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I need a good spell (preferably divine, but arcane is ok) that will make an already dead character very difficult and/or impossible to raise or resurrect. The basic idea here is that a king has been assassinated, and the cleric who is supposed to be casting the resurrection spell on him instead casts the spell I'm looking for in order to make sure that he stays assassinated.
(And gosh-- who knew that relatively cheap ways to bring people back to life would be turn out to be so annoying? Sure puts a dent in the assassination business)extremely blurry, distorted photo
No need for that at all. If you are playing in Golarion, just say he has been judged by Pharasma. Once that happens, nothing short of direct divine intervention can bring them back. If you aren't, say he isn't willing to come back. The spell says they have to be willing.
This is not a 100% certain solution, but with spells like True Resurrection and Miracle, etc., I'm not sure anything really is.
Quieting Needles
A set of quieting needles costs 25 gp. Inserted into a corpse’s heart, lungs, and other organs, the needles can be well hidden inside a slain body with a minute of work and a Sleight of Hand check—the result of this Sleight of Hand check determines the Heal check DC to notice the use of quieting needles on a corpse. This Heal check gains a cumulative +1 bonus for each day the body has been allowed to decay, as the presence of the needles grows increasingly obvious as the flesh rots away. A body pierced with quieting needles can be brought back to life as normal via raise dead, but upon being restored to life, the victim immediately begins suffering from the fact that his major organs are perforated by hidden needles. This grisly fate can even strike someone brought back to life via resurrection or true resurrection if the body itself was intact and the needles were thus hidden. (Casting resurrection or true resurrection with only a fragment of the body or no body, forcing the spell to rebuild the body as appropriate, is a surefire way to avoid having the victim come back to life with the needles still inside him.) A creature brought back to life with quieting needles inside him is immediately struck with pain and must make a DC 25 Fortitude save each round to avoid being nauseated from the pain and suffering 1d6 points of Constitution damage. A successful Fortitude save negates the nauseated condition and reduces the Constitution damage to 1. Removing quieting needles from a dead body takes 1d6+6 rounds (and a DC 20 Heal check if the process is to leave the body in a condition where raise dead is still viable). Removing quieting needles from a freshly restored living body causes 2d6 points of damage per round the procedure continues, with a successful DC 25 Heal check reducing damage caused that round to 2. The use of quieting needles is relatively uncommon, meant as much to punish enemies for attempting to raise dead allies and force them to waste the resources on such expensive magic as well as to cause the restored creature agonizing pain—using quieting needles is an evil act that is as illegal as murder in most civilized regions. A set of quieting needles costs 25 gp.
The biggest issue here is that you have a cleric, who derives his/her spells from god(s), casting a spell that prevents other divine casters, who also receive their abilities from god(s), from raising a corpse. You pretty much are looking at a Domain spell or maybe even a god-specific spell. Not to mention the fact that anyone with Spellcraft can possibly know what spell is being cast if they're around when the cleric does this.
No need for that at all. If you are playing in Golarion, just say he has been judged by Pharasma. Once that happens, nothing short of direct divine intervention can bring them back. If you aren't, say he isn't willing to come back. The spell says they have to be willing.
This. Perhaps the king is very happy with his final reward, and sees no reason to return to his life of kingly drudgery and deceit when he can enjoy his new life without worrying about being assassinated again.
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The quieting needles are the best best, but simply removing a vital organ (like the liver), will prevent raise dead from working. If you want to thwart resurrection, the best way would be to turn the corpse into a zombie, then just order it to "play dead". So long as no one examines the body too carefully, there wouldn't be much difference between an inanimate zombie and a corpse.
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It's not a magical solution, but dab a little dab of green slime on the corpse, and, soon enough, you'll have no worries at all. The stuff's not hard to find, not hard to keep alive, and very, very good at turning organic matter into yet more green slime. A little sunshine, some lemon-y fresh Pledge (tm) and all that will be left is his jewelry, which, bonus!, will be sparkling clean.
