ZEITGEIST Deva vs. Witchoil?

[jjtraw]

If a Deva dies near witchoil, does their soul get sucked in, halting the reincarnation cycle? Or does Srasama's affect on their soul make their souls immune to the witchoil, and they just reincarnate as usual?

Just finished The Dying Skyseer. One of my players died during the fight with the bleak golem - and since the death occurred near witchoil, his soul was sucked in. After much discussion with the player and the group, we decided we wanted to bring his character back. So I wrote a vivid description of what it's like to have your soil sucked into witchoil, and how difficult it is to extract a soul so entrapped. The characters managed, with difficulty, to have their compatriot resurrected.

Now this resurrected character has some extremely personal feelings about the horrible evil of witchoil! And my players are all exploring very difficult questions about the nature of souls. One of my characters is a Deva, so the players are asking questions about how witchoil affects a Deva's soul.

Is there an official answer?

 

[Andrew Moreton]

I do not recall an official answer.
My opinion would have been that Deva souls are different to most as they don't depart into the Bleak gate and then onto their final destination but instead bounce around the normal world or maybe the Dreaming. So I would probably say that unless there was a huge amount of Witch oil present , like the Soul torrent from Bourne, or the tanks under the mayors mansion they would escape.
I think that in book 8 when Bourne unleashes witch oil attacks, Nic is able to pull spirits out of the Witch oil to restore his supply so it is possible to pull them out

 

[RangerWickett]

In the upcoming 5e setting book, we state that remove curse will free souls stuck in witchoil. I imagine magic more powerful than that (like raise dead) would also work.

I like your solution, though.

 

[efreund]

if Raise Dead can bypass Witch Oil, that takes a lot of bite out of it
it also potentially ruins the MacBannon extraction scheme in the epilogue of adventure 2

 

[RangerWickett]

if Raise Dead can bypass Witch Oil, that takes a lot of bite out of it
it also potentially ruins the MacBannon extraction scheme in the epilogue of adventure 2

Well, people rather dislike the prospect of having their immortal soul be consumed as fuel, and nearly no one can cast raise dead in the setting.

Spoiler

When you say 'the Macbannin extraction scheme' do you mean him dying and not having a soul for a spirit medium to talk to? Because that's just Nicodemus taking his soul with magic, to add him to the ghost council.

 

[Andrew Moreton]

Most people who die do so without Raise dead being an option in any setting and then everyone knows their souls head off to their appropriate final judgement. With Witchoil that soul is trapped forever , unnable to proceed to its judgement and potentially being destroyed by that oil being burned a terrifying prospect. Also at 5000gp per trapped soul rescuing people from Witch Oil via raise dead would soon bankrupt any nation even assuming there are that many diamonds available

 

[jjtraw]

With Witchoil that soul is trapped forever , unnable to proceed to its judgement and potentially being destroyed by that oil being burned a terrifying prospect.

Yes - when I wrote the description for my fallen player character killed by the bleak golem, this was the tack I took. The character felt his soul lost in a viscous miasma of other tormented souls in eternal arrested transition. Unable to move on through the bleak gate to their proper destination. Being driven to madness, forgetting everything they once knew about themselves as individual people. The bleak golem was still operating when the character fell, so he sensed other soul essences screaming and being snuffed out to fuel the golem's operation, and the sense that he himself could be fuel for the thing at any moment was very present.

if Raise Dead can bypass Witch Oil, that takes a lot of bite out of it

Allowing a raise dead for this situation didn't undermine my particular game at all. If anything, the impact of witchoil was more effective for a player character having actually experienced it and come back to describe it. My players have really visceral opinions about it now.

But every game is different, and your mileage may vary.

 

[Andrew Moreton]

Within my campaign it is unlikey the PC would have died. I use the optional Hero point rule which means most of the time a PC can convert being killed into being knocked out of the current scene and surviving while badly injured. I think it has been used on several occasions for pc's to survive train crashes and angy Half Dragon arsonists. Players still try very hard to avoid death and also really nasty stuff which could happen to them. In the last session they ended up trying to work out if they could replace Witch oil being used in several Golems as they wanted to use them but could not justify using witch oil.
Now I would have to kill at least 2 of my pc's to keep anyone dead for more than a day as two of them can manage Raise Dead or better