What is a “person”?

[kbob]

Something that has bothered me about the “Accursed Specter” ability for the Hexblade is the use of the word “person”. It begins, “Starting at 6th level, you can curse the soul of a person you slay...” Is a person a humanoid or a human? Is it intentionally left to DM interpretation or is this a case of poor word usage? I cannot find an official ruling it.

[Zhorn]

First line is flavour text, it immediately specifies after



Starting at 6th level, you can curse the soul of a person you slay, temporarily binding it to your service. When you slay a humanoid, you can cause its spirit to rise from its corpse as a specter, the statistics for which are in the Monster Manual.

[Sigreid]

First line is flavour text, it immediately specifies after

Yep. In D&D terms person pretty much means any creature with the humanoid creature type, as opposed to monstrosity, beast, celestial, giant, whatever.

[Man_Over_Game]

First line is flavour text, it immediately specifies after

Aww, man. Here I thought I was going to see a throw down between a bunch of nerds argue over an irrelevant, make-believe existential crisis.

Stupid RAW, never lets me have any fun...

[Kyutaru]

Aww, man. Here I thought I was going to see a throw down between a bunch of nerds argue over an irrelevant, make-believe existential crisis.

Stupid RAW, never lets me have any fun...

Do monsters even have souls? Does anything that isn't humanoid go to the afterlife? Is that Owlbear literally a soulless flesh construct being puppeted by its meat instincts?

[Naanomi]

Flavor-wise I'm surprised it is *that* limited (surprised it was made that way, not surprised by the rules as written)... giants being the type of being that generally has the same soul/afterlife system as smaller humanoids and that we have (at least historical) examples of undead arising from

[Kyutaru]

Flavor-wise I'm surprised it is *that* limited (surprised it was made that way, not surprised by the rules as written)... giants being the type of being that generally has the same soul/afterlife system as smaller humanoids and that we have (at least historical) examples of undead arising from
Brought to you by the same edition that says Ray of Frost can only target a creature.

[Naanomi]

Do monsters even have souls? Does anything that isn't humanoid go to the afterlife? Is that Owlbear literally a soulless flesh construct being puppeted by its meat instincts?
*classic 2e Planescape lore*: Intelligent, sentient, sapient creatures that naturally occur in the Prime Material Plane have, for the most part, Souls (that arise from the Well of Souls on the Positive Energy Plane) that with a few exceptions go to the Outer Planes or Divine Realm of their Patron Deity when they die

Other beings on the Prime have 'anima', a force of positive energy that gives them life but doesn't survive as a distinct entity in the afterlife. Anima usually just cycles into the Negative Energy Plane or the environment of the Prime when they die, but in some circumstances they pool in the Outer Planes (most animals have an 'animal lord' that embodies that energy in the Beast Lands) but still don't exist meaningfully as the same entities they were when alive. There are a few incredibly rare exceptions where such beings 'develop a soul' through interaction with other beings with souls; or are granted special protections to individually exist by a God after death

Elemental Beings don't have souls, just Anima like animals/plants. This is true even for the sentient elemental beings. I'm not sure how this interacts with the new 5e Lore regarding genies being made from mortal souls (2e history has Genie-kind *long* predating mortal races, being active in the earlier stages of the War of Law and Chaos)

Dragons have complex multi-part souls with an elemental Animus *and* a Soul *and* some unique dragon-y aspects all their own. Probably comes from being among the beings that existed before the Great wheel (and Positive Energy Plane) had even formed fully

Outsiders like Angels/Demons *are* embodied souls more or less, without a 'real' physical body to contain it. Many are shaped from souls themselves (actively or by the planes); though some (especially those beings that predate mortal races entirely) rise up from the 'natural' processes of the Outer Planes... but are still 'Souls' indistinguishable metaphysically from those that come from the Well of Souls

Aberrations work on their own, unknown and largely unknowable rules that don't mesh with the reality of the Great Wheel very well

[Democratus]

Do monsters even have souls? Does anything that isn't humanoid go to the afterlife? Is that Owlbear literally a soulless flesh construct being puppeted by its meat instincts?

There was a time when even elves didn't have souls, and couldn't be resurrected because of it. Though they could be reincarnated.

One editions's monster is the next one's "person", it seems. :smallsmile:

[Crucius]

You come to this forum for the D&D questions, but you stay for the existential ones.

[Sigreid]

Do monsters even have souls? Does anything that isn't humanoid go to the afterlife? Is that Owlbear literally a soulless flesh construct being puppeted by its meat instincts?

