Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mad_Jack" data-source="post: 7083521" data-attributes="member: 6750306">Death, in D&D - and more specifically what happens afterward - isn't particularly well-defined in the general game as far as lore or mechanics go. Some of the published campaign worlds give a minor bit of exposition on what happens in that particular world, narratively, but the actual rules mechanics of those processes are usually fairly vague and subject to wide interpretation. You'll find that, in general, in most of the published campaign worlds things like the mechanical or narrative specifics of what's actually possible are pretty sparse...You may find that there's something written about what usually happens or what generally happens (i.e., in the Forgotten Realms, souls of people who didn't worship the gods in life end up eternally stuck in the Wall of Souls rather than heading to their deity's afterlife), but there's almost always gigantic swathes of unused idea space in which to tweak or adjust aspects of what already exists or to slot in nearly any crazy new thing you could come up with.In particular, the list of spells and magic items in the game is merely the list of what's commonly known and used, rather than the be-all and end-all of magic in the universe. So "A wizard did it... by accident" (or god, or magical cataclysm, or misfired spell, or completely random glitch in reality, etc.) is a perfectly viable reason for damn near anything, and how they did it or how it happened doesn't necessarily need to be repeatable or fully explained, particularly if the required circumstances are unique or near impossible to attain. Finding "lost knowledge" or discovering "secrets of the cosmos" are staples of the genre. The actual mechanics of placing the souls of their dead rulers into stone bodies is a much simpler thing to flesh out than the above-mentioned social ramifications of it.My personal thought would be that perhaps in order to cut down on the number of gazillion-year-old chefs all trying to stir the soup you might do one or more of the following: The process doesn't always work - it requires a particularly strong personality and someone who's willing to undergo the process rather than pass on peacefully and someone who's willing to serve their society and their current king without trying to use their new semi-immortal status to extend their reign.The transformation process is a bit variable, and not all of them come fully back as their original personalities, or some may choose to simply begin again as simple folk and serve rather than lead...Thus, the "children of stone" are considered a particular caste of dwarven society, and are required to elect or appoint a certain number of well-respected members of their caste to form the Voice of Stone, the council of advisors to the living king. Council membership is of a finite duration (perhaps 100, 300, or 500 years), so some individuals may end up serving multiple times before they fade away.When a ruler reaches the end of its original life it can instead choose to directly place it's accumulated knowledge (but not it's personality) in the Book of Stone, which is essentially the racial collective memory of the people, which can be accessed through divination magic by the dwarves' priests and wizards. A stone child who has reached the end of it's second life, whether through time or choice, can also choose to do so.</blockquote>

Verification