Collecting Skulls

[mehs]

I've been going around collecting all of the bodies we find to give them proper burials. I have not been able to find any real evidence of pathfinder burial customs, and do not believe that collecting the skulls counteracts giving proper burials. Is collecting the skulls (for speak with dead purposes) evil?

[happykj]

It sounds evil to me, since you are destroying someone else's body without a generally accepted reason.

If you didnt take the remaining body, others that saw it later will feel creepy to see a headless body, and it would be difficult to explain if you are carrying a bunch of skulls

[Lord of Conflict]

Blood for the Blood god, skulls for the Skull Throne!!!

Now I have gotten that off my chest. Burial customs in pathfinder are not really expanded upon in the books, but the bits and pieces we do get would indicate that they share similarity with a real world burial practices. Look at historical burial customs that would seem closest to the culture that you are aiming for in Pathfinder then modify based on Pathfinder deities. My 2 cents.

[Pizza Lord]

It really depends on the culture. There are plenty of examples of people just storing skulls and such. In a world where magic allows for conversing with undead, it's entirely reasonably that there's a culture that placed (and cared for) the skulls of its passed elders.

It's also equally possible that since raise dead and resurrection are also a thing, people would be a lot less inclined to remove heads, since that makes such known revivals much harder.

On the third hand, since it's possible for enemies to raise their fallen (or create undead from mostly intact corpses), it's also possible that standard practice for a lot of cultures is making sure heads and limbs are removed. Which is also a factor why cremation wouldn't be as common in a world with resurrection... except against monsters or enemies, where they would burn corpses.

Granted, in your example... you're likely just a weirdo collecting skulls, but unless you're plundering graves or just popping heads off bodies, you might be looked on with fear or deference as some magus delving into long lost secrets. It kind of depends on how you go about it. If you've got a bag of skulls you're carrying around, it looks a lot creepier than a shrine or display of skulls arranged like a catacomb or place of memorial or honor (maybe not a whole lot less creepier).

[Mysterious Stranger]

Evil in Pathfinder is both objective and subjective. In the real-world evil is mostly subjective in that it is defined by the culture of the person making the determination. Things that we consider evil might be considered normal by other cultures, and things we consider normal and even good are sometimes seen as evil by other cultures. This type of thing will exist in the game. But in the game some things are objectively evil. Creating undead or casting evil spells are defined as evil acts in the game.

Depending on the culture collection skulls can be subjectively evil. So, the real question is probably is collecting skulls objectively evil. To determine that you have to ask what you are collecting skulls for and what are the consequences of doing so.

The OP already stated that this is being done to allow them to speak with dead. Speak with Dead does not have an alignment descriptor so is not in itself inherently evil. But it can also force the dead creature to cooperate against its will. This starts to touch on the topics of free will which kind of can be considered somewhat objectively evil. This could mean that some uses of speak with dead could be evil.

Next, we look at the consequences of collecting skulls. Raise Dead requires the body be whole so taking something skull will likely cause it to fail. Most of the other spells that bring back a dead creature do not require the body to be whole. Resurrection and reincarnation just need a part of the body to work. Raise dead only works if used within fairly short time after death. It also does not work on creatures that have been turned into undead or killed with a death attack or died of old age. Preventing something from being raised from the dead is also not automatically an evil act but could easily be.

Looking at the whole picture determining if collecting skulls is an evil act will depend on the circumstances. Collecting the skull of a dead ally after they can no longer be brought back with raise dead should not be any problems. Taking the skull of an enemy and forcing them to divulge secrets is going to be at best questionable. If you are taking the skull of an evil tyrant and trying to get information to save the town you are probably ok. If you are taking the skull of a good person so you can steal their hidden treasure it is probably going to be evil, especially if you are the one who killed them.