Death after Death

[allenw]

No, it's not a thread complaining about high PC mortality.
My question is this: In the RAW, barring special effects of certain planes, what happens to the souls of the Dearly Departed, a.k.a. petitioners (and for that matter other Outsiders) if they "die," on or off their Final Resting Plane? Do they merge with their plane? Do they cease to exist, barring True Res? Do they become petitioners (again), possibly on a different plane if they haven't acted in accordance with their "home" plane?
Among other things, this has relevance to the plot of "Lord of the Iron Fortress".

 

[Narfellus]

I always assumed they ceased to exist as they melded with the plane of their final resting place. Probably not even resurrection would bring them back. Maybe not even divine intervention. I'm not sure how Manual of the Planes addresses that question.

 

[werk]

I would say that they cease to exist. Melding or becoming one with their plane is the end goal of a petitioner, so being killed should not bring this about.

 

[dcollins]

Certainly, the core rules don't address this at all. Someone might look at the Manual of the Planes, but I wouldn't be surprised if that also fails to mention it. "Lord of the Iron Fortress" is a prime example (post-Planescape) of how the rules seem to be rather confused on the issue at the moment. Sometimes outer planes creatures in the module seem to be "petitioners", at other times they're just planar natives.

The thing that really snapped my head in that module is the outer planes battlefield where dead combatants have come back as undead. I almost dropped the book trying to figure that one out. I've got a review on the module if you want to see further comments:

http://www.enworld.org/reviews.php?do=review&reviewid=2062029

 

[Alzrius]

The explanation back in 2E (by way of Planescape) is that if a petitioner dies on their home plane, their essence immediately is absorbed by the plane. This is what happens to petitioners anyway after they match the qualities of their plane closely enough...being killed just makes it happen while they still have "impurities", and the plane doesn't gain as much as it would have otherwise.

If a petitioner dies off-plane (most have a planar commitment, and so can't be removed from their plane anyway), then their energies are lost, wasted.

In terms of them brought back (presumably to life and not petitioner-hood), that's a harder question to answer, and doesn't seem to be addressed by the rules.