead. The reasoning is this: a soul hopping into an actual corpse doesn't cause it to spring to life; it either creates some sort of undead, or it makes a construct meat-puppet (usually quite temporary) if it can animate it at all.

Therefore, the cloned body is not actually a corpse and thus is an invalid target for create undead and similar spells, at least until it's been inhabited and died, itself.

In addition, the way the clone spell specifies things, the clone is only going to receive the soul of the creature if the creature is dead. Undead creatures are not dead. So your vampire friend remains a vampire. When the vampire is destroyed, the creature that was the vampire is dead, and thus the creature would return to life in the cloned body, however, per the rules of the clone spell.

If, for some reason, the vampire were to immediately have the soul jump out and enter the clone, then, per the rules of clone, the vampire body immediately becomes innert flesh and ceases to be a vampire or even useful in any way as material for necromancy.


Order of the Stick, for the record, would possibly argue differently: given what we've seen of Durkon's vampiric condition, it is probable that, should Varsuuvius create a clone of Durkon, Durkon's soul would enter it and he'd live once more, while Vampire Durkon would continue as an evil fake.

For your vampire scion friend, it seems to me that her soul hasn't gone anywhere. She's in the process of becoming undead, so her soul probably remains trapped in the corpse, unconscious, to awaken when the transformation is complete (corrupted however it may be by the process).


It is generally clear that unintelligent undead do not have their original souls. They're animated by negative energy and the unholy will of whatever created them. If you awaken them, you've created a new being, just the same as if you do it to a golem or create an intelligent construct.


Intelligent undead are a mixed bag. Vampires, ghosts, and a few other sorts pretty clearly are the same people they were before they died. But ghouls, ghasts, wights, wraiths, shadows... these are not clear whether they're still...them. Or if their souls are gone and there's something Else living behind their decaying eyes. (Gravetouched Ghouls do seem to retain their original souls, though. As do, presumably, mummies.)


Personally, I tend to think of unintelligent undead (and undead with diminished intellectual capacity) as being animated by portions of the original soul. You're calling them back just enough to get the vital processes, but leaving them mostly stuck in whatever afterlife they were in. For those souls in eternal torment due to their evil ways, this is probably not really noticeable (or, maybe, is a slight reprieve, like letting them rest their forehead against a cool cloth while the rest of them boils in molten sulfer). For those enjoying some sort of eternal reward, it's probably a bit more annoying, since they're supposed to be feasting in Valhalla and yet they keep feeling the rasp of their bones against each other in discordant activity with what's gonig on where their soul's attention lies.

If the person is resurrected by some means that doesn't require the corpse you've animated, this connection is severed; whatever part of them was lost in losing a level, a point of Con, or whathaveyou is the part that remains in the skeleton or zombie or shadow or whatever. (Spells like true ressurection which do not cause level loss actually heal the soul in the process; they don't actually prevent the loss in the first place.)

If you awaken a skeleton, what you're doing is infusing that partial soul with enough energy to "grow" into a new one. It's grown from a seed of the original inhabitant, so it is shaped by it (retaining whatever skills et al the spell says they do), but it is a new person without shared memories. This is probably disconcerting to the soul still in its afterlife, like if your finger suddenly grew into a new person of which you're peripherally aware but not actually in control.

[shawshank]

My best RAW analysis is that a cloned body is not dead, because when the original dies, the clone comes to life. This implies to me that the clone body is actually poised on the verge of life; it's pre-alive, not dead. The reasoning is this: a soul hopping into an actual corpse doesn't cause it to spring to life; it either creates some sort of undead, or it makes a construct meat-puppet (usually quite temporary) if it can animate it at all.

Therefore, the cloned body is not actually a corpse and thus is an invalid target for create undead and similar spells, at least until it's been inhabited and died, itself.

In addition, the way the clone spell specifies things, the clone is only going to receive the soul of the creature if the creature is dead. Undead creatures are not dead. So your vampire friend remains a vampire. When the vampire is destroyed, the creature that was the vampire is dead, and thus the creature would return to life in the cloned body, however, per the rules of the clone spell.

If, for some reason, the vampire were to immediately have the soul jump out and enter the clone, then, per the rules of clone, the vampire body immediately becomes innert flesh and ceases to be a vampire or even useful in any way as material for necromancy.


Order of the Stick, for the record, would possibly argue differently: given what we've seen of Durkon's vampiric condition, it is probable that, should Varsuuvius create a clone of Durkon, Durkon's soul would enter it and he'd live once more, while Vampire Durkon would continue as an evil fake.

For your vampire scion friend, it seems to me that her soul hasn't gone anywhere. She's in the process of becoming undead, so her soul probably remains trapped in the corpse, unconscious, to awaken when the transformation is complete (corrupted however it may be by the process).


It is generally clear that unintelligent undead do not have their original souls. They're animated by negative energy and the unholy will of whatever created them. If you awaken them, you've created a new being, just the same as if you do it to a golem or create an intelligent construct.


Intelligent undead are a mixed bag. Vampires, ghosts, and a few other sorts pretty clearly are the same people they were before they died. But ghouls, ghasts, wights, wraiths, shadows... these are not clear whether they're still...them. Or if their souls are gone and there's something Else living behind their decaying eyes. (Gravetouched Ghouls do seem to retain their original souls, though. As do, presumably, mummies.)


Personally, I tend to think of unintelligent undead (and undead with diminished intellectual capacity) as being animated by portions of the original soul. You're calling them back just enough to get the vital processes, but leaving them mostly stuck in whatever afterlife they were in. For those souls in eternal torment due to their evil ways, this is probably not really noticeable (or, maybe, is a slight reprieve, like letting them rest their forehead against a cool cloth while the rest of them boils in molten sulfer). For those enjoying some sort of eternal reward, it's probably a bit more annoying, since they're supposed to be feasting in Valhalla and yet they keep feeling the rasp of their bones against each other in discordant activity with what's gonig on where their soul's attention lies.

