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Can gods, upon dying, for whatever reasons, benefit from the effect of a clone spell?
- Clone spell says "If the original individual has been slain, its soul immediately transfers to the clone, creating a replacement (provided that the soul is free and willing to return)".
- Outsiders do not have separate souls: "Unlike most living creatures, an outsider does not have a dual nature—its soul and body form one unit. When an outsider is slain, no soul is set loose. Spells that restore souls to their bodies, such as raise dead, reincarnate, and resurrection, don't work on an outsider. It takes a different magical effect, such as limited wish, wish, miracle, or true resurrection to restore it to life. An outsider with the native subtype can be raised, reincarnated, or resurrected just as other living creatures can be."
- Do gods have souls? or should they be treated like outsiders? (i.e. no dual nature) We know that gods can be omniscient so no dual nature seems a bit to confining for them, as they can normally spread their essence through the multiverse to listen to prayers and other cosmic chatter, able to know when any creature talks about them, etc. Perhaps their "soul" or essence is confined to their domain/home in the Outer Planes? If so, would a clone need to be within the boundaries of their domain to be activated? or can that clone sit pretty in some completely different plane (say, in a cage next to Asmodeus' Throne, or the material plane)
First we would have to establish what it means for a deity to die and under what circumstance the do so.
Secondly, we need to establish what impact their physical body has on the existence.
Gods can have multiple avatars, but killing the avatars does not necessarily kill the god.
Gods are more than their physical existence.
And the only currently known ways to kill a god are........: None
Gods have died, but we do not know how.
I think the death of a god is about much more than their physical form being injured/destroyed. It obviously must involve removing their deific spark.
To that extent, I do not think clone would help a deity. Otherwise a contingent true resurrection could, or some other life saving magic. *Assuming a deity is powerful enough to break the normal restriction about maximum spell level.
It's also worth noting that in Golarion gods are strictly speaking not omniscient or omnipotent. They may be very intelligent and be very powerful. They may know a lot, but they do not know everything. Nor are they all powerful, otherwise they would never die.
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Let's assume that a god dies, regardless of how it happened. It's really dead. No avatars, nothing. All gone. I'm not really interested in knowing the "what happens to them after their death" either, as this is setting creative direction territory.
In short, I fully understand there are unanswered questions about gods in this setting, and I'm fine with that.
For this question, I'm just interested about if the Clone spell works or not. The god is dead. Does the Clone animates?
As for True Resurrection: good point, and that's why I asked if gods were treated as outsiders, because outsiders cannot be brought back with resurrection magic (just wishes and miracles and the like, but you make a good point that True Resurrection *DOES* work on outsiders and elementals... hmmmm)
Hmmm... I'm now also wondering what kind of cosmic ramifications a casting of True Resurrection has on outsiders. These are beings that have been judged by Pharasma, gone to their planes, and evolved into outsiders, sometimes for thousands of years. What if a three thousand year old lich casts True Resurrection on the material plane, based on a picture of a mortal that has (unbeknownst to him) become an outsider, hoping to get grandma back... does he end up with a giant angel or devil in his face??? that would be quite a surprise! :)
I think regardless of anything else, if clone or other resurrection magic did happen to work, it would be back a mortal version of the deity, who would no longer be a deity.
Also, I believe there is precedent set that a soul that has been judged cannot be resurrected, even by True Resurrection. However, you don't need to worry about it because True Res only can revive someone for 10 years per caster level (200 years) and the line for Pharasma's judgment is long.
I believe this is why it was important that supposedly Aroden's soul was judged immediately and jumped line.
I believe James Jacobs made the statements somewhere on this board. I'm not sure I could locate that thread again unfortunately.
Deities are beyond the ken of cloning, so I don't think this would be applicable at all.
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Deities are not creatures? please explain. There are some in Rahadoum who would beg to differ. I understand the limitations of magic however, as there might not be sufficient power in the clone spell to provide the jumpstart for divine spark. However if it's enough to transfer a soul... the only thing one needs to figure out is if outsiders can be cloned. If so, it wouldn't be a huge stretch to make this yield some kind of result for a deity, even if the result is loss of divinity and back to outsider or mortal status... :)
Rahadoum would claim deities are extremely powerful outsiders true, but that doesn't make them right. Nor does it mean that the rules that would normally apply to lesser outsiders would apply to deities.
Strictly speaking deities are purposefully left without stats for the explicit purpose of making such discussion as this possible and without establishing a "correct" way.
But I agree, deities are much more than a physical form.
IMO, at best clone would recreate a physical form but without any deific power.
I think an important question is does clone work on outsiders?
Outsiders possess no mind/body duality and deities are "outsiders". I mean I guess they're sort of outsiders, but they're also more than that.
Again, we just don't have stats for them so everything is really made of handwavium. Whatever you want to have happen, happens.
But I can definitely say I would be disappointed to see a deity saved from their destruction by clone. It would just negate the gravity of a deity's death.
The first line of the spell says "creatures" not "gods". If it's your game, of course you can do as you wish. James Jacobs will have to chime in on this.
In earlier editions, there are two ways to kill a deity. 1) It takes a deity of the same or greater stature to kill another deity. 2) Any deity with an artifact can kill another deity.
Otherwise, the deity is only temporarily dead, and returns to life after a little while. The location plays a big part. A deity that dies in their own place come back faster than the same deity would in a far off realm.
I don't think PF has gone into the deity life cycle as previous editions have.
/cevah
Clone, True Resurrection, etc. do not work on anything more than minor demigods. We know they work on minor demigods (at least, early in their demigoditude) thanks to mythic PCs being capable of becoming minor demigods. We know they don't work on gods because Aroden was smart, a caster in his mortal time, and still dead. No paltry mortal magic is sufficient to kill a god, so there is no reason to believe that it can bring them back.
Think of it another way: Normally deities don't need the Clone spell -- they do this service to themselves, except that you need a Super-Clone spell much higher level than can normally be cast by mortals -- don't worry, they've still got it covered. Anybody that successfully kills a deity, by definition has already figured out a way to prevent such magic from working (*), and a puny mortal Clone spell isn't even going to be a speedbump in their plans.
(*)Although if they got really lucky, conceivably they might succeed without knowing exactly what they did . . .