D&D 5E Some Questions on Borrowing From Battlestar Galactica for Plants, PCs, NPCs in 5th Edition D&D

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

(First, thanks to everyone that helped me on my Amnesia thread. Much appreciated.)

As part of a DMs Guild project, I have an idea for a massive tree, deep within a forest in Cormyr, that’s one part body collector, one part uber-intelligence, and one part war machine/nation killer, that’s been intentionally awakened after a sleep of about 30,000 years, give or take, and is a leftover from the time when elves warred with each other across the face of Faerûn.

The tree would have traits like the Resurrection Ships in Battlestar Galactica, in that it can create flesh and blood clones (in this case, perfect clones of anyone the tree has captured), whose spirit energy and memories return to the tree when a clone dies, enriching the tree’s knowledge and allowing it to create clones better equipped to infiltrate the nation the tree finds itself in.

I would like to offer this concept as a Background Enhancement to players, and to DMs as an interesting (hopefully) twist on running NPCs or DMPCs, as well as a means to allow players to create drop in characters that will be around for just a couple of sessions and that “just happened to be there” when the party needed help, that are really clones from the tree, which has decided it needs to keep an eye on the Player Characters (for whatever reason).

The tree ought to make a good adventure location, too.

Based on your knowledge of 5th Edition, and in your opinion, would the various divine/spiritual/infernal links that allow Clerics, Druids, Paladins or Warlocks to prepare spells carry forward into a clone that is for all intents and purposes a perfect duplicate, or would the link be severed?

Are there any other practical concerns or problems regarding class abilities/running a clone as a PC that occur to you, having read this idea? (How to handle Raise Dead, for example.)

How about DMPCs or the concept in general?

As always, thanks in advance your replies.

 

[Goober4473]

A neat plot hook. I like it, though I'd avoid DMPCs in general.

In most D&D setting, Forgotten Realms included, a person's soul is a very real thing. If the clone has the original's soul, it's no different from a Reincarnation or True Resurrection. In that case, divine power, warlock pacts, etc. would likely carry over.

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

I see.

My thought was that the soul or soulstuff would be the one thing the clone didn't take from the original body. Instead it would receive something akin to a soul or life force from the Tree, and be attached to it like tether, so the tree could gather up the memories and experiences of a clone when it died.

Hrm...how many ways can you slice a soul?

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

In most D&D setting, Forgotten Realms included, a person's soul is a very real thing. If the clone has the original's soul, it's no different from a Reincarnation or True Resurrection. In that case, divine power, warlock pacts, etc. would likely carry over.

Having thought some more about your statement, I think it will be best to treat the soul of a being captured by the Tree as something that can be broken up.

The number of times this can be done will be based on the hit dice of the captured being. A Priest (as found in the SRD) with 5 hit dice, for example, could be turned into five clones at most, each with a "soul shard" that gives the clone life (and access to divine magic), which the Tree recoups if the clone dies.

It a clone advances in hit dice, then the Tree would recoup this extra soul energy along with all of the clone's memories and experiences and store it in the original captured being when that clone dies, and so would be able to create that many more clones of the original. This would sort of force the tree to send out clones, so it can gain soul energy in order to build a bigger clone army.

This might be a backdoor way for PCs and NPCs captured by the tree to advance in level, too, provided some of the clones of a captured being advanced in level before being found and destroyed, and provided the captives are then freed from the tree before it can withdraw soul energy to produce more clones.

Hrm...maybe this is how the idea for the tree came about: a long time ago an elf mage or cleric figured out how to make a tree that could grow clones of the elf, then the elf sent her clones into the world to gain knowledge and experience while she slept safely in the tree, and she took that power into herself each time a clone died. Maybe the experience of hosting memories from different lives lived proved to much, and the elf either went mad or was turned into the sort of tyrannical elf driven to perfect the process and use it create sentient trees that could grow secretly in the forests of lesser elves and slowly work to destroy their lands from within.

Thank you Goober for helping me to reverse my thinking on the idea of the clones having souls!