If the person is resurrected by some means that doesn't require the corpse you've animated, this connection is severed; whatever part of them was lost in losing a level, a point of Con, or whathaveyou is the part that remains in the skeleton or zombie or shadow or whatever. (Spells like true ressurection which do not cause level loss actually heal the soul in the process; they don't actually prevent the loss in the first place.)

If you awaken a skeleton, what you're doing is infusing that partial soul with enough energy to "grow" into a new one. It's grown from a seed of the original inhabitant, so it is shaped by it (retaining whatever skills et al the spell says they do), but it is a new person without shared memories. This is probably disconcerting to the soul still in its afterlife, like if your finger suddenly grew into a new person of which you're peripherally aware but not actually in control.

Your argument is interesting. How do you deal with the reality that you can not resurrect or even true rez a corpse that has been animated into any kind of undead including vampires or a simple as a zombie. The undead creature must be destroyed first and then can be true rez'd. What say you to this?

[Segev]

Your argument is interesting. How do you deal with the reality that you can not resurrect or even true rez a corpse that has been animated into any kind of undead including vampires or a simple as a zombie. The undead creature must be destroyed first and then can be true rez'd. What say you to this?

Tricky, because true resurrection doesn't actually require a corpse, and thus you're not resurrecting the corpse.

Note that when I entered into the part about partial souls being pulled back, that was personal headcanon; I'd stepped out of pure RAW by then.

The pure RAW arguments end right before I say "Personally, I..."

For the most part, though, if the creature's soul is clearly present in an undead, you're not going to be able to bring that creature back to life without destroying the undead. The soul's not able to "return." If a corpse is currently animated, you cannot bring a creature's soul back into it to bring it back from the dead. The corpse is currently "in use." (If it's a vampire or similar, it's also in use by the very soul you want to bring back; it's like trying to raise your buddy from the dead when he's currently alive. Though I believe any of the bring-the-dead-back-to-life spells can be used to destroy undead, so you just need to cast it twice.)

[Roentgen]

Segev, your clone argument is very compelling but I must ask, if the cloned body is pre-alive as you say, why does it begin to rot away if not occupied without requiring spells such as Gentle Repose, same as a dead body? I love your insights into the nature of mindless and awakened undead. It's deliciously disturbing and adds another layer to the Necromancers portfolio of evil.

I'd like to know your thoughts on the Lich as it's a unique type of undead that exists in a kind of dual state, in that it's simultaneously undead and its soul is still on the material plane (generally).

[Draconium]

Well, I thought that you could not become undead without, you know, dying first. And I thought that, when you died, if you have a Cloned body, your soul is immediately transferred to the clone. Does that mean that, if you've Cloned, then killed by, say, a vampire's energy drain, you immediately come back in the clone, and your body still rises as a vampire in 1d4 days?

I would think the following would result in an OotS-type situation, with the vampire raised and controlled by a manifestation of negative energy, that has a mind and will of it's own. Of course, I could be wrong, but that makes the most sense to me.

[OldTrees1]

Theoretical 1:
Let us presume we know that souls don't duplicate. (quite a presumption but necessary I think)
We have killed subject A prior to the completion of the Clone so that subject A becomes a Vampire without having to worry about which is faster. Now we either have a souled Vampire(with like VampireDurkon is pretending to be or like VampireDurkon actually is) or we have an unsouled Vampire. Either way we have a Vampire.

Now the clone completes and we have 1 of 4 possible results(2 bodies * living/dead).
Case 1: Both bodies dead -
Well we messed up. While technically a possible result we have no theory that permits this.
Case 2: Only Vampire is alive -
This means subject A's soul is not dead & available to come to the clone. This means we are dealing with a souled Vampire. The question remains whether the soul is in control or not. Slaying the vampire should result in the soul going to the clone and then we can ask subject A if they were in control.
Case 3: Only the Clone is alive -
This means subject A's soul was in the vampire and removal of the soul slew the vampire. This hints at vampires being souled undead with the soul in control.
Case 4: Both are alive -
This means Vampires have no souls! Ooooh!

[shawshank]

Tricky, because true resurrection doesn't actually require a corpse, and thus you're not resurrecting the corpse.

Note that when I entered into the part about partial souls being pulled back, that was personal headcanon; I'd stepped out of pure RAW by then.

The pure RAW arguments end right before I say "Personally, I..."

For the most part, though, if the creature's soul is clearly present in an undead, you're not going to be able to bring that creature back to life without destroying the undead. The soul's not able to "return." If a corpse is currently animated, you cannot bring a creature's soul back into it to bring it back from the dead. The corpse is currently "in use." (If it's a vampire or similar, it's also in use by the very soul you want to bring back; it's like trying to raise your buddy from the dead when he's currently alive. Though I believe any of the bring-the-dead-back-to-life spells can be used to destroy undead, so you just need to cast it twice.)

Well, RAW, you can turn a corpse into a vampire and it remembers who it was but it does not have it's soul. That soul is on whatever plane it was sent to upon death. At this point the soul can not go into the body because it is being used for the vampire. What is really interesting is the vampire could goto the plane that the soul is on and they could communicate.. knowing exactly the same things as the other.. this is why I believe that the soul is a power source with a spiritual copy of all memories and personalities. The body is the physical copy which also has the same personality thoughts and memories. Remember, all of those things are stored in the physical brain. The soul is the odd-one out here. It somehow still represents the wholeness of that person that died yet that person can still be turned into a vampire and in effect be a negative energy clone that can exist at the same time as the soul. As a matter of fact, you could have cloned yourself.. moved your soul to the clone.. killed the original and created a vampire out of it and you would have effectively created two identical copies of yourself outside of the vampire template etc.

[Segev]

Segev, your clone argument is very compelling but I must ask, if the cloned body is pre-alive as you say, why does it begin to rot away if not occupied without requiring spells such as Gentle Repose, same as a dead body?Same reason a hunk of raw meat left lying out on the counter starts rotting if left untreated for preservation. It's meat that isn't alive. The rotting process happens because the living process isn't. Note that undead also rot, despite being not-dead. (Vampires are an explicit exception.)

