Keeping powerful characters dead

[Darkness]

Let's say the PCs just defeated the bad guy, who happens to be his deity's favorite person in the world.

How do they keep him dead? Or otherwise out of circulation - whatever works is fine by me.

How can they prevent his followers (or even his god) from just using true resurrection to bring him back?

What I'm not looking for here is DM fiat. Sure, in some