Spell to Create Life?

[Gale]

I was wondering if there was any spell in D&D (besides Wish) that could create a permanent living being. Preferably, a humanoid comparable to a player race. I thought it might be an interesting origin for a character, but I haven't been able to find anything. I'll most likely settle on using Wish if there is nothing else; but curiosity has the better of me right now.

[Bronk]

Well... to create life, you could use any 'bag of tricks', each of which creates real, living animals... somehow. (A secret connection to the Bastion of Unborn Soul perhaps?)

If you use a 'bag of tricks, rust' to create medium sized mammals, you can then use 'polymorph any object' on them to create permanent humanoids.

Edit: There's also the epic spell "Origin of Species: Achaierai", so I guess epic spells in general is another method.

[JDL]

Owlbears! No, there really isn't more than that.

[Mystral]

I was wondering if there was any spell in D&D (besides Wish) that could create a permanent living being. Preferably, a humanoid comparable to a player race. I thought it might be an interesting origin for a character, but I haven't been able to find anything. I'll most likely settle on using Wish if there is nothing else; but curiosity has the better of me right now.

Charm Person works well.

[Xuldarinar]

As noted: the epic level handbook has Origin of Species: Achaierai, an epic spell that utilizes the conjure, life, and fortify seeds. If that is of any precedent then the creation of a creature, the creation of a race in this case, is a feat of epic spellcasting.


Edit note: Didn't notice it was already brought up. Oh well.

[Oberon Kenobi]

1) Polymorph Any Object cast twice.

2) Less troublingly, since it has an instantaneous rather than permanent duration and you therefore don't need to worry about dispelling: Animate Object on, say, a mannequin or statue, followed by Permanency, then Incarnate Construct.
~NB: Incarnate Construct explicitly doesn't work on temporary constructs such as those created by Animate Object. Whether Permanency gets you over this hurdle is a table question.

[Tiri]

Well, Ice Assassin creates a 'living, breathing creature', but since by RAW the creature created cannot level up, you can't play it. The 'all-consuming need to slay the original' might also be a problem.

[Thurbane]

Create a detailed statue of a human(oid) then cast Stone to Flesh? Although by RAW, it would create either a corpse, or an inanimate lump of human shaped flesh.

Other spells (Raise Dead, Limited Wish etc.) may be able to give it some kind of life.

Checking the exact wording:


Such flesh is inert and lacking a vital life force unless a life force or magical energy is available. (For example, this spell would turn a stone golem into a flesh golem, but an ordinary statue would become a corpse.)

Wonder what would happen if you cast it on an Animated Object (humanoid statue)?

[Sagetim]

Crafting a golem and using incarnate construct would probably be one (expensive) way to do it. But it still requires very high level casting.

As a mid level casting option/scroll abuse option, you could use a bag of tricks to make a medium sized animal, Awaken it (druid 5th), and then use PAO to make it a humanoid with humanoid level intelligence. The main problems with this would be the extra hit dice of animal from Awaken. Depending on GM Fiat, you may be stuck with a being that has 3 or 4 levels of animal before they can pick up any class levels. And that's just awful. The DM could rule that since it's no longer an animal, it doesn't have animal hit dice though, and that's what you would want.

Simulacrums create a copy of a being made from ice and glamered to look like whatever they are a copy of. The downsides include no advancement ability and a general lack of personal initiative on the part of the simulacrum. (Basically, it's not a playable character).

As mentioned, you could whip up an epic spell for your being creation needs. But that requires even higher levels than wish, in addition to the time, xp, and gold investment of researching an epic spell.

If it doesn't have to be Magical, there's also the Elan- formerly human beings who have transcended the normal mortal existence and type changed to abberations. They also have no limit on their age (and an unfortunate -2 to cha as part of their racial traits in 3.5). But they are technically the result of a psionic process that reforges a being as something other than natural.

Warforged fall into a similar category, being living constructs that have been brought to life through magic rather than the tride and true natural method.

[Crake]

the curse of lycanthropy spell from spell compendium (not from complete divine, which just gives a target lycanthropy) is a save or die, and if the target fails their save, 1d6 wererats are spontaneously created and claw their way out of the victim's body.

[Thurbane]

I can see an interesting plot hook where someone loses a loved one to a death effect, so they remove the heart, cast Flesh to Stone, turn it into an animated object (creature) then cast Incarnate Construct, using the heart as the material component.

[frogglesmash]

Iirc the Rod of Wonder can spew a cone of butterflies.

[Thurbane]

Could you cast Incarnate Construct on the being created by a Beget Bogun spell?

[DrMotives]

Could you cast Incarnate Construct on the being created by a Beget Bogun spell?

Sure, that and a Homonculus too. Although if you made a large enough gene pool of the things and then left them alone for a few generations, you'd probably have a really strange culture with the Homonculi. If they all had 1 original creator, they might start worshiping that mage as a god. The Boguns would more likely be another cliched druid-centric race.

[Inevitability]

Wonder what would happen if you cast it on an Animated Object (humanoid statue)?

It would become an Animated Object (humanoid statue made of flesh). So pretty much a bad thing to do, unless you want to create the illusion of humans moving around somewhere.