"Pre-alive" really just means that it's... well, it's like you took a bunch of ground beef and formed it around some calcium you carved into bone shapes. Your magic did a very fine job of making this meat-on-calcium shaped exactly like a body (better than anybody is likely to do with ground beef and sculpting tools), but it didn't actually create something that had ever been alive. If it so much as took a breath and then died, it would be a corpse, but...it hasn't.


I love your insights into the nature of mindless and awakened undead. It's deliciously disturbing and adds another layer to the Necromancers portfolio of evil.Thanks!

In all honesty, it's partially an attempt to explain why mindless undead are mindless while not being constructs. An alternative would be that you're binding the soul entire within the corpse, but it's utterly enslaved and cannot act on its own volition or even its own intelligence. That would, I think, be even more evil, and I like having a bit of gray in my necromancy arguments so that there can be moral debate.

The way I wrote out here, though, keeps it "soul stuff," keeps it even tied to the specific soul that once lived in that flesh, but allows for arguments that it's not really evil. "Annoying" somebody in their afterlife is non-Good, of course, but isn't really Evil.


I'd like to know your thoughts on the Lich as it's a unique type of undead that exists in a kind of dual state, in that it's simultaneously undead and its soul is still on the material plane (generally).

You can take this a few directions. Personally, I tend to go with the lich's phylactery being empty when the lich is in a (generally skeletal) body. The RAW strongly imply that it works something like how the Order of the Stick depicted it, with a destroyed lich inhabiting its phylactery until a new body starts to randomly form (1d10 days later). I will note that, per the RAW, there are no negative effects on a lich whose phylactery is destroyed, as long as he is not destroyed before he creates a new one.

My personal way of handling it, if I were using house rules (or could convince a DM to were I playing a lich) would be more like a specialized magic jar: the phylactery houses the lich's soul whenever the lich dies/is destroyed, and then the lich's soul searches in an ever-widening radius for a dead body of at least roughly the correct race (e.g. humanoid in shape for most liches) to possess. When it finds it, it bursts - night of the living dead style - out of its grave and claws its way free, reborn as the lich it always was. (Or, since they're mages, it just teleports to its sanctum). This process takes 1d10 days as a general rule, though could take longer with a dearth of corpses. Even with plenty of them nearby, it takes a day just from shock of being forced back into the phylactery.

I also treat somebody who has gone through the whole ritual process as being technically still alive; until they die, they've merely ensured that their soul isn't going to an afterlife, but instead goes to their phylactery. As long as their death doesn't destroy their body (i.e., it is death because it halts their biological processes, not because their body is broken to pieces), they immediately re-inhabit it and may even look like they just didn't die from the wound. Their body, hwoever, being now undead, does decay, until they reach (naturally) the skeletal state for which liches are known. Most willfully suicide at the end of the phylactery-making ritual, because the power boost in being a lich is desired.

It is impossible to return a lich to life while its phylactery exists, because the soul won't be drawn into a new body, and entering a dead one only creates the lich anew.

I was amused when watching this anime to realize that the Soul Gem's function of being where the soul resides, with the body being a puppet, is similar, but not identical, to this. They never establish whether a magical girl could learn to animate a body other than her own, but the soul is ALWAYS in the gem, which does make it different.

Still, technically, they are more like a lich than a traditional magical girl.

[Segev]

Well, RAW, you can turn a corpse into a vampire and it remembers who it was but it does not have it's soul. That soul is on whatever plane it was sent to upon death.

Can you tell me where to find this rule? I can easily believe that's how some people think of it, but I don't recall there being RAW that said it was definitively the case. People seek to become vampires - even well-educated people - a bit much for me to think this is definitely, unquestionably true.

[Roentgen]

Lichdom

Interesting. Personally I have always imagined it to be like Voldemort and his horcruxes. The soul is permanently seperated from the body and stored in a magical object and as long as that object remains intact Voldemort/Lich is functionally immortal no matter how many times his body is destroyed. The difference between Voldemort and the classic Lich is that when Voldemorts horcruxes were destroyed the portion of his soul that resided in them was also destroyed but if the phylactery is destroyed the soul of the lich returns to the body at which point he becomes vulnerable to true death upon destruction of the body until a new phylactery is made.

If the soul resided in the lich at all times up until its bodily destruction, at which point it went to the phylactery, wouldn't that make it vulnerable to spells that trap or otherwise enslave the soul? In that scenario it'd be an unacceptable risk to me considering the torturous lengths liches go to hide and protect their phylacteries.

[Segev]

Interesting. Personally I have always imagined it to be like Voldemort and his horcruxes. The soul is permanently seperated from the body and stored in a magical object and as long as that object remains intact Voldemort/Lich is functionally immortal no matter how many times his body is destroyed. The difference between Voldemort and the classic Lich is that when Voldemorts horcruxes were destroyed the portion of his soul that resided in them was also destroyed but if the phylactery is destroyed the soul of the lich returns to the body at which point he becomes vulnerable to true death upon destruction of the body until a new phylactery is made.The trouble with Voldemort's horcruxes is that he required so very much to restore him after a bodily destruction. Lichdom is definitely superior.


If the soul resided in the lich at all times up until its bodily destruction, at which point it went to the phylactery, wouldn't that make it vulnerable to spells that trap or otherwise enslave the soul? In that scenario it'd be an unacceptable risk to me considering the torturous lengths liches go to hide and protect their phylacteries.It's a matter of overriding power. The lich's phylactery has first dibs on the soul, even over such effects as soul bind.

You could interpret it more along the lines of the soul being in the phylactery and "remoting" the body, but that raises questions about why you can't cut the two off. And if the answer is "you can't because powerful lich-magic," then that also answers the "why isn't it vulnerable to being trapped?" question for the version I prefer.



