How to cleanse a Soul Stone?

[Jarmen4u]

Tl;dr, A LG paladin stored the evil souls of his enemies in the Soul Stone (think Infinity Stones) and now HIS soul and body are trapped inside. If we don't do something, he will become something equal to Cthulhu. How can you remove souls from a magic item designed to store souls? The understanding I have is, if we can remove the souls, re-defeat the enemies, and let the souls go free instead of trapping them, it will save his soul.

Thoughts? Strategies? There are thousands of souls so killing them one at a time is a bit tedious.

Edit: preferably non-Evil acts, if at all possible.

[Sapreaver]

Use them as crafting exp?

[Jarmen4u]

Use them as crafting exp?

Would that not be an evil act?

Either way I guarantee the DM would make every single item created extremely cursed. Not a bad idea though.

[Sapreaver]

It would indeed.

[druid91]

Sell them to the heavens?

[Efrate]

Good churches notoriously buy evil items to cleanse and keep out of the hands of bad guys. Find your local church of pelor, do some githyanki crafting guild stuff, burn them all off. If they come out intelligent you can arguably sanctify the wicked them as well.

[Jarmen4u]

Maybe I'll edit the OP. Looking for primarily non-Evil acts here. It's been said that our actions can potentially taint the stone further since we are on/in it, so best to avoid openly evil things.

[Sapreaver]

Use the souls to craft protection from evil items? Lol
/S
Non evil ways to use souls I swear there must be a spell for one of the oriental adventure classes that does that probably shu genja. Maybe one sec

[Jowgen]

Planar Bind a Balor, convince it to tell you how to perform the "mystic rituals that can draw the soul out of the gem" mentioned in A&E p. 100

[Jarmen4u]

Planar Bind a Balor, convince it to tell you how to perform the "mystic rituals that can draw the soul out of the gem" mentioned in A&E p. 100

After the souls are out though, what do you do with them?

Also, I don't think we have much access to interdimensional magic, since we're more or less cut off from our gods and the other planes. (cleric magic still works, but praying/using magic that requests a deity's attention doesn't work)

[the_david]

I'm not sure storing the souls of your enemies is such a lawful good thing to do. I suppose you could see it as preventing new demons and devils being born from evil souls, so you might view it as good... If you're a lawful evil tyrant.

That's not the point though. If a Marut would chase down a Lich for tampering with his own lifespan, he might as well go for the adventurers that locked up a 1000 souls inside a stone. All you have to do now is wait for the Marut to appear, apologize and hand him the soul stone.

And hope that he won't beat you into a bloody pulp.

Ofcourse you could always get rid of the stone and continue without the paladin. Just take your bag of holding. Take out all of your stuff and put the soul stone in it. Grab a dagger and cut a hole in your bag of holding. The soul stone is lost forever and it only cost you one bag of holding.

[Jarmen4u]

I'm not sure storing the souls of your enemies is such a lawful good thing to do. I suppose you could see it as preventing new demons and devils being born from evil souls, so you might view it as good... If you're a lawful evil tyrant.

That's not the point though. If a Marut would chase down a Lich for tampering with his own lifespan, he might as well go for the adventurers that locked up a 1000 souls inside a stone. All you have to do now is wait for the Marut to appear, apologize and hand him the soul stone.

And hope that he won't beat you into a bloody pulp.

Ofcourse you could always get rid of the stone and continue without the paladin. Just take your bag of holding. Take out all of your stuff and put the soul stone in it. Grab a dagger and cut a hole in your bag of holding. The soul stone is lost forever and it only cost you one bag of holding.

All of the story relating to the paladin is lore/background, it's not a current player. We're also stuck on/in this planet/gem whether we like it or not. And abandoning him/it will just lead to a Cthulhu-type deity being created, which we don't want.

[TheCount]

Sell the souls?
i mean, the act of selling/bartering with souls isnt, in itself or in any way, evil. its neutral at best/worst.
so...hunt down a devil (or any inteligent denizen of the hells), preferable one around the party's chalange rating and offer a deal. Other outsiders may suffice as well, but try to avoid chaotic ones.

If they get out the paladin's soul (preferably without any taint) they get two souls from the gem, from wich, none can be that of the paladin's nor can they touch it after they got it out from the crystal. Better make a contract with ALL the rulelawyering you can pour in it, devil ARE stickers to the words of the contracts (or should be, they are lawfull evil after all).

you can ALSO sell the other souls for other favors, that way, although you do give them a chance to return, the evil diety from a can should not be a problem with the crystal anymore.

