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What happens to the dead if they die after they die? (lemm.ee)
submitted 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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So in my campaign a character died in a way where the body is entirely destroyed, but the players wanted to revive them anyway. The only spell that they can possibly access can fix this for them is true resurrection which is way out of range for them. The backup plan was to go find their soul and figure out a new plan from there. I'm fine with that with my understanding of what happens when you die in Forgotten Realms lore (as follows)

Step 1. You die.
Step 2. You go to the fugue plane and get judged by Kelemvor.
Step 3. Your soul is sent to whoever has a claim to it in cases of warlockery, religious beliefs or other deals.
Step 3a. In case the above doesn't apply your soul gets sent to it's alignments plane.
Step 4. You either become a native being of the plane (lesser devil, demon, planetar, etc) or are a spirit that resembles your original body.

This character was chaotic good, meaning they're in Arborea/Olympus. My players are on a crash course to getting into that plane and finding this character, but Olympus is a plane of heroes and has lots of things to fight, what happens if this character dies? Do they get rejudged and just end up where they are again? Are my assumptions wrong and I'm missing something?

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (2 children)

Any planar entity that dies on its home plane is dead-dead, unless otherwise specified in the lore of whatever you're dealing with. No returning to the fugue or their afterlife plane or anything like that unless specifically mentioned.

This applies to petitioners, deities and everything in between.

(edit: this is why the parties of the Blood War are so interested in new recruits, incidentally, and prefer to fight battles away from their home planes. every battle on their home plane creates permanent casualties)

edit2: This might apply more generally to the outer planes, I'm not sure. If a lantern archon goes through a portal from Mt Celestia to the Outlands, and then dies there, it might be permadead now. This would not apply if it was summoned by magic though.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago

Thats what I was forgetting, thanks

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Any source for this?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Not very good ones, my memory from playing Planescape decades ago. A quick googling of something like "planar death home plane planescape" should do the trick though. I am pretty certain.

Note, I am not referring to any of the recent editions, I've never really cared for WotC updates. 4.0 or 5.0 could say something completely different. They change shit all the time.

edit: Alright, I did a quick googling. Here's a discussion thread on the topic with some citations:

https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/164187/is-there-any-lore-to-suggest-that-celestials-or-fey-can-only-be-killed-on-their