As an interesting thought-experiment, consider a living wizard or sorcerer creating a permanent magic item of magic jar. As long as he doesn't let the jar itself get crushed, he can now take it as far from his body as he likes, and he can even hop from body to body around his jar whenever he wants, letting bodies get killed right and left. It's almost a superior form of lichdom, since even if his original body dies, he's fine as long as he doesn't let anything happen to his jar.

[Sagetim]

My character is a level 15 Dread Necromancer and as therefore capable of creating fully sentient undead such as vampires, ghouls etc. The DM and I haven't been able to come to a consensus on what exactly happens to the soul of sentient undead once they're created as the materials we've read are vague at best and contradictory at worst. I'll present a few scenarios, some of which have happened and some of which are currently theoretical for you to pore over and hopefully illuminate us at the end.

Theoretical 1 - Clone then Create Undead

Using a scroll I cast clone on Test Subject A after removing the necessary amount of flesh from her still living body. One day before the clone is set to be finished I kill Test Subject A and using Create (Greater) Undead I apply the Vampire template to her dead body (or similar), bringing her back as a completely sentient, free willed undead, no different mentally than she was before outside of being fundamentally Evil (if she wasn't before). One day later the clone is complete and her soul rushes from wherever it ended up in the planes to occupy the cloned body. Now we have the clone of Test Subject A with her soul back and Vampire Test Subject A. Which one is now the 'real' Test Subject A?

Theoretical 2 - Clone and Create Undead

As above with the key difference of applying a fully sentient, free willed undead template to the cloned body as it, once complete, is only so much inert dead flesh that will actually rot away without Gentle Repose or similar. Perhaps in this case it could be argued that the original Test Subject A who never died in the first place is the 'real' one.

Actual 1 - Janessa the Vampire Scion

This is the example that the DM and I are most intensely interested in finding out about because she is set to revive from her coffin as a vampire scion within the next session. My Dread Necromancer offered her the chance at becoming a 'proper' undead, i.e. not a mindless shambling corpse and she accepted. The process involved my PC transmuting the necessary amount of onyx into an onyx goblet filled with his own blood. He then cast Create Undead on the goblet and ordered her to drink it. This acted as an intensely painful poison that rapidly killed her but as per the rules she will come back as a vampire scion within 1d4+1 days. After this we started wondering about what happened to her soul now that she's clinically dead in a coffin and what will happen to it when she revives. Is the 'real' Janessa now being subjugated in the Abyss for her chaotic evil ways in life? Is what will emerge from the coffin a mere copy, created and fuelled by negative energy?

Actual 2 - The Zombie Dragon and Awaken Undead

My PC recently duped a mature adult red dragon into letting itself be polymorphed into a tiny bird via a PAO wand. It's neck was quickly snapped and later I dispelled the PAO and reanimated the body. The Skeleton/Zombie templates in the Draconomicon reduce WIS to 10 and takes 6 away from CHA and makes INT disappear completely. I then cast Awaken Undead on it and rolled a 6+4 meaning it now on the whole has the mental stats of a slightly above average human and is fully aware of itself. There's a pattern forming now, is the 'real' dragon now in the Inferno being berated by Tiamat for its profound stupidity and gullibility? Awaken Undead raises this question with many different types of undead.

Actual 3 (Planned) - Lichdom

The capstone of the Dread Necromancer class is of course Lichdom. In light of the lack of clarity on the issue the DM is positing that when my PC finally does become one, with his soul in the phylactery (other sources state this is filled with 'life force') the undead body will be an identical copy fuelled by negative energy with the 'real' PC being the soul in the phylactery. This concept rankles me because it suggests two separate consciousnesses and two different forces of will, with my functional undead PC now being a fake in essence.

Finally, what is the true nature of a soul in D&D, what does it constitute? In particular is there a clear cut fluff explanation of how Necromancy spells interact with the soul? Are those spells used to create skeletons innately evil because it binds and tortures the souls of the deceased into service for example? Please let me know!

While I'm not claiming that my answer is strictly rules as written, it's still something to go on if you want something to go on. That makes my entire post rules as interpreted. In theoretical 1: Doesn't it imply somewhere within the animation rules that you can't be brought back while your body is animated as undead? That might have just been an assumption I made, but it seemed like you couldn't wind up in this situation to me. Personally I find this to be a great situation to have to role play out, especialy if you go with the route of the vampire not having a soul and thus being a negative energy based copy of the person. They will still believe themselves to be that person, but they won't have any soul to back them up on that. This means that the vampire is going to cling to it's material existence once it becomes aware of that fact far more than the cloned person. Why? The cloned person knows that their sentience is tied to a soul, so even if they die, they will have a continued form of existence somewhere. Once the vampire dies, they die for real because their sentience and experiences aren't tied to a soul.

As far as I recall, animating sentient undead in dnd has nothing to do with the soul of the person. Like Speak with the Dead, it is animating the brain. This means that the sentience in the body would have none of the afterlife experiences that the soul might have obtained.

Actual 1- yes. The soul of Janessa is in hell being tortured. The vampire that comes out of the coffin is going to be a negative energy copy of her that has memories leading up to her death, but nothing about the afterlife (having never been there). However, even without a soul this Janessa is going to consider herself the true Janessa and probably isn't going to give a rat's ass about the soul that's being tortured in hell because 'that's not her'. She'll act like Janessa would act in a given situation, grow as a person in reaction to the circumstances she is placed in, and so on. The main problem will be that when vampire janessa eventually dies, you may not be able to get her back. This is where finding a way to tie her soul into the vampire experience would behoove you: If the soul is part of the vampire (or somehow retrieved and stitched on) then you can have a Janessa that will have a continuity of existence beyond material plane death. Going with my RIA though, not retrieving the soul means that Janessa could potentially be resurrected or what have you. Then you're going to have an issue of Janessa-vampire and Janessa-living lady are going to be in the same room at the same time, both thinking they are the real Janessa and probably starting some kind of kung fu action cat fight. The impression I've gotten from Janessa is that she wouldn't want any 'imposters' around and wouldn't play nice with herself.

