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Ok folks, got a bit of a two section question for you. i'm sticking this here because if I put in rules forum I'd be getting the strict RAW and I'm really looking more for a rule-based sensible approach.
The party, which contains an undead master cleric, have recently dealt with some pretty horrific aberrant and mythos creatures, specifically mi-go and chuuls and some oozes.
He wants to know if skeletons can be made out of mi-go (since they're essentially weird 'fungus') and chuuls (since they're invertebrates).
I also decided that the gelatinous cube the party dispatched didn't leave enough real remains to make a zombie out of, and similarly the hungry flesh and gibbering mouther they encountered literally had to be destroyed in order to stop them, precluding their becoming zombie versions of what they were.
Now on the second part..
The party also came across a few dwarven clerics who had been mi-go brain canister'd. Are they dead? Undead? The cleric wants to know if he can control them, if they're hurt by channeled positive, if he should suggest a raise dead, etc. I couldn't really find a straight answer in the mi-go brain canister write up.
The brain canister is a technomagic lobotomy and mind control. They're not undead.
The migo doesn't have a skeleton, so no dice.
I think 'exo'-skeletal chuuls would be kinda' neat.
The brain canister is a technomagic lobotomy and mind control. They're not undead.
The migo doesn't have a skeleton, so no dice.
Neither do the Chuuls. The argument was 'exoskeletons are like skeletons on the outside.'
To be fair, there is some precedent for this with the Deathweb. Although the Deathweb breaks a lot of rules (true neutral undead made of spiders with an intelligence score of 7) so it might not be the best argument.
I'd rule that a creature with an exo-skeleton could be reanimated as a skeleton, sure. I like the idea; it adds flavor.
An animated chuul exoskeleton sounds cool.
He could make zombies out of the mi-go (mi-go apocalypse zombies! How would brain eating work, though?), but there's no skeleton I think. Mi-go are plants (actual Plant type), and plants don't have skeletons to liberate.
The dwarves are functionally dead ("...the creature from whom the brain was harvested is dead..."). A raise dead would work if the brain is taken out of the canister and stuck back in the corpse. If the corpses have been destroyed, stronger measures will be necessaru.
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An animated chuul exoskeleton sounds cool.
He could make zombies out of the mi-go (mi-go apocalypse zombies! How would brain eating work, though?), but there's no skeleton I think. Mi-go are plants (actual Plant type), and plants don't have skeletons to liberate.
The dwarves are functionally dead ("...the creature from whom the brain was harvested is dead..."). A raise dead would work if the brain is taken out of the canister and stuck back in the corpse. If the corpses have been destroyed, stronger measures will be necessaru.
Yeah I read that too. The cleric got a little angina when I mentioned that they weren't alive anymore, but weren't undead, and were still able to observe and communicate by virtue of the canisters.
The brain canister is a technomagic lobotomy and mind control. They're not undead.
The migo doesn't have a skeleton, so no dice.
Neither do the Chuuls. The argument was 'exoskeletons are like skeletons on the outside.'
Have you ever seen an undead spider or scorpion? I mean, the bones work differently in some ways than an exoskeleton, but both work to support the creatures frame.
I would allow it.
The migo brain canister... would be... dead things with technology that draws from the brain somehow. Its like a hard drive. I would not call a warrior who wears bones as armor or a dragon skull for a shield to be undead. The Migo are just using the brains as a utility. Not undead in my book.
Edit: Wait... are these brain-clerics able to still use divine magic? That may.... change... the results? At that point things get a little muddled.
The brains are still alive. In fact, they are the only part that is still alive.
This is similar to have your hand chopped off. You live, but the hand soon becomes dead meat.
The other issues are really DM calls. I personally would do yes to the chuul and no to the mi-go for campaign reasons only.
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The brain canister is a technomagic lobotomy and mind control. They're not undead.
The migo doesn't have a skeleton, so no dice.
Neither do the Chuuls. The argument was 'exoskeletons are like skeletons on the outside.'
Have you ever seen an undead spider or scorpion? I mean, the bones work differently in some ways than an exoskeleton, but both work to support the creatures frame.
I would allow it.
The migo brain canister... would be... dead things with technology that draws from the brain somehow. Its like a hard drive. I would not call a warrior who wears bones as armor or a dragon skull for a shield to be undead. The Migo are just using the brains as a utility. Not undead in my book.
Edit: Wait... are these brain-clerics able to still use divine magic? That may.... change... the results? At that point things get a little muddled.
I'm leaning towards a 'yes' on the use of magic thing, which again, makes this issue weird.
If they're dead, they shouldn't be able to do anything, but the canisters expressly indicate that dials allow modification of their ability to see, speak, etc. They'd certainly be limited to verbal only powers...or would the canister block line of effect? :/
If alive, they can probably use spells, and as the brain is sustained in the canister this makes sense.
If undead?
Its weird to have a situation where you're dead, but conscious and able to act in your limited fashion.
The party plans to use them for assist in the watch (hey, high wisdom and never needing to sleep), until they get them to a point where they can offload them.
On the deathweb thing, its not an animated spider exoskeleton though, its an empty giant spider exoskeleton puppeted by hundreds of thousand of undead spiders.
The brain can speak and understand any languages it knew in life, and retains the use of the following skills at the values it possessed while alive: Appraise, Bluff, Diplomacy, all Knowledge skills, Linguistics, Perception, and Sense Motive. It retains no other abilities it possessed in life, including purely mental abilities.
The dead dwarf clerics can't channel energy, can't cast spells, etc. They can only perform the skills listed above.
The dwarves ARE dead, but their brains are artificially sustained.
Think of those old experiment where scientists animated severed heads with electricity.
The Brain Canister is a much more sophisticated version of that.
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I know this is dragging stuff in, but in the original story the cylinders are actually acting as like a sort of life support for the brain (with the horror of course being that the brain is 100% disconnected from its body and is living with every aspect of its existance at the whim of the mi-go).
I actually thought the cylinders were Paizo, I obviously need to re-read bestiary 4.
The brain cylinders ARE Paizo; they were originally published in Wake of the Watcher (CC#4).
The brain cylinders specifically don't interfere with raising people from the dead (beyond the obvious "uh, the brain's gone" problem), so the brain cylinders probably don't contain souls or anything like that. Otherwise, there'd be a need to "kill" the brain in the cylinder in order the raise the person.
They brain cylinders are still pretty horrible (for comparison, look at, say, making a simulacrum of somebody just to torture it), and Wake of the Watcher calls out that the brains in the cylinders usually go insane.
I'd go so far as to say that if you stick a liberated brain back in a body and res the person, they remember their time as a cylinder, but if you do some method that grants the person a whole new brain (like resurrection or reincarnate) then the person doesn't have the "stuck in a cylinder" memories.
He wants to know if skeletons can be made out of mi-go (since they're essentially weird 'fungus') and chuuls (since they're invertebrates).
No and no. Cannot animate a skeleton that does not exist. No skeletal system, no skeleton.
Now on the second part..
The party also came across a few dwarven clerics who had been mi-go brain canistered.
After reading the brain canister writrup I believe the brain is alive. The dwarf it came from is dead but the brain itself still lives. A regenerate spell and some extensive therapy may even save the dwarves.
EXTENSIVE therapy...