Hi! So, just returned to D&D after several years and I'm quite rusty. One question I have: is there a way of resurrecting someone that's been dead for more than 200yrs? I'm considering creating something for this, but want to be sure the option does not already exist somewhere.
D&D 5E Resurrecting dead from millenia?
- Thread starter CaptMiya
- Start date
Josiah Stoll
First Post
Is the body intact?
MechaTarrasque
Hero
I think the idea is that anyone who has been dead for more than 200 years has become a petitioner and then an angel/demon/devil, etc., and if the person had an evil alignment, worshipped the wrong god, or made a bad deal, their soul might have been destroyed in the Blood War and their essence has been absorbed by one of the Lower Planes. You could try Wish and wish for a special version of resurrection be cast that works beyond the 200 year limit, but you might get a demon or a quarter mile of one of the 9 Hells (and what are the odd that that is uninhabited?) that his/her essence was scattered over.
It depends on the campaign. [MENTION=6801226]MechaTarrasque[/MENTION]'s answer isn't wrong, but it's Forgotten Realms specific. The true resurrection spell only works for creatures less than 200 years old or less and assumes you have access to the body and that the creature is willing and able to return to life.
Of course if it makes sense for the campaign, it can always happen, it would just take more than a simple spell. Even a 9th level spell.
In my campaign, even raise dead is iffy and getting someone out of Helheim is virtually impossible but there are exceptions to every rule. For example, a lich has their soul trapped in a gem. If you had access to the gem and the lich wanted to come back to life a dark ritual might work.
Of course if it makes sense for the campaign, it can always happen, it would just take more than a simple spell. Even a 9th level spell.
In my campaign, even raise dead is iffy and getting someone out of Helheim is virtually impossible but there are exceptions to every rule. For example, a lich has their soul trapped in a gem. If you had access to the gem and the lich wanted to come back to life a dark ritual might work.
Yeah, I have some ideas on how to make it possible. I am not as much asking if it would be possible as wondering if there's anything official around that has done it already (perhaps on a Module or some book I don't have)
Quickleaf
Legend
The only official way is for living clerics/wizards to have been casting gentle repose on the corpse every 10-day, thus resetting clock that the dead one may be raised/resurrected within.
Maybe a wish spell could work.
Anything beyond that - special rituals, artifacts/magic items, divine boons, etc. – is up to you as DM.
AmerginLiath
Adventurer
I don’t know if it’s the exact mechanical answer, but I wonder if you could deal with the matter through adventure design. As noted, the issue at hand is (in canon) mainly one of the soul moving on in the afterlife/planes beyond its mortal existence, such that there’s a limit beyond which it’s no longer connected to the world or its mortal identity. Perhaps have a quest to travel to the afterlife to find that soul and reacquaint it with who it was (perhaps with some key historical vestige of its mortal identity), even having to petition divine forces to allow it to “climb back down the mountain” once it remembers who it was. At that point, I could see where a Resurrection spell could reconstruct and reconnect a body (the extra mechanical price being paid with the magic to travel to and through the planes as well as the resources adventuring therein).
MechaTarrasque
Hero
Anybody know of a time travel artifact or magguffin that would let the PC's go back to within the 200 year mark and then come back with the resurrected person?
I would put it beyond the power of even a standard wish since true resurrection is already a 9th level spell limited to 200 years old. The magic required would generally be beyond that of mere mortals.
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