Might be better to get one of the lords of the nine's straight for this, just to be sure.... but then, include free passage to your desired plane/world for all the party AND the paladin's soul.... also drop the crystal to a good church for cleansing, just to be sure...

[Jarmen4u]

Sell the souls?
i mean, the act of selling/bartering with souls isnt, in itself or in any way, evil. its neutral at best/worst.
so...hunt down a devil (or any inteligent denizen of the hells), preferable one around the party's chalange rating and offer a deal. Other outsiders may suffice as well, but try to avoid chaotic ones.

If they get out the paladin's soul (preferably without any taint) they get two souls from the gem, from wich, none can be that of the paladin's nor can they touch it after they got it out from the crystal. Better make a contract with ALL the rulelawyering you can pour in it, devil ARE stickers to the words of the contracts (or should be, they are lawfull evil after all).

you can ALSO sell the other souls for other favors, that way, although you do give them a chance to return, the evil diety from a can should not be a problem with the crystal anymore.

Might be better to get one of the lords of the nine's straight for this, just to be sure.... but then, include free passage to your desired plane/world for all the party AND the paladin's soul.... also drop the crystal to a good church for cleansing, just to be sure...

I feel like I'm maybe not being clear, so I'll try to reiterate. We are *on* the Stone, in some fashion, it is the planet we were sent to. It exists in a place where we can't contact other planes, so no planar bindings, no gates, no asking gods for help. I'm looking for a way to dispose of a massive amount of souls in a place without civilization, no magic mart, no local church. Just a big party of random classes.

[Feantar]

After the souls are out though, what do you do with them?

Also, I don't think we have much access to interdimensional magic, since we're more or less cut off from our gods and the other planes. (cleric magic still works, but praying/using magic that requests a deity's attention doesn't work)

You...let them go to their rightful judgement?

On the inter-dimensional magic issue you shouldn't worry, if it can be done then it can be researched. Pay a boatload of wizards to research said methods that the Balor would use, draw the souls from the gem and then instead of being psychotic people who use souls as crafting materials, just let them go.

And I just read that you are stuck by yourself, so cross the above.

I don't think you can do anything. If breaking the planet apart slowly works (breaking a stone containing a soul releases the soul), then blasting spells, adamantine (major creation), shatter and similar, would be useful.

Edit 2: There is Sanctify the Wicked from book of exalted deeds. It can turn an evil creature good by putting its soul in a gem for a year and slowly cleansing it from sin. So... Maybe something based on that?

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Planar bind a capital-G Good servant of a god (with access to plane shift) and offer it the stone with a full accounting of what's going on. I doubt it will even require payment for the chance to do a major act of Good that its divine patron would be extremely happy with it for doing. Then have said servant return to its master with the stone and all the souls therein. Kill them all and Let the gods sort them out.

[Holya]

So you have no access to any magic which in anyway crosses the planes, calls beings, let for teleporting, or pretty much any form of summoning/trans-dimensional hi-jinks.. The stone is also its own demi plane.. Which is completely sealed off from any divine or profane influence.. You my good sir are ****ed.. You have NO way to do anything about this. More so the DM whom ever it is has given you no RAW way to handle this in anyway besides letting the new eldritch entity or elder evil be born. Because YOU are trapped there with nothing.. Literally nothing you can do if you have to use none evil options. Because burning souls to craft.. Evil.. Creating undead to destroy the souls.. Evil.. Raising the souls.. Not possible since they can just say no.. Sure some might.. Hell the paladin if you have resurrection or true resurrection could maybe be pulled out though its probably more likely to require wish since you can't go miracle.. But really this just stinks of a DM writing the campaign into a corner and now they have no real way to solve it besides. PC fails and campaign ends.

More so if it is a actual planet which is storing souls.. Because yes their are some TO builds to crack planets but.. Unless you built for that from the start you kinda just up **** creak without a paddle.

[Yogibear41]

I would check out Redeeming evil Magic items in BOED on page 119 and 120, and maybe the next section as well.

[TheCount]

I feel like I'm maybe not being clear, so I'll try to reiterate. We are *on* the Stone, in some fashion, it is the planet we were sent to. It exists in a place where we can't contact other planes, so no planar bindings, no gates, no asking gods for help. I'm looking for a way to dispose of a massive amount of souls in a place without civilization, no magic mart, no local church. Just a big party of random classes.

Yeah, it would have been nice to say that at the start....

Nitpic aside, as was said before, you can try to redeem them, Either the soul storage, the souls in it or (preferably) both.

