How do Doomguides deal with their dead foes?

[Schwann145]

Clerics of Kelemvor (or any other gods of the Dead who are similarly minded...) are vehemently against the creation of undead as it is seen as blasphemous, so I imagine part of their dogma is to ensure such a thing isn't possible.
The obvious solution is burning the dead being preferable to burying them.

Adventuring clerics might not have that luxury however! You can't alight corpses when inside dungeons, caves, crypts, etc. (unless your goal was to smoke yourself, and your party, out) and casting high level off-list spells like Disintegrate is simply unrealistic.

Would a Cantrip that prevents a corpse from being turned into the undead be too strong?
If so, how should such a character handle their raison d'être (ie: seeing that the dead properly and comfortably complete their journey to the other side)?

[MaxWilson]

Would a Cantrip that prevents a corpse from being turned into the undead be too strong?
If so, how should such a character handle their raison d'être (ie: seeing that the dead properly and comfortably complete their journey to the other side)?

What's wrong with Gentle Repose? IIRC it's even a ritual, so just as good as a cantrip from the spell slot perspective. You wind up spending ten minutes or so per corpse, but that seems fairly thematic for last rites.

[Schwann145]

What's wrong with Gentle Repose? IIRC it's even a ritual, so just as good as a cantrip from the spell slot perspective. You wind up spending ten minutes or so per corpse, but that seems fairly thematic for last rites.

Gentle Repose seems more like the "we need our party member to stay fresh until we can get them back to town and get a Raise Dead cast on them."
It keeps corpses fresh for 10 days, which means any necromancers looking for corpses just have to wait a bit before they can raise them. Also think of in-game logistics:
Consider a room with 6 goblins; a rather standard low-ish level challenge. After you defeat your foes, it'll take you a full hour to GR every goblin. Half an hour later you're in another encounter, this time with 2 bugbears and 3 goblins. There's another 50 minutes after that fight.

tl;dr - Your party will loathe you, and necromancers are simply a few days inconvenienced. :P
(For most clerics/paladins/what-have-you, last rites is simply a kindness that, for the sake of pragmatism, can probably be skipped on most foes. For a cleric of the death god, it's SUPER-important.)

[JackPhoenix]

You don't have to deal with the bodies right now. You may clear the dungeon first, *then* burn (or whatever) the corpses.

[Unoriginal]

so I imagine part of their dogma is to ensure such a thing isn't possible.

That's a mighty jump in assumption, though. You do more to prevent undead by opposing necromancers and the like than by destroying all the corpses.


Would a Cantrip that prevents a corpse from being turned into the undead be too strong?

If you have to burn those bodies immediately, you can just use Create Bonfire.

[nickl_2000]

If you have to burn those bodies immediately, you can just use Create Bonfire.
That wouldn't be enough to consume a body without some sort of accelerant (at least not quickly). So, you would also need to invent in a fair amount of lantern oil or alchemist fire to heat up the flames.


It would be faster to summon something large enough to consume the body. A CR1 Giant Toad can swallow a medium sized create and cause it to take acid damage. I think that would be pretty effective (but would cost a level 3 Druid spell to do it).

Repeated castings of Acid Splash should also do the trick to dissolve the body, although that would be slow as well.



The level 1 Ceremony Ritual spell from Xanathar's is the RAW magic way to do it. It has an effect in there
Funeral Rite. You touch one corpse, and for the next 7 days, the target can’t become undead by any means short of a wish spell.

Personally I would change that so that it can never become undead, but that is me.

[Unoriginal]

That wouldn't be enough to consume a body without some sort of accelerant (at least not quickly). So, you would also need to invent in a fair amount of lantern oil or alchemist fire to heat up the flames

Where do you get that from? Create Bonfire set things on fire. The corpses don't have to be turned into powder to be useless to necromancy, either.

At worse hit their limbs and spines with a hammer, mace of the like for a bit before burning them, to make sure their bones can't be used for skeletons

[nickl_2000]

Where do you get that from? Create Bonfire set things on fire. The corpses don't have to be turned into powder to be useless to necromancy, either.

At worse hit their limbs and spines with a hammer, mace of the like for a bit before burning them, to make sure their bones can't be used for skeletons

It's an opinion, but why would charring a body make it useless for necromancy? I know cremations require fires that are well beyond the heat that a normal bonfire could create, and I don't see why a partially consumed body couldn't become a zombie just as effectively as one that isn't. Now, having insects eat the flesh and breaking the bones with a mace would probably do the trick pretty well.

(Holy cow we get into weird conversations on this board)

[Ventruenox]

My current character is a Mortician (refluffed Lore/Raven Queen Bardlock). Unless it is story dependent that something come back as undead later on, we've houseruled that funerary rites from the Ceremony spell can have the desired effect by saying a prayer over the grave. Effectively it reduces the casting time to 30 seconds, which at our table works for narrative flow. If the DM wants dead to rise, he's more likely to make it happen during the combat itself, which also keeps the session running more smoothly.

After combat, my character handles the cleanup of bodies. Mold Earth to dig a grave, a quick prayer to his psychopomp Warlock Patron, and a headstone/marker creation with a 3rd Party cantrip Decorate Object (Frog God/Necromancer Games: Book of Lost Spells). Remember the Oregon Trail game? Epitaph creations have become one of the highlights of this character for me.

Should no loose earth be present, there are other burial methods available. Historically, body disposal falls under one of five methods:
- Burial/Entombment in a grave, crypt, cairn, etc.
- Burial at Sea (in a fantasy world, Portals to alternate planes may also fall under this category)
- Cremation with sufficiently hot flame (or Disintegration spell)
- Mummification (which might lead to undead instead in this game)
- Air Burial (usually performed in remote, inhospitable areas. The body is dismembered and bones are broken. All the pieces are fed to scavenging birds/beasts/bugs)

[Honest Tiefling]

I'm guessing that dismembering a corpse and letting wolves or other predators have a snack is a bit of a no-no for most clerics of a god dedicated to comforting mourners. Through I think sky-burial (letting vultures consume the body) is a bit more poetic and often more removed from civilization.

I also assume that doomguides prefer to stop necromancers from getting materials, but often find other matters to be more pressing. Maybe non-clerics can be called upon to mop up the bodies, I mean, not everyone gets to perform miracles!

[holywhippet]

Where do you get that from? Create Bonfire set things on fire. The corpses don't have to be turned into powder to be useless to necromancy, either.

At worse hit their limbs and spines with a hammer, mace of the like for a bit before burning them, to make sure their bones can't be used for skeletons

The first D&D 5th edition campaign I played in saw one of our characters die near the start. We got him raised, but the cleric who raised him (a follower of Tymora IIRC) wanted to know if he had desecrated any corpses since doing so is against the tenets of her god. He sort of had since he'd smashed the head of an undead in after it went down "just to make sure".