Archeology/Paleontology and Spells

[unseenmage]

What happens when True Ressurection is cast on fossilized remains?
A fossilized egg?
What if the egg was once viable and fertilized?
A piece of petrified wood?

What of Stone to Flesh?
On a fossilized egg?

Could even the Teleport Through Time spell allow one to interact with a petrified specimen before it was so preserved?

How about Reincarnate on the fossilized remains of a Lich who abused Teleport Through Time shenanigans?

Any other neat/cool/odd interactions between archeology/paleontology and magic?

[unseenmage]

Amber. I forgot about fossilized tree blood.



I remember reading that it's unlikely for animals to want to come back from the dead.

And for the soulstuff or spirit to eventually be digested by or absorbed into the outer plane where said spirit finds its final rest.


doubtful the tree could refuse the call to return to life

but likely it would already be absorbed by the plane, IF trees even go to the outer planes

more likely tree spirit or lifeforce is simply recycled through its native biosphere

[Silly Name]

Trees most likely aren't ensouled, and thus can't be resurrected. Animals are a bit iffy as well: do they have souls at all?

Now, if there were Divination spells that could let you see in the past, those would be of great use to historians and archeologists, but I don't know if any such spell exists.

The time-traveling spells could be of use, but there are way too many restrictions and costs to be used as reliable research tools.

[Honest Tiefling]

Probably nothing. Few spellcasters can exceed a century with even True Ressurection, due to restrictions of how long ago the creature died. Most fossils are mostly inorganic matter anyway, so I doubt having most of the cells of a creature be replaced with silica counts as a body. True Resurrection doesn't require a body, but then you're not even using the fossil except as decor for the ritual.

I don't think that stone to flesh would work on fossils, as most of the fossil is infact stone that filled up spaces from the body, not the body itself. It might qualify as a statue, but then you just have a sad dead egg.

EDIT: Also, archaeology is the study of ancient human cultures, not the study of ancient animals. In a fantasy world it might apply to lizard folk eggs I guess, but maybe experimenting on those is a touch evil.

[Troacctid]

I think archaeologists in our world would probably do significantly less digging if they could just go and interview someone who was around back then. D&D has tons of long-lived creatures. If you want to learn about the fall of the Netherese Empire, you could start an expensive excavation project...or you could just ask an elf who lived through it.

That isn't to say that I don't think such excavations would exist in D&D, only that their purpose would more often be to uncover lost artifacts and spells and the like—not to learn about history. After all, if you have high-level magic and you want to learn about history, why would you use your spells to dig up junk when you could skip the middleman and use your spells to get the information directly?

[unseenmage]

Hmmm, I also wonder about using resurrection magics on the enchanted remains of dead stuff.

The Darkskull wondrous item comes to mind. One imagines the right ressurection magic could effectively destroy the item.

Ressurecting Dragonhide armor could be fun too. Talk about awkward, one minute you're wearing subpar armor, the next its standing there glaring at you. Judgementally.

Now I want a Spellclock or other trap that can res once-living items the PCs are wearing/using.



...

EDIT: Also, archaeology is the study of ancient human cultures, not the study of ancient animals. In a fantasy world it might apply to lizard folk eggs I guess, but maybe experimenting on those is a touch evil.

I did misuse the word to mean the general study of the ancient and/or very ancient past. My apologies.

Have edited the title to reflect.


I think archaeologists in our world would probably do significantly less digging if they could just go and interview someone who was around back then. D&D has tons of long-lived creatures. If you want to learn about the fall of the Netherese Empire, you could start an expensive excavation project...or you could just ask an elf who lived through it.

That isn't to say that I don't think such excavations would exist in D&D, only that their purpose would more often be to uncover lost artifacts and spells and the like—not to learn about history. After all, if you have high-level magic and you want to learn about history, why would you use your spells to dig up junk when you could skip the middleman and use your spells to get the information directly?

Hmm, but then you do risk getting a very elf-centric or dragon-centric etc viewpoint of the now deceased people.

Anything from, 'Yeah, those primitives we exterminated back then were jerks.', all the way to, 'That dead civilization was delicious with catsup, wish we'd saved some of them for later.'

