• Susaga@ttrpg.networkEnglish
    771·
    1 year ago
    1. Burn the body.
    2. Kill a stranger.
    3. Wear a disguise.
    4. Hide the head.
    5. 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.

    • dylanmorgan@slrpnk.net
      111·
      1 year ago

      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.

            • chuckleslord@lemmy.world
              61·
              1 year ago

              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

              • Cylusthevirus@kbin.social
                4·
                1 year ago

                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.

                • chuckleslord@lemmy.world
                  61·
                  1 year ago

                  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.

      • Susaga@ttrpg.networkEnglish
        6·
        1 year ago

        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.

  • MudMan@kbin.social
    21·
    1 year ago

    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 Picard ManeuverOP
      15·
      1 year ago

      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”

    • Khrux@ttrpg.networkEnglish
      9·
      1 year ago

      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.

  • MajorHavoc@lemmy.world
    141·
    1 year ago

    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 casen the planned NPC “has an accident”.

  • teft
    101·
    2 months ago

    deleted by creator

    • MajorHavoc@lemmy.world
      3·
      1 year ago

      Ouch. Meta-thought headache. My brain was ignoring that fact. It’s speak-with-dead all the way down…