Resurrection using a body part questions?

[NewJeffCT]

Just curious how this would work. I would judge it that the spell just fails, but I'm not 100% sure.

Evil cleric comes in to meet the PCs under a white flag of truce. Announces that they have captured the two goodly elven princes and will kill them if they don't comply with their wishes (i.e., turn over an item the PCs recently retrieved) As evidence of their having the elf princes, the evil cleric presented them two ring fingers, with their royal elven signet rings attached to them. The party elf was able to confirm that they appeared to be legit and the party also knew the elf princes had disappeared in the last battle. (the battle was on a powerful unholy site, so divination magic could not confirm if the princes were alive or dead... or undead)

However, the party took immediate comfort in the fact that even if they couldn't retrieve the elf princes safely, they could resurrect them with the fingers. (muah ha ha ha, the DM laughs evilly)

A few questions.
1) If the elf princes are still alive but somewhere else, I assume the Resurrection spell would fail. Would the PCs know it was because they were still alive, or could they realize it was a possible "Trap the Soul" or that their body was eaten by a barghest or similar?
2) Similarly, if the princes were subjected to a Dominate Monster or True Domination spell before being killed, would they still be under the influence of the dominator when brought back? The raise dead descriptor indicates that would most likely be the case, but it's not clear with Resurrection or True Resurrection.
3) If the PCs returned the fingers of his sons to the elf king, he and his advisers would be wise enough to do an Augury or Commune first to determine if the fingers are legit (they are from other elves, not the princes) - however, the PCs might do it first. If they don't cast some sort of divination spell to determine if the fingers belong to the princes, would they get any check to realize the finger is not legit?

Thanks

 

[cheshire_grin]

1. The spell would fail, I would rule without granting any additional information.

2. I believe Resurrection and True Resurrection would both remove the effects of a domination, since they remove other conditions such as disease, poison, paralyzation, undeath, being disintegrated, etc.

3. Aside from casting divinations themselves, or if they thought to take fingerprints before the elves were captured, I can't think of any way they could discern the identities of the fingers' true owners.


Note the following caveat from the Resurrection spell's text: the portion receiving the spell must have been part of the creature’s body at the time of death. If the elves' fingers were cut off before they were killed, (assuming they were the actual fingers) then they cannot be used to resurrect the elves in any case.

True Resurrection would not suffer this limitation, since it doesn't need a part of the body at all.

 

[NewJeffCT]

1. The spell would fail, I would rule without granting any additional information.

2. I believe Resurrection and True Resurrection would both remove the effects of a domination, since they remove other conditions such as disease, poison, paralyzation, undeath, being disintegrated, etc.

3. Aside from casting divinations themselves, or if they thought to take fingerprints before the elves were captured, I can't think of any way they could discern the identities of the fingers' true owners.


Note the following caveat from the Resurrection spell's text: the portion receiving the spell must have been part of the creature’s body at the time of death. If the elves' fingers were cut off before they were killed, (assuming they were the actual fingers) then they cannot be used to resurrect the elves in any case.

True Resurrection would not suffer this limitation, since it doesn't need a part of the body at all.

Thanks - good point!

 

[Elethiomel]

Let them try it. Spell goes off. Finger comes alive. "Congratulations, you've resurrected this finger! Too bad it doesn't have a blood supply."

 

[NewJeffCT]

Let them try it. Spell goes off. Finger comes alive. "Congratulations, you've resurrected this finger! Too bad it doesn't have a blood supply."

No, my original thought was to have the finger from an evil bad guy who died, and it would be a surprise when he came back.

Then, I thought maybe a dominated elf, comes back and works as a secret bad guy...

but, then I just had a different elven finger.

 

[Elethiomel]

No, my original thought was to have the finger from an evil bad guy who died, and it would be a surprise when he came back.

Yeah, my comment was made in jest; it was really a thought experiment going something like this, "Resurrection brings something dead back to life. If it has a part of the body that was attached to it when it died, it will use that to bring the whole body back to life. So what happens if some part of the body dies separately? Well, it was living tissue at least for a while after it was separated from the body, so in a sense it was its own living thing... according to this shaky logic, it will bring that dead body part back to life!". I guess I should have made that clearer.