Replacing the king's corpse with a dead doppleganger (or other shapechanged imposter), who you then raise from the dead to take over the king's position, can also be fun, if you've got a potential imposter willing to take a bullet (temporarily) for the chance to be king. Nobody will see *that* coming.
A miracle could cause the king's body to come back to life, but without his original soul/spirit and now inhabited by a fiend (or other spirit/outsider) in cahoots with you.
I think there is always an assumption from a PC mindset that someone would want to be brought back from the dead. Depending on your world, we know there are places where souls expect to go, he might just like his final reward and refuse to come back.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer Spoiler within
When they bring Buffy back from the dead with that spell, she was in a lot of pain and hated being back as where she was was a place without peace or strife. No pain, just contentment and bliss, it would be hard to return to a world with all of that. It is one of the reasons the PCs are special people, they are willing to do that.
If the king is good or neutral-aligned he probably might not want to come back. If he's evil then it's pretty likely that he didn't like what happened to him after death.
1 copper, one torch.
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Hi Guys,
Thanks for the input. Lots of very good suggestions. And yes, currently the most feasible option if I want to do it by RAW is probably just having the king not want to come back (which fits fairly well with his personality). I do also like the doppleganger idea though. Plot twists are my friend.
And BigNorseWolf gets bonus points for that answer.
Easiest thing would be a Soul Bind spell. If he isn't high enough level to cast it himself, perhaps he has a one time use Demonic Amulet or something like that?
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Is the important thing the spell, or that the cleric is actually a mole sent in to ensure that the king stays dead?
If the latter, just have the cleric actually be a rogue or bard in disguise and have him make a Bluff check to convince people he's casting a Resurrection spell. Assuming nobody passes their Spellcraft/Sense Motive check, the fake cleric could then just say that the king has chosen not to come back, and rely on the hope that they wouldn't think to call in a second cleric to try again. The matter may just end right there.
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http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/additionalMonsters/soulEater.html
That'd be Planar Ally/Planar Binding, Level 6. It might leave some telltale marks on the body from the claws but that works as a plot hook I think. Blocks raise dead, requires a crazy level check for Resurrection.
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http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/additionalMonsters/soulEater.html
That'd be Planar Ally/Planar Binding, Level 6. It might leave some telltale marks on the body from the claws but that works as a plot hook I think. Blocks raise dead, requires a crazy level check for Resurrection.
Good catch. Very effective.
There's also the spell Rest Eternal. Anyone wanting to resurrect has to make a caster level check. It's only a 4th level cleric spell.
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Thanks again for all the input everyone. There were so many good ideas that were all so equally tempting, I actually ended up going with multiple different overlapping assassination attempts. Three different people trying to kill the same king with varying degrees of permanency in mind, some aware of the others' plans, some not. I'm using a combination of the doppelganger swap, the "he doesn't want to come back" lie, and the Rest Eternal spell. I was trying to build in Soul Bind as well, but it just didn't fit quite as nicely due to the necessity of the person being recently dead. But I liked them all! So thanks to you guys, this story has become delightfully convoluted. My players will be happy, and I will have my first time GM-ing start with a bang.
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RPG Superstar 2015 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16
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Replacing the king's corpse with a dead doppleganger (or other shapechanged imposter), who you then raise from the dead to take over the king's position, can also be fun, if you've got a potential imposter willing to take a bullet (temporarily) for the chance to be king. Nobody will see *that* coming.
Ice. Cold.
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Ice. Cold.Replacing the king's corpse with a dead doppleganger (or other shapechanged imposter), who you then raise from the dead to take over the king's position, can also be fun, if you've got a potential imposter willing to take a bullet (temporarily) for the chance to be king. Nobody will see *that* coming.
What sucks for the doppelganger is that, as a result of the overlapping assassination attempts, the body switch will have taken place before the false cleric casts rest eternal, so instead of waking up as king, he's going to wake up (or rather not wake up) as a corpse that will be unrevivafiable except by a high level caster. Tough luck.