Actual 2- The sentience in the undead dragon is from Awaken Undead. It is not the same sentience as the one that occupied the body when it was alive. The soul of the dragon is in hell (or whatever) and is probably getting reamed for being an idiot. It's fair to say that Awaken and similar spells create a new sentience in what they are cast upon, so even though the dragon had a mind when it was alive, that mind died and the body got animated as a rotting corpse. The mind that was once there was basically decimated and gone, and the awaken undead spell wrote a newly formed mind in it's place.

Actual 3- As far as I'm concerned, the lich template is being slowly applied to a Dread Necromancer on the way to 20 anyway, so when it happens as their capstone they don't suddenly hit level 20 and then jump up by 4 ecl. That's my interpretation of it, however, and it means that a dread necromancer who becomes a lich from their capstone doesn't suffer from the ecl of the template that they gain, because it's a class ability. When it comes to the soul and the phylactery and the body...the lich's body is now a puppet that it uses to do stuff. The soul is safely contained in it's phylactery and it's body doesn't house a second sentience, it acts as a mystical sleeve that the phylactery contained soul uses to interact with the physical world. The sentience and the soul of the lich is Always in the Phylactery, the body is a wibbledewobbledey thing that exists for the sole purpose of giving the lich an ability to interact with the world and a target for a lot of spells (like inherent bonuses for ability scores, and permanencied spells).

An alternate interpretation is that souls are involved in the animation of undead. I don't think this is stated by the rules as written, but as long as your GM is consistent in the interpretation this can be fine. This would, however, mean that mindless undead are traps for the souls of their victims and are walking around doing whatever they are told to while the soul is along for the ride and helplessly watching. Then, sentient undead also have the souls of their person in them, but the negative energy flowing through the body has likely corrupted the person and caused their alignment to shift to evil for as long as they are a sentient and animated undead. You would also have to interpret how spells that affect souls would interact with 'undead are walking abominations that have their souls stuck in them as some kind of resurrection gone wrong'. But one of the things that this interpretation would cause is an inability to raise someone from the dead as long as they were animated as an undead (since their soul would not be Free to return).

And now, after writing this, I'll read the rest of this thread and maybe edit my post. >.>

Edit: Oh right, there's also the curious case of Manshoon in Forgotten Realms. He was a high level spellcaster who had like, a metric crapton of clones that he left all over the damn place, ferreted away in various secret locations. And then at some point they all activated at the same time. As I recall, they all thought they were the one true manshoon, and I think they started killing each other to prove their superior manshoonness. Now, does that mean that there was a bunch of manshoon bodies walking around with just one soul between them? Or did Manshoon have a bunch of cloned manshoon clones for each of his clones? Or were all the bodies walking around as soulless abominations? I would prefer to interpret the curious case of manshoon as one where his many bodies were being animated by a single soul, like some kind of phylactery that had a bunch of bodies attached to it at once. This would open up the possibility of massed consciousnesses in dnd games...but I don't think that's the right explanation. It's just the one I prefer. I think the correct explanation is 'someone decided to be 'creative' by deliberately breaking the rules of a spell so that they could have a manshoon subplot going on in whatever book they were writing at the time and didn't necessarily think out the consequences for how that would play out in the established dnd rules'. I think the correct answer is that Manshoon's soul was broken up and parts of it were animating each of his clones. Which calls into question what happened to the pieces of his soul that got killed by the other pieces of his soul. If they weren't collected, then it means you have a bunch of pieces of manshoon's soul sitting around in hell twitching and probably being tortured to the best of the demon's ability to torture incomplete parts of a soul. We would probably need someone who is better read on Forgotten Realms fiction to fill in the actual details of the Manshoon thing, but it seems like it would be related to this thread's question of 'how do souls work in dnd?'

[Roentgen]

The trouble with Voldemort's horcruxes is that he required so very much to restore him after a bodily destruction. Lichdom is definitely superior.

It's a matter of overriding power. The lich's phylactery has first dibs on the soul, even over such effects as soul bind.

You could interpret it more along the lines of the soul being in the phylactery and "remoting" the body, but that raises questions about why you can't cut the two off. And if the answer is "you can't because powerful lich-magic," then that also answers the "why isn't it vulnerable to being trapped?" question for the version I prefer.



As an interesting thought-experiment, consider a living wizard or sorcerer creating a permanent magic item of magic jar. As long as he doesn't let the jar itself get crushed, he can now take it as far from his body as he likes, and he can even hop from body to body around his jar whenever he wants, letting bodies get killed right and left. It's almost a superior form of lichdom, since even if his original body dies, he's fine as long as he doesn't let anything happen to his jar.

I'll have to keep that in mind if the DM comes down on the soul-with-the-body interpretation. Your thought experiment would make for a very interesting and scary villain. It reminds me of the film Fallen (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallen_%281998_film%29).


You would also have to interpret how spells that affect souls would interact with 'undead are walking abominations that have their souls stuck in them as some kind of resurrection gone wrong'. But one of the things that this interpretation would cause is an inability to raise someone from the dead as long as they were animated as an undead (since their soul would not be Free to return)

This is the case already, as mentioned above most resurrection spells can only work if the undead in question is destroyed first. Whether this means the necromancy bound the soul, or negative energy took up the space the soul would normally occupy is open to interpretation.

[Sagetim]

I'll have to keep that in mind if the DM comes down on the soul-with-the-body interpretation. Your thought experiment would make for a very interesting and scary villain. It reminds me of the film Fallen (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallen_%281998_film%29).



This is the case already, as mentioned above most resurrection spells can only work if the undead in question is destroyed first. Whether this means the necromancy bound the soul, or negative energy took up the space the soul would normally occupy is open to interpretation.