Jowgen even has a nicely streamlined, kinda industrialized plan for it:
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?410846-The-Redeemery-Saving-Souls-for-Good-and-Profit-Work-in-Progress

Edit: wow that was a fast reply, i will put what i edited in a new comment, so my mind is at peace

[Jarmen4u]

Yeah, it would have been nice to say that at the start....

Nitpic aside, as was said before, you can try to redeem them, Either the soul storage, the souls in it or (preferably) both.

Jowgen even has a nicely streamlined, kinda industrialized plan for it:
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?410846-The-Redeemery-Saving-Souls-for-Good-and-Profit-Work-in-Progress

Apologies, I didn't want to overload with details. I'll check that out, sounds interesting.


Planar bind a capital-G Good servant of a god (with access to plane shift) and offer it the stone with a full accounting of what's going on. I doubt it will even require payment for the chance to do a major act of Good that its divine patron would be extremely happy with it for doing. Then have said servant return to its master with the stone and all the souls therein. Kill them all and Let the gods sort them out.

Not quite possible, since we're somewhat isolated from other planes.


So you have no access to any magic which in anyway crosses the planes, calls beings, let for teleporting, or pretty much any form of summoning/trans-dimensional hi-jinks.. The stone is also its own demi plane.. Which is completely sealed off from any divine or profane influence.. You my good sir are ****ed.. You have NO way to do anything about this. More so the DM whom ever it is has given you no RAW way to handle this in anyway besides letting the new eldritch entity or elder evil be born. Because YOU are trapped there with nothing.. Literally nothing you can do if you have to use none evil options. Because burning souls to craft.. Evil.. Creating undead to destroy the souls.. Evil.. Raising the souls.. Not possible since they can just say no.. Sure some might.. Hell the paladin if you have resurrection or true resurrection could maybe be pulled out though its probably more likely to require wish since you can't go miracle.. But really this just stinks of a DM writing the campaign into a corner and now they have no real way to solve it besides. PC fails and campaign ends.

More so if it is a actual planet which is storing souls.. Because yes their are some TO builds to crack planets but.. Unless you built for that from the start you kinda just up **** creak without a paddle.

The main thing I'm unsure about is the actual nature of these souls. I am under the impression that there is a way built-in for us to extract the souls, but doing so will essentially revive the creature whose soul it belonged to. So, instead of the obvious/straightforward path of having to re-defeat possibly thousands of evil mooks, I was hoping for some way to possibly dispose of/exorcise/etc the souls en masse. I'll take the feedback from this thread and see what happens tomorrow, and I'll come back with more information (hopefully).

[TheCount]

it kind of fails though, if you cant comunicate with those IN the crystal...
try to Shape Stone into a human form and Stone to Flesh it? i mean, it IS a soulstone so... it SHOULD have AT LEAST 1 soul in it.... just make sure you break it off from the mean stone BEFORE you cast Stone to Flesh to it... just in case...

As for fighting them..... unless they are sorcerers, psyonics, incarnum or have spell/spy-like abilities or the like, just make sure they ARE burried in the souls stone up to thier neck with Shape Stone.... and you stand behind them, in case they have a gaze attack.
Divine casters are probably not too much of a treat and prepared casters... well, have nothing to prepare from :D

Also, HOW IN THE NINE HELLS AND THE INFINITE ABYSS did you end up there?
....i know it was said no interplanar travel, but even the plane of shadows is unusable?

[Jarmen4u]

it kind of fails though, if you cant comunicate with those IN the crystal...
try to Shape Stone into a human form and Stone to Flesh it? i mean, it IS a soulstone so... it SHOULD have AT LEAST 1 soul in it.... just make sure you break it off from the mean stone BEFORE you cast Stone to Flesh to it... just in case...

As for fighting them..... unless they are sorcerers, psyonics, incarnum or have spell/spy-like abilities or the like, just make sure they ARE burried in the souls stone up to thier neck with Shape Stone.... and you stand behind them, in case they have a gaze attack.
Divine casters are probably not too much of a treat and prepared casters... well, have nothing to prepare from :D

Also, HOW IN THE NINE HELLS AND THE INFINITE ABYSS did you end up there?
....i know it was said no interplanar travel, but even the plane of shadows is unusable?

>How'd you get there?

We made a deal with an epic DMPC to do us a big favor, but in exchange, we had to help colonize a new world for him, but apparently he was unaware of the nature of said world. We were dropped off on the planet by a Spelljammer, but we can't contact the captain of said ship. We were told that our "friend" would be automatically contacted once we founded a settlement of X size, but we got sidetracked from that goal once we realized that the planet was brewing a second Cthulhu in its bowels.