[Nifft]

Hmm, but then you do risk getting a very elf-centric or dragon-centric etc viewpoint of the now deceased people.

You could try to cross-reference their info with each other, and then also check with relevant vampires, liches, ghosts, and gods.

[unseenmage]

You could try to cross-reference their info with each other, and then also check with relevant vampires, liches, ghosts, and gods.

And so the Interview With The Vampire Lich Ghost God franchise was born.

Bonus points if the main character is a devil whom we can all have sympathy for.

[Edenbeast]

I remember discussing this with some friends before :)

True resurrection as per the spell description wouldn't work. Resurrect a creature that has been dead for 10 years per caster level. That would require the caster to be super epic, I guess. We did come to the conclusion that animate dead would probably work if you have an almost intact fossil skeleton. Stone to Flesh says it would turn a statue into a corpse, so I'd assume it would turn petrified bones into relatively fresh bonus (if that's a requirement). And if you don't want to be a (paleo-)necromancer, consider the fossil skeleton to be one object and use animate objects to have Rexie or Trixie as in A Night in the Museum.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Troacctid
I think archaeologists in our world would probably do significantly less digging if they could just go and interview someone who was around back then.

Not necessarily. The first rule of field anthropology is that everyone has an agenda. Even if you interview someone, you’re still just getting their perspective, biases and all. Material culture tells its own story, which complements and contextualizes what you can learn from a living source.


Originally Posted by unseenmage
Any other neat/cool/odd interactions between archeology/paleontology and magic?

Stone Tell lets you speak with stones, although as already noted fossils aren’t the original creatures, only a physical echo of the organic structures.

But a specialized version of this, something like “Bone Tell,” could be a cool custom spell tailored to fossils.


Originally Posted by unseenmage
What happens when True Ressurection is cast on fossilized remains?

Also, it’s worth noting that there’s a category of remains known as subfossils, which are actual bones that haven’t had time to fossilize yet. These are sometimes found in caves where the conditions lend themselves to preservation. The subfossils I’m familiar with are thousands or tens of thousands of years old, so they could still provide insights into ancient times, just on a human rather than truly geological scale.

[Honest Tiefling]

Actually, if people are still alive from the culture, it might technically fall under anthropology instead, but that word is a little bit of a misnomer when it comes to dragons. But if they aren't dead yet, it's still not archaeology.

Through Archaelogy itself is usually biased when it comes to reading written records, so nothing new there. Through living peoples could perhaps also point out new sites to dig up artifacts if they really want to prove their point. Through I imagine their own historians would get in the way of such efforts.

[Nifft]

And so the Interview With The Vampire Lich Ghost God franchise was born. I'd watch a group-therapy session -- er, an interview with Kas, Vecna, and Keraptis.

Though most of the entertainment might come from those first two. Hmm, maybe just put them on Maury.

"My Adopted Son Betrayed Me And Maimed Me Forever, Then Followed Me Into Undeath"


Bonus points if the main character is a devil whom we can all have sympathy for.

Dig around the Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, there's that one guy who's eager to talk and he claimed to be very sympathetic.

[Saintheart]

Stone Tell lets you speak with stones, although as already noted fossils aren’t the original creatures, only a physical echo of the organic structures.

But a specialized version of this, something like “Bone Tell,” could be a cool custom spell tailored to fossils.


Bones would be rather effusive conversationalists, because for a few thousand years they've had no body to talk to. Though it takes a while to actually get a skeleton to engage in a conversation, because they're shy if not cowardly. No guts, you see. And the biggest problem is that you can't tell them to buck up and show a bit of backbone, because they already are.

[Edenbeast]

Any other neat/cool/odd interactions between archeology/paleontology and magic?

Apart from looking at interactions between palaeontology and magic. How does it apply to the grander scale of the setting? How is evolution explained. I don't think many settings pay much attention to this. How did the evolution of various intelligent humanoid species come about, which in some cases can still hybridise (e.g. humans and elves). This would mean a palaeontologist could study the remains of the common ancestor humans and elves, or the placement and evolution of the goblinoid clade based on fossil evidence.

