Can a ghost possess its own body?

[STARP_Social_Officer]

Say I'm killed, and then for whatever reason I come back as a ghost, with the malevolence power. Let's also say my body, which I am no longer occupying, is animated as a zombie. Since I have the power to possess the bodies of others, can I use the malevolence ability to possess my own body, and subsequently be basically back to life again (with the slight problem that my body is rotting)?

 

[bestone]

I'd say no, cause once you die, your body is a corpse, a zombie is an animated corpse walking around

 

[Sithobi1]

It would work, but only if your DM rules that you retain the same physical stats after dying. Otherwise, you'd be using Zombie stats, and that's just not cool. If your DM allows it...I recommend some Gentle Repose spells.

 

[hong]

Malevolence works as per magic jar, and the spell description implies that it only works on creatures with a soul. It also states that only sentient undead have (or are) souls. Thus I'd say that you can't possess a zombie, since it doesn't have a soul.

 

[Jack Simth]

A ghoul or wight, on the other hand....

 

[phindar]

Can a character be a ghoul or a wight and a ghost? Or to put another way, don't intelligent undead have their original souls as some sort of corrupted mockery of life, and therefore it can't be off possessing other people? (It's an interesting point, to beat a CR 10 ghost you could ani its body as a CR 4 ghoul, and then obliterate the SOB. Might just set the soul free again, but it's thinking outside the box.)

 

[Jack Simth]

Up to the DM.

RAW, True Ressurection, despite having no need for the body, fails to function if the corpse is walking around as a skeleton or zombie. The skeleton/zombie needs to be destroyed, first (same with most core ressurection-type spells; Clone being the noteable exception... but that requires a piece of the subject from before death).

RAW does not say why this is, merely that it is so.

One interpertation is that the soul is bound to the body in the process of reanimation, and is thus not free to return. In which case, the type of undead doesn't matter; you can't have a ghost and a zombie of the same person.

Other cases simply don't bother giving a why at all; it's just a quirk of the spells. A ghost's body is as valid a target for Animate Dead and Create Undead as is any other body.