- Burn the body.
- Kill a stranger.
- Wear a disguise.
- Hide the head.
- Cast Speak With Dead yourself so nobody else can.
There are many ways to keep a witness from identifying you. You just need to be creative.
this post was submitted on 28 Sep 2023
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Yes DM, this comment right here.
I see you have a lot of experience in the field
I'm writing a murder mystery adventure in my spare time, so... Yeah, it came up.
Depending on the edition, speak with dead requires the corpse to have a working jaw, so just destroy that. If you hide the head, someone can just find it.
Why hide it? A maul is cheap.
Mending
Mending fixes a single tear or break in an object. No way should that work on a head that's been splattered halfway across the Sword Coast.
A skull is an object(since Mending can repair wine skins, which are made of animal product, it just can't be a living thing), and all the breaks are just breaks. So, you acid off all the nonessential bits, puzzle the skull (or just the mouthy bits) back together and then mend the cracks. Done, a perfectly usable Speak with the Dead target. Would anyone do this in real life? Definitely, since there's so much info you could get. I'd let It play as DM
And if you can't find all the pieces, what then? And even if you did, assuming a human skull is an "object" (which I dispute), there will certainly be more than a single tear or break. So what, is each pair of puzzle pieces now an object you can cast mend on?
I don't think that matches the intention of the spell at all.
Although CSI Faerun would be kinda fun, so maybe I'd allow it.
Can't find all the important pieces, it doesn't work, simple as that.
RAW, you can cast mending multiple times on the same object to fix multiple breaks, so that should be fine.
It's got the right level of complete nonsense, excruciating tedium, and hilarious results I love to see at the table.
Can a dead body without a tongue still speak when affected by speak with the dead?
I believe the requirement is jaw not tongue.
- Mixing character knowledge with player knowledge
This is all stuff you'd have a reason to know in character when a setting includes something as impactful as the ability to use the dead as a witness. If the victim can be a witness, you need to either fool or silence the victim post-mortem.
Hm. That raises a lot of questions about how people keep killing each other constantly when the job of coroner, lab scientist and homicide detective can all be performed perfectly accurately by a single wizard, as long as he's prone to long naps.
The thought of this is hilarious.
"Johnson! There's been a multiple homicide and you're needed at the precinct. And here's a box of Ambien. You're going to need it"
I could absolutely see a cleric having the roll of coroner / mortician being able to perform holy rights for the body, and preserving it via gentle repose but also being able to use spells like speak with dead for investigation.
Coroner is a really interesting position, with it's etymology lying in the word crown (i.e. Corona). This is due to its position being appointed by the crown, a position that's hard to fill due to a wide range of expertise being required, from law to medicine to funerary rites etc.
In a setting or region of a setting with either a joined church and state or where the church are active in the legal proceedings of their community, perhaps the role of investor and coroner is a single position performed by a grave cleric, as long as they take long naps of course.
Hahaha, raises, nice
In this thread: Some fantasy heroes with suspiciously significant and specific experience getting away with fantasy realm murder. All for the greater good of the fantasy realm, I am sure.
This is also why I have to build all of my key NPC story roles as ready to lift-and-shift to a new NPC in case the planned NPC "has an accident".
This is also why I have to build all of my key NPC story roles as ready to lift-and-shift to a new NPC in case the planned NPC “has an accident”.
I call this the Babylon 5 approach to plot/character design.
Zarthas sees your point!
Not Zarthas. Zarthas.
Oh right. I always forget that Zarthas is Zarthas brother.
Yeah, I'm going to have to remember some of these tips people are sharing...
Five questions? Seems arbitrary.
Yes...
Wait, was that a question?
Yes.
Are you sure about that?
I cast Disintegrate.
I mean... She is speaking to the dead in that scene...
Ouch. Meta-thought headache. My brain was ignoring that fact. It's speak-with-dead all the way down...
Takes notes...
I mean just steal the skin of a other person and afterwards arson.