On looking at the animate dead and create undead spells, nothing in them says anything about preventing someone from being raised, ressurected, or brought back to life while their body is animated as an undead. Raise Dead specifies that it cannot bring back anyone that has been turned into an undead, but on reading that it doesn't specify that it has anything to do with the soul. Resurrection specifies that it can work on bodies that have been turned undead and then destroyed, but that it doesn't work on undead, constructs, outsiders, etc. True Resurrection specifies that it cannot work on undead creatures, but doesn't offer any explanation as to why. So let's look at Clone: It specifies that the target needs to be Dead. This implies, but does not outright state that an undead subject would prevent a Clone spell from functioning. This leaves the spell more open to interpretation than divine spells that bring people back to life. I would interpret this to mean that Clone can result in situations that divine magic could not provide- that is to say, that you could clone someone and animate their body as a vampire or whatever, and the clone would still activate as normal as long as you hadn't raised the person in the meantime (which would require the undead's destruction anyway).

Now, if you cloned someone, then made them a lich in the meantime you don't have an ambiguity in where the soul has wound up. A lich's soul is in their phlactery, and is thus not free to return (even if it was willing to abandon the phylactery and it's lichly existence to go back to being a mere mortal). One of the big problems with clone is it's level loss factor, but at least it's not as bad as Clone used to be (where it used to be that the Clone came back at the level of the person when the sample was taken...which could result in a really low level clone coming online and missing large sections of it's memory).

edit: only after posting this and rereading your post did I realize that I was basically saying the same thing. I feel rather silly.

[Xar Zarath]

Unintelligent undead: Their souls end up in their afterlives. Awaken Undead takes the knowledge that their bodies might hold and elevates that into sentience. Their new experiences as whatever undead they are shape it into a unique character.

Created Undead: Many of the wights, ghouls, shadows etc are people whose souls have found the afterlife. Their earthly remains only recollect a few things about their lives, perhaps most of it was they dying part especially for the violent ones. Its why most wights etc don't have any abilities they had in life carried over. Look at the Speak with Dead spell, it allows you to converse with a corpse about things in knew in life without summoning the spirit. Instead you just give the body a voice.

Vampires: I think their souls are still connected to the body. Therefore Clone would apply. Most consider vamps to have souls but DND doesn't really go into that.

Liches: When they are out and about, its their souls tucked in the remains of the bodies, operating it like a puppeteer. When the bodies get destroyed, like a titan's grip the phylactery pulls them back into it where they recuperate from the shock before seeking another host body. Then its all a matter of possessing and walking the world once more.

[DrKerosene]

Xar Zarath describes how I would explain undead NPCs, I would make exceptions for PCs. Though, I like the idea of some undead actually shackling their former soul, while most are "new beings" if awakened/animated.

However, using OotS, and assuming a destroyed body:

Real Durkon can be brought back as normal, the vampire-consciousness version cannot be restored with the same magic.

Durkon's sire could not be restored once killed, and why he would be "someone else" if Durkon tried. Thus why he was so upset about the death of his "children", because undead cannot be restored to existance ("unlife").

[Roentgen]

I've spoken to the DM and showed him this thread. He has adopted a ruling that undead strictly and uniformly do not have souls, citing the SRD description of death and the Soul Bind spell requiring a living target. However the concept of real/fake has been discarded thankfully and what makes Janessa 'Janessa' is what's contained within her grey matter. The necromancer has merely replaced her positive energy battery with a negative energy one.

[JoranShadeslayr]

The 3.5 versions of create undead and create greater undead don't let you create a vampire.
The clone spell creates a clone which is occupied by the soul of the original at the instant of death.
So you can't clone somebody, kill them, and then turn their corpse into a vampire. The instant you kill the person, their soul goes right into the clone. You can, however, animate the original body as a skeleton or zombie. You can even use Awaken Undead on the newly animated corpse.

As to how we play it:
The soul is basically a positive energy copy of the person, memories and all.

A vampires soul still resides in it's body, but has been converted from positive to negative energy. Because it's soul is still attached to it's body, the body doesn't decay.

A Liches soul is also converted to negative energy, but is then drawn into their phylactery, which becomes it's new body. It then has to possess it's old body, or another one, in order to interact with the world. Because it's soul is no longer attached to it's body, the body slowly decays until it becomes the familiar skeletal form we all know and fear.

Other forms of intelligent undead have had their souls replaced entirely by negative energy, although they still have access to the minds/memories. Their original soul is in whatever afterlife it belongs.

[Crake]

The 3.5 versions of create undead and create greater undead don't let you create a vampire.
The clone spell creates a clone which is occupied by the soul of the original at the instant of death.
So you can't clone somebody, kill them, and then turn their corpse into a vampire. The instant you kill the person, their soul goes right into the clone. You can, however, animate the original body as a skeleton or zombie. You can even use Awaken Undead on the newly animated corpse.

As to how we play it:
The soul is basically a positive energy copy of the person, memories and all.

A vampires soul still resides in it's body, but has been converted from positive to negative energy. Because it's soul is still attached to it's body, the body doesn't decay.

A Liches soul is also converted to negative energy, but is then drawn into their phylactery, which becomes it's new body. It then has to possess it's old body, or another one, in order to interact with the world. Because it's soul is no longer attached to it's body, the body slowly decays until it becomes the familiar skeletal form we all know and fear.

Other forms of intelligent undead have had their souls replaced entirely by negative energy, although they still have access to the minds/memories. Their original soul is in whatever afterlife it belongs.

I personally use a similar path of logic as this, despite it having no real support RAW wise.

The way I do it for the most part is: Is the creature mindless? Yes: It has no soul, No: It has a soul. If that soul is in the body or, for incorporeal undead, the form of an undead creature, that doesn't mean the creature has any less of a soul, just that the soul has been twisted by some horrific event or circumstance.