On the other hand, if you take for example the Forgotten Realms setting, where dinosaurs apparently still walk around in Chult, they are either there because they were brought back by strong magic, or because Chult is a natural (or magical) refuge that allowed these populations to survive a mass-extinction. The role of the palaeontologist here is to study fossils found elsewhere and reconstruct their palaeo-environtment and ecology, and test concepts such as taxonomic uniformitarianism. What does it mean when the ancient environment does not resemble the modern ecosystem of Chult? Maybe it means these ancient organisms travelled trough time and are wandering around in a time that is not actually theirs. Or... maybe Chult is an ancient, but unique ecosystem that should be protected from poachers and lumberjacks.

I guess a spell like stone tell cast on a fossil could provide information on where it came from and how it was fossilised.


I don't think that stone to flesh would work on fossils, as most of the fossil is infact stone that filled up spaces from the body, not the body itself. It might qualify as a statue, but then you just have a sad dead egg.

A sad dead egg indeed, although I do support that it qualifies as a statue. The process of minerals replacing organic materials is called permineralization. It's the main process that leads to petrified wood for example. Petrified literally means "turned into stone". So, basically flesh to stone is the equivalent of what occurs over geological time. Of course this is just my interpretation of the spell. Furthermore the description says the creature is neither dead, nor alive, it's like Schrödinger's cat :P

Stone to flesh does pretty much the opposite, it even says it restores a petrified creature to it's normal state... I guess, the problem is that in most cases you actually don't have the whole creature, but only it's skeletal parts. But if a statue can be turned into a corpse, and I assume this includes bones, then I think stone to flesh can turn fossils into bones. Use animate dead, and you'll have a walking skeleton.

Back to the egg, if you have a whole egg intact. Modern techniques such as synchrotron tomography allow researchers to see quite a lot of details inside fossils. They have used this technology to analyse the hidden structures in coprolites (fossilised poop), and the networks of blood vessels in bones that are still preserved in structure. I can imagine you could restore the egg with embryo inside. The embryo, however, would long be dead before the onset of diagenesis. So I guess the interesting part here would be studying and dissecting the embryo. A wizard would use stone to flesh as the D&D version of synchrotron tomography! And if it's in good state and was kept from rotting, the wizard could clone it still if his level is high enough. Hmm... Maybe that's how Chult was populated with dinosaurs...

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Edenbeast
And if it's in good state and was kept from rotting, the wizard could clone it still if his level is high enough. Hmm... Maybe that's how Chult was populated with dinosaurs...

And thus was born Chultassic Park. :smalltongue:

[Troacctid]

Chult is full of dinosaurs mainly because Ubtao, the god of dinosaurs, is in charge of the place. He just really likes dinosaurs, so when he got his own subcontinent he was like, hell yeah, I'mma create so many dinosaurs.

[unseenmage]

Bones would be rather effusive conversationalists, because for a few thousand years they've had no body to talk to. Though it takes a while to actually get a skeleton to engage in a conversation, because they're shy if not cowardly. No guts, you see. And the biggest problem is that you can't tell them to buck up and show a bit of backbone, because they already are.

In the words of a certain skeleton who thinks himself hilarious, Yo hohohoh! (https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://m.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DV5yoc2EVGr8&ved=2ahUKEwjokYexrZreAhVL11MKHZOQDt4QjjgwAXoECBQQA Q&usg=AOvVaw1wMhvUyXOijGcapmyS9mxu)

[Edenbeast]

Chult is full of dinosaurs mainly because Ubtao, the god of dinosaurs, is in charge of the place. He just really likes dinosaurs, so when he got his own subcontinent he was like, hell yeah, I'mma create so many dinosaurs.

I know, and I admit Chult was only meant as an example, maybe a bad one then. Although it's not even clear whether is Ubtao a deity or a primordial. I guess general consensus is that's he's a deity.

And on the other hand... Maybe it was a lonely wizard lost in the jungles of Chult who decided to clone some fossils. Reality and myth got mixed together over time and became a religion of it's own. Faiths and Pantheons only gives information about the mythology of Ubtao, what his followers believe, the religion, and it's dogma. Stuff that the cleric can ramble on about with a successful knowledge(religion) check. Ubtao, the father of Dinosaurs, creator of Chult and founder of Mezro, but what has been forgotten is his real name, which is actually John Hammond, a lonely wizard :smallsmile: