You know, it's rather uneventful when a resurrection fails (due to the soul being trapped, choosing not to return, etc.).
Wouldn't it be much more fun if all that resurrection energy didn't just evaporate uselessly but still did its darndest to make something happen?
Okay, so maybe it's not all good, but it does give an incentive to be really careful about handing out raise dead like candy!
The Hollow One
"She's moving again. She has breath; she has a pulse. But you know, when you look into those eyes, that it's not her. The body got up and walked, but the spirit stayed behind. Something else came back, and I fear it's something with a purpose."
Sadly, I've no specific thoughts on what abilities the template should add/remove. Importantly, this creature is not undead. It's alive, full of living energy and maybe some overpowering drive in place of soul and memories.
Creation: A hollow one may be created if a raise dead or resurrection attempt fails due to the soul being unavailable or unwilling. The caster rolls CL vs 11 + the HD of the creature. If the roll fails, the corpse rises as a hollow one.
Got any ideas?
Here, it's not a returned soul. It's a living body without a soul, driven by something else. What that something else is, I don't know yet!
Got any ideas?
Lots of things actually. Do you care if the being is benevolent or malevolent? There are probably lots of creatures on the other side who'd love to get a corpse to carry out their wishes. My first thought is actually full metal alchemist, but I hate taking things from other sources.
I'd say the word soul is pretty vague. Its a corpse with a brain and memories, carrying out their last wishes without emotion or empathy would be something that someone might really not want to happen. I'm not exactly keen on what a soul is or does...
If you don't mind giving me your email address I'd be happy to send you a free copy of "The Genius Guide to the Harrowed", which you can read about here:
The Genius Guide to the Harrowed
I think it fits pretty well for what you're looking for, you'd just need to tweak the effect to be the result of the ressurection spell.
What if what drives the body was already there before the spell was cast? Let me explain.
In ancient cultures, it was believed that people's souls were so tightly tethered to their bodies that even after death tore the soul free, traces of it remained. Some cultures believed that after death, the sins of the deceased were all that inhabited their remains, hence why cremation was widely used in the Old World.
And now to answer your question, Umbral Reaver. What if the spell's magic created a shadowy quasi-soul comprised of the deceased's darkest desires and sins? The Hollow One would still have the memories of the soul that once inhabited it and the core of that soul's personality, but nothing good from the original being, existing as a dark reflection the deceased.
The template should change the alignment of the risen creature as evil, but preserve the previous lawful/neutral/chaotic of their alignment.
Some abilities could be the following.
Hollow Heart(SU): A Hollow One is immune to all attempts to change it's alignment and to all mind-effecting effects, such as spells of the enchantment school. As the Hollow One has no true soul, they are immune to any effects which target a creature's soul, such as the Trap the Soul spell.
Sacrament of Sacrilige(SU): Although Hollow Ones have no faith in anything beyond their own dark desires, the sins they crave sustain them, body and soul. They have no real need to eat or drink and as a result are immune to starvation and dehydration. Also, Hollow Ones who possessed the ability to cast divine spells retains those spells and all class abilities, if any, that they possessed from their former class and may freely advance in that class, though they cannot use any spells with the Good descriptor and radiate evil instead of good, if applicable.
Darkling Quasi-Soul(SU): Despite their powers, Hollow Ones are vulnerable to the powers of righteousness that they spurn. Hollow Ones are effected by holy water and spells that affect undead and evil outsiders as if they possessed the respective creature type. Effects that banish outsiders, destroy undead, or can restore an individual to life without a soul, such as True Resurrection, can instantly slay a Hollow One that fails it's save against the effect.
I apologize for the any grammatical errors made, because I'm typing almost stream of thought on this. If you like my version of the Hollow One, I can try to create a full template to post for you.
I would like to say, I think a ton of these are great ideas. I handle it as follows in my campaign setting.
What we know from existing game lore:
1. Soul-Trapping prevents a return from the grave (see Raise Dead, Ressurection, True Ressurection)
2. Speak with Dead, before the folks at Paizo rewrote it, tells us: "You grant the semblance of life and intellect to a corpse [...] This spell does not let you actually speak to the person (whose soul has departed). It instead draws on the imprinted knowledge stored in the corpse. The partially animated body retains the imprint of the soul that once inhabited it, and thus it can speak with all the knowledge that the creature had while alive. The corpse, however, cannot learn new information." From this point on, I will refer to it as a "vestige". For my setting, I define a vestige as follows:
"A vestige is not the soul of a person who has died; it is the traces of that personality left behind in the body after death."
3. We know that souls become Petititioners after dead and await judgement and ultimate reward.
4. We know that once judged, these entities are sent off to their afterlife, transformed into outsiders, and so on.
With these things in mind, consider the following:
1. Another interpretation of "soul-trapping" would be "given your final reward" and sent off to the afterlife and so on. The soul can't be returned. In other words, the soul has been judged. If a simple spell can foil raising the dead, I'm sure the judgement of the "Divine Judge" associated with whatever setting you use could do it to.
2. We can now say that souls have an "expiration date". If your friend isn't raised in a certain range of time (which should never be known by the PCs), the soul is gone and unreachable, save perhaps by petitioning the governing deity who has claimed his or her soul. Setting a time-frame for this which only the GM is aware of is great. I currently grant each player character a "Fate" of 1d4+1 which represents the number of times they can be successfully resurrected instead of a solid number of days or actual time. There are means to increase this, which are also known only to the GM, as well as means to attempt to escape judgement, which causes all sorts of new things to pop up.
3. If the soul is gone, whether trapped, destroyed, or judged, the spells which bring a character back to life, on a failure, might instead infuse the vestige of the character, granting life to the remnant, but without a soul and thus no ethical or moral axis to guide it. While using the personality of the previously deceased, one would then randomly determine the ethical and moral axis of this "new" creature's alignment.
Redchigh, interesting theory. Doesn't that mean that there's already a Zombie Apocolypse? Better stock up on chainsaws, shotguns, gasoline, and MRE's then lol! I'm just kidding (Partially,), but it is an interesting theory nonetheless.
Here, it's not a returned soul. It's a living body without a soul, driven by something else. What that something else is, I don't know yet!
As long as they have this symbol plastered on them somewhere you're good.
More helpfully, I can brainstorm some possible stats.
Hollow One
CR +???
Alignment: True Neutral (I like Da'ath's semi-idea that they have no real moral leanings)
Stat increases: Con +4, Dex/Str +2 (It's infused with pure life energy, making it sturdier/harder to kill, and since it's either "super alive" or not really alive at all, it pushes itself to the limits of mere human endurance at all times)
Gaze of the Void: 30 ft. range Gaze attack. DC 17 Will save or target is Frightened for 1d4+2 rounds.
As well, some sort of Aura might fit in well too. I was thinking one kinda like Undead have that makes them loathe to approach a Hollow One, but perhaps animals are actually ATTRACTED to them, since it is something suffused with so much pure life. Perhaps mechanically comes out as a sort of Wild Empathy that auto-succeeds?