That's not to say that you couldn't use a spell like create undead on the corpse of someone who's already been resurrected or cloned, but you would need a soul to power it, either a bound creature of some kind (i'm sure plenty of demons would be happy to inhabit the body of a creature being turned into an undead, only to be released after the shell is destroyed, i believe that some versions of vampires actually say that they're just the bodies possesed by a demon), or possibly a soul trapped in a soul gem, or some incorporeal undead, willing or unwilling.

Some of that is quite possibly strictly anti-raw, but I know the ins and outs of my campaign setting pretty well, so it all fits for me, and by having things not always be raw, it keeps my players guessing, and some of the mystery remains, rather than having every process documented and understandable from some outside source.

[Fizban]

I can answer all these immediately based on how I'd run them, but as you've said the official sources are often contradictory so it's just my interpretations. You really won't find anything clear cut that encompasses everything: Afroakuma could give you a rundown on the history of the Planescape setting used in much of 3.x dnd and what it might say, but that's still gathering from tons of books over time. It's case-by-case or determine your own canon, I'll give my answers+reasons below (the clear-cut answer is under the quote box).

Theoretical 1 - Clone then Create Undead
The clone fails to animate since Subject A is no longer dead. This is because she has been raised as a vampire, a sufficiently powerful undead that her soul was called back to animate it. The clone reaches maturity and is ready to receive the soul if it becomes loose, so if you dust Vampire A the Subject A clone will animate immediately, with the same result as if Subject A had just be Raised to the living (as long as it's been maintained of course).

Subject A will remember all her time as a vampire and I'll leave one aspect up in the air: does the vampirification process stick, or does she immediately regret all that she's done? Either is fine for character development but I'd argue the former should only be allowed if the DM had made the decision previously or consults with the players, since it's not fair to spring that suddenly (even if Subject A is an NPC, the fact that NPCs use the same rules is what much of 3.5 is based on, so they should get the same protections from sudden rule changes that players do).

Theoretical 2 - Clone and Create Undead
The Create Undead spell fails because the Clone is not a corpse. The inert clone has never been alive enough to count as a creature for any spells, and if a clone's animation severs the soul's connection to it's own body for resurrection then until the soul has inhabited the cloned body it likewise cannot have the same connection.

Actual 1 - Janessa the Vampire Scion
I don't know what a Vampire Scion is, but here's how it goes: the books usually make a big deal about mindless vs sentient undead, but there's actually three categories. Mindless, sentient "Husks," and Souled. The distinction lies basically in weather or not a player could continue playing their character. If a template retains all their class levels then it's definitely a souled undead. If it's mindless then it's just a negative energy construct.

The murky parts are the "sentient" undead that supposedly retain some or all of their memories and even personality, but lose all access to their original levels. Even though they can gain new class levels and could be run by a player, I argue that this cannot be considered as the same character. Thus, even a sentient undead is simply a very well imprinted husk of the person it was created from. This likely conflicts with a number of monster entries that claim the soul is held hostage and I'd rule those on a case-by-case basis, noting that oftentimes the reason a creature cannot be raised is not because their soul was captured, but merely because they were killed by creepy magic (Death effects and stuff).

So if a Vampire Scion keeps their class levels then you're made a good deal, but if it's like a Vampire Spawn then you've made a mistake and the "real" Janessa is rotting in the hells.

Actual 2 - The Zombie Dragon and Awaken Undead
You have created a surprisingly intelligent negative energy construct, but the dragon's soul is entirely untouched.

Actual 3 (Planned) - Lichdom
The real PC is the combination of the Lich body and the Soul in the phylactery. Just because a soul is somewhere else doesn't mean it's not important, in fact the reason a phylactery is so expensive and difficult to make is so you don't zombify yourself.

Finally, what is the true nature of a soul in D&D, what does it constitute? In particular is there a clear cut fluff explanation of how Necromancy spells interact with the soul? Are those spells used to create skeletons innately evil because it binds and tortures the souls of the deceased into service for example? Please let me know!
The soul is basically whatever it needs to be. It can travel to another plane of existence but still be waiting nearby if someone casts the right spell, it's simultaneously the anchor of a person's existence and a completely worthless bargaining chip, it's the most powerful source of energy that doesn't do anything. Most often it's used as a reference point for disallowing/allowing certain rule-breaking regarding life and death, but the true nature of the soul in DnD is whatever an individual mechanic wants it to be at the time. That's the only clear cut answer. You could say it's linked to the player: the player can choose to seek out or ignore things that might interact with the PC's soul, the uniqueness of the PC is tied to the player who roleplays them, characters that lose their souls are usually unplayable, and in general a PC has the most options for twisting the value of their soul from one axis on the contradiction meter to the other because they have a player that can do the twisting. It's a gem cut with different rules and the player can nudge it to a different facet with the right books or DM interaction.

Less and more philosophically, regarding divided consciousness, this is where DnD has an edge over real life. If someone could create an exact copy of you including all memories, personality, etc, even up to what you were thinking at the time (say a Stark Trek teleporter malfunction), which is the real you? This is a disturbing question in IRL, with my best logical answer being "the one with the continuity," which could be as fragile-ly defined as "the one on the teleporter pad I was supposed to land on." In DnD the answer is simple: one is attached to your soul, so it's You. The other is either a soulless replica, pulls it's own soul out of the aether (becoming independent and identifiable via magic), or fails to be animate and immediately falls into a coma. You mentioned a dislike of your DM's idea regarding lichdom, and my answer was that you're both wrong. A soul is not a consciousness, nor is it required for consciousness, but a mind that was created with a soul needs free access to that soul in order to continue functioning. Putting your soul in a box with a telephone to your body doesn't cause an identity crisis. (Of course a soul could be conscious for a while, usually because the body is unavailable and the game needs a reference point for player decisions and interaction, but as always this only matters when a mechanic or the DM brings it up, the default is no).