[TheCount]

>How'd you get there?

We made a deal with an epic DMPC to do us a big favor, but in exchange, we had to help colonize a new world for him, but apparently he was unaware of the nature of said world. We were dropped off on the planet by a Spelljammer, but we can't contact the captain of said ship. We were told that our "friend" would be automatically contacted once we founded a settlement of X size, but we got sidetracked from that goal once we realized that the planet was brewing a second Cthulhu in its bowels.

.... then, WHY THE HELLS are you trying to reddem those inside? just get them out, one by one, explaine them the situation and ask for thier cooperation and help.

honestly, its nothing more thatn a simple casefire until the spelljamer arrives. You get out the paladin, and some of the least evil souls if you can to fill the quota and then when on the spelljammer ask the wizard and other GODS to help you with that....
seriously, i dont even know why you thought about fighting/redeeming a whole planet of a soulstone if you could just asked for help.....

[Jarmen4u]

.... then, WHY THE HELLS are you trying to reddem those inside? just get them out, one by one, explaine them the situation and ask for thier cooperation and help.

honestly, its nothing more thatn a simple casefire until the spelljamer arrives. You get out the paladin, and some of the least evil souls if you can to fill the quota and then when on the spelljammer ask the wizard and other GODS to help you with that....
seriously, i dont even know why you thought about fighting/redeeming a whole planet of a soulstone if you could just asked for help.....

To make sure I understand you correctly, you suggest we bring back *some* of these souls, hope they're not gung-ho evil, and that they'll cooperate with us... to what end? Considering our actions already can have a negative effect on the soul stone simply by being on it (assuming those actions are Evil), working *with* evil creatures who wish us ill would probably have a similar effect.

[TheCount]

Yes.

-If you dont do anything, the god will be born.

-If you break the planet/soul stone the evils get out.

-The paladin IS inside, body and soul alike (as you mentioned in the OP) so, EVEN if you can free him AND the DM have mercy on you in that he can cleanse/neutralize the evils in the stone, you STILL need to get a population going somehow or be there however long (i assume not long becauseof the next point)

-How long do you can live there? i mean, you said this planet IS a soul stone..... so.... are there plants? animals? or did you brought supplies? and how long does those lasts?

You are pretty much lost, anyway, and honestly? if your DM REALLY write themselves into a carner as was written... well... idk how being a soul actually modify things, mechanically....

so, as i said, unless the DM uses the paladin as a get out of jail card (yes i just said that) you arent leaving that planet/soul stone anytime soon - if ever - without help.

also, ofc there will be , at least, some of those, but, we are talking about evils so powerfull their very SOUL needed to be imprisoned, those dont bow lightly, and most will cooperate on the condition you let them go free.

i would give it 90% that it will go without problem. In the other 10%? well, what the bigger problem? a new, (probably evil) diety that will devour everything or some evil persons killing you after said diety's birth was cancelled?

[zlefin]

Tl;dr, A LG paladin stored the evil souls of his enemies in the Soul Stone (think Infinity Stones) and now HIS soul and body are trapped inside. If we don't do something, he will become something equal to Cthulhu. How can you remove souls from a magic item designed to store souls? The understanding I have is, if we can remove the souls, re-defeat the enemies, and let the souls go free instead of trapping them, it will save his soul.

Thoughts? Strategies? There are thousands of souls so killing them one at a time is a bit tedious.

Edit: preferably non-Evil acts, if at all possible.

if you can find a way to remove souls, why not just remove the paladin's soul and leave the other stuff inside?


it also sounds like this more than just the usual spells like "trap the soul" but that this is an artifact; so you'd need to research the history/purpose/uses of the artifact to find out what else oyu can do with it.

research a custom spell called "free the soul" that's designed to remove souls from an object their stored and simply sends them on their way to the proper afterlife (assuming their bodies aren't still around to be returned to)

[MaxiDuRaritry]

This has "the DM has plans for this, so just go on the adventure already" written all over it. Unless he's the kind that dumps you in the deep end and expects you to solve it yourselves?

[noob]

Free all the souls after giving them a speech about giving them a second chance for redemption?

[Jarmen4u]

This has "the DM has plans for this, so just go on the adventure already" written all over it. Unless he's the kind that dumps you in the deep end and expects you to solve it yourselves?

Unfortunately, he IS that kind of DM. :smallbiggrin::smalleek:

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Can you use shadow spells to emulate interdimensional effects?