D&D 5E Can Sending Be Used to Speak with the Soul of a Dead Character?

[Hexmage-EN]

Question: Could you use Sending to speak with the soul of a dead person?

Sending says you send a message to a creature with which you are familiar, even if they are on another plane of existence.

I'm brainstorming for a session and thought I'd have a villain know one of their allies is dead because they didn't respond to multiple Sendings, but then I considered the possibility that they could have gotten the response "I'm dead, some guys killed me, currently waiting in line for Hell, rez plz."

I realize this steps on the toes of Speak with Dead a bit, though with that spell you can potentially get more information at a time and it would only deal with what the character knew while they were alive. However, the idea that a relatively low-level spell could let you pretty easily speak with people in the afterlife would have some major impacts on a setting.

 

[Oofta]

By the rules, no. After all you aren't communicating with the dead and they don't have a jaw. I'd consider it, but I'd add on to the sending has a 5% chance of failure when sending across the planes. I'd say there's another 5% chance you get the wrong target, it gets intercepted by a fiend who responds for their own needs.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Hmmm. It feels like it overlaps too much with Speak with the Dead, but as you say, it's both more limited and more expansive in scope. I dunno. Good question.

 

[MarkB]

Is the soul of the person you knew still someone you're familiar with?

Beyond that, it'll be pretty setting-specific and DM-specific.

 

[TheSword]

Depends on the mythology of the world and what happened to them when they died.

If a sending spell can cross the Planes then I see no reason why they couldn’t reply if they became a petitioner. If they’re transformed into a larvae maybe not so much.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

Beyond that, it'll be pretty setting-specific and DM-specific.

From looking at it further, various sources state that souls lose their memories at some point after death, but the when and why varies. For example, in 3E a soul in the Hells lost its memories and became a lemure after being tortured in the Hells for long enough, but in 5E there are examples of weapons that can cause a soul to become a lemure in the River Styx either within 1d4 hours (the Hellfire Lance of a Narzugon) or instantly (for the Hellfire weapons of Descent into Avernus).

Additionally, apparently one 2E book stated that souls lose their memories while traveling through the Astral Plane.

 

[Tonguez]

Souls aren't Creatures and thus sending fails,

there are other spells that deal with souls (magic soul jar) and none of them give creature stats to the soul

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

there are examples of weapons that can cause a soup to become a lemure in the River Styx

I know this is a typo, but I don't care.

"Why are you bringing so many cans of soup with us on this adventure?"

"Trust me."

 

[Rabbitbait]

I would make it that the wizard would need to take an hour to perform a ritual to combine speak with the dead and sending, and then pass an arcana check at DC15.

This is because combining spells on the fly is complicated and would take research and time to get correct.

 

[the Jester]

A dead creature is no longer a creature. It is an object. The spirit/soul might be a creature but isn't the same as the original fleshly being; it's only part of it.