Back to rules on necromancy spells, I go with the "negative energy as a part of the universe" model, so just casting Animate Dead isn't evil itself. Creating a negative energy construct harms no one by itself. Twisting a soul into something it did not choose to be on the other hand is totally evil, so creating souled undead like Vampires is Evil. Sentient Husks? The soul is unharmed but intentionally creating a creature that is naturally evil is still an Evil act, though how that interacts with alignments on your sheet is up to the DM. Mindless and Husk undead don't block raising by their existence so a strong enough rez spell could let you fight your own Ghoul self. Wish is often allowed a 50% chance to bring back creatures who've had their souls destroyed or "lost," if used in this manner when they've actually been raised as a Souled undead, the spell would either fizzle or try to destroy the Souled undead depending on the setup.


And with a quick skim of the thread, I also don't mind Segev's method where animation captures a part of the soul. A different compromise that lets you keep even mindless animation as evil and preventing resurrections without messing about too much. I'll admit it's probably better than mine if you just want RAW to make sense, but I prefer mine since I feel it's more permissive and interesting. I'm willing to overwrite rules in order to achieve more player involvement and keep the spirit of 3.5's "everyone uses the same rules" intact.

Sagetim also mentioned the possibility of multiple bodies using the same soul which is useable (it's even in sci-fi towards the end of the Ender's Game series), but since I use the soul as a cosmic identifier that wouldn't work. You can introduce individuals or mechanical groups that ignore the norm as always (don't the Dvati race from Dragon share a soul?), but the army of Manshoon's wouldn't happen unless the DM decided because plot, which is what was actually happening there anyway. I also see that [the OP's] DM has gone with a more clinical ruling that continuity of self depends on the physical and it would seem souls are more of a positive energy battery: again I don't really mind this version, I prefer my own for keeping storytelling and character options open, but in a themed campaign it's okay to take certain paths and you've clearly got a lot of undead going on so choosing souls/brains/etc is perfectly fine.

Edit: actually that last one does bug me a little, since it would seem your DM has invalidated the entire afterlife of the usual DnD. If the soul's just a battery then there's no reason to be outraged at people unjustly trapped in hell or the Wall of the Faithless, and cuts off any way of contacting dead people for heroic shenanigans. The very line in ressurrection, "soul must be free and willing to return," has no meaning if it's just a battery. It does make for a nifty dystopian setting where the gods are just farming people for energy, but it upends a lot of stuff just to settle an argument over who's real/fake.

[Sagetim]

How many Manshoons does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A) We'll never know, they all killed each other trying to get to the light bulb.

[SkipSandwich]

The way I interpret it in DnD, the soul is the program and the brain is the computer that runs the program. Undead have had one or both of these replaced by a negative energy construct.

Mindless Undead: Soul + Brain both replaced with a negative energy construct, the original soul is off in whatever afterlife is appropriate, resurrection fails because you either need a body or the body has to have been completely destroyed, neither of which is true in this case.

Souled Undead: Necropolitans, Liches, Mummy Lords, Vampires and Ghosts are examples I would consider of Souled Undead, these undead states transform the body and mind, but do not touch the soul and can be considered a continuation of the same person in a new form. I will note that the way I run it, a Ghost is simply a soul without a body with a very simple negative energy construct brain, they have all the memories, thoughts and feelings they had in life, but due to hardware limitations, cannot form new long-term memories. Souls in the afterlife are the same way, only under generally more pleasant conditions then most ghosts find themselves in. Vampires strongly tend towards evil because the creation of Vampire Spawn brings wholly [Evil] creatures into the world who serve no purpose but to destroy the living. Mummy Lords tend towards evil because they served evil gods in life, and Liches tend towards evil because I imagine the Lichification ritual requires at least a few [Evil] acts to complete.

Undead "Husks" (to borrow terminology): Vampire Spawn, Mummies, Ghouls and similar corporeal undead preserve the brain and memories of the original person, but are running an entirely new program and can be considered a new person from that point forward.

"Natural" Undead: These are simply creatures that like mindless undead, have a soul and brain formed from negative energy, but also possess intelligence. Shadows, Alips, Bodaks, Wraiths and Specters are created when tragedy occurs of a level that it leaves a "hole" in the material plane that is then filled with negative energy in the shape of "suicide" or "torture" or "murder". Any resemblance these creatures have to a formerly living person is largely superficial. The biggest thing they take from the person whose death spawned them is purpose, the death of good aligned people creates undead that seek out their tormentors, usually ignoring all others, and then, having taken revenge, discorporate, their purpose fulfilled. The deaths of Neutral people create undead that function the same, except they will actively attack those that stand between them and their target and might not discorporate after taking revenge. The deaths of Evil people create undead that lash out indiscriminately and will continue to do so until destroyed.

Other examples are undead like Nightshades and Devourers, that can be considered a sort of "Anti-Life" native to planes with a dominant connection to the Negative Energy Plane.

[ericgrau]

IMO require additional real souls for the sentient undead, with the appropriate level if it has class levels. That can often be a bit evil, but I think necromancy is supposed to be that way. Why call it [evil] if you aren't doing something terrible to the souls as an inherent part of the spell?

[Roentgen]

Fizban I like the concept of three states of undeath; mindless, sentient husks and souled. I'm definitely going to bring that up. On a similar note I asked him what happens when a Shadow creates another Shadow from a persons corpse with its strength damaging attack, as in what was used up to create that new Shadow, if indeed undead have no souls/cannot be disembodied souls. His response was 'bioelectric energy' which we agreed was pure supposition and no more or less concrete than the topic of souls.

P.S. A Vampire Scion is a lesser version of the SRD Vampire template with +2 LA and almost none of the abilities outside of the ability score increases from the standard vampire template. It's found in the 3rd party Complete Vampire supplement.

[Fizban]

Glad I showed up in time for my voice to be heard :smallbiggrin: And that you've not accidentally done the exact opposite of what you were trying to do with the the vamp scion ritual, whatever you end up going with.

[BWR]

For quite a while now I've felt that the ancient Egyptian concept of the soul (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_concept_of_the_soul) explains a lot about D&D life and undeath.