1st edition only humans had souls. Other creatures had spirits. I never really understood what the difference was supposed to be.

[Naanomi]

1st edition only humans had souls. Other creatures had spirits. I never really understood what the difference was supposed to be.
2e clarified this a bit,

'Souls' were specific kinds of stable positive energy constructs, mostly but not entirely created from a specific 'well of souls' that appears to be a naturally occurring place in the Positive Energy Plane, that persisted after death and were naturally drawn to the Outer Planes if there was no body to anchor them (and no barrier in the way).

'Spirits' were complex elemental energy patterns (not always made of positive energy, but were in all living Prime Material beings) that were not naturally tied to the Outer Planes and tended to dissipate on destruction (but conversely didn't need to be tied to a physical body the same way a Soul did). They had minds, and thus had Astral presences.

'Anima' was the positive energy force that existing in all living things that kept them 'living' and able to move/grow/etc; found in animals and plants and things that didn't have souls or spirits. Anima dissipated into the environment when disrupted, in a 'cycle of life/food chain' sort of way. Anima could be replaced with other types of energy (mostly by magic but sometimes more 'natural' planar phenomenon), most notably Negative Energy that is how zombies/skeletons/other material Undead remained animated

[firelistener]

...
Anima usually just cycles into the Negative Energy Plane or the environment of the Prime when they die, but in some circumstances they pool in the Outer Planes (most animals have an 'animal lord' that embodies that energy in the Beast Lands) but still don't exist meaningfully as the same entities they were when alive.
...


That's super interesting. So does anima/energy cycle back from Negative and Positive through creatures that get slain? Like a dead animal gets turned into Negative energy and a dead evil monster might get turned into Positive energy?

Is there a book or web page to read about this stuff? Maybe some of it's in the 5e DMG too but I can't recall.

[Naanomi]

That's super interesting. So does anima/energy cycle back from Negative and Positive through creatures that get slain? Like a dead animal gets turned into Negative energy and a dead evil monster might get turned into Positive energy?

Is there a book or web page to read about this stuff? Maybe some of it's in the 5e DMG too but I can't recall.
No, not like that that I recall... more like the natural 'life cycle' of elemental matter (including that which makes up living things) is to be Positively Charged, then slowly decay into Negatively Charged until it is entirely just Negative Energy that filters down to 'the graveyard of the universe'

Despite the weirdly graphiced chart in the 5e book, Neither Negative nor Positive Energy are inherently tied to alignments; they are more fundamental (and greatly predate) that Outer Planes nonsense. Many golems and the like work (artificially) on similar principles.

For things to move and have 'life' they need energy to run all that meat (or whatever it happens to be made of)... for beings of the Inner Planes, rarified elemental energy is all it takes (it is easier when your body is made out of the same stuff)... for Outer Planes beings they can do it on pure Alignment Energy, in part because their 'body' is just incarnate Alignment forces and barely real to begin with. Astral beings are similar, just with mental energy instead of cosmic power.

But here on the Prime, it takes more oomph to run the much-less-pure-but-still-physical bodies; usually from Positive Energy. Souls are positive energy that naturally migrates into the body of certain beings and give them a kickstart, but beyond that you need to get your Positive Energy from the environment... either gathering energy up from natural sources (leaks from the Inner Planes from portals, like those found in the center of most Prime suns); or by eating other beings that have gathered it up and stealing it. This process of running a body slowly 'uses up' the Positive Energy, converting little bits of it into Negative Energy (in a process most Prime types call 'ageing') until the balance becomes unsustainable and the being dies (passing its soul along to the Outer Planes if it happens to have one; but leaving the rest of its remaining Positive Energy to get eaten up by microbes and the like).

Of course, one can always try to 'run the machine in reverse'; power things off of Negative Energy. It generally doesn't go well for anyone involved, bodies are not designed to run that way and it either destroys or does terrible damage to the Positive Energy souls trying to inhabit that Negative Energy body.

Presumably there are more exotic ways to power a body, however each aberration does it... there is also theoretically Temporal Energy as its own category to work from I guess?

Lots of the 2e Planescape books touch on the subject... The Inner Planes Guide, Dead Gods, etc... the Ashardalon 3e Book 'Bastion of Broken Souls' also explores the concept (which is expanded on in... Magic of The Incarnum I think?)

[Wizard_Lizard]

So how does this work with awakened things?

[Naanomi]

So how does this work with awakened things?
If I had to guess? It could be that the magic creates/summons a soul in the process of awakening the newly sentient creature... but it could be that they lack a soul in the formal sense and just run off of pure anima like Elemental life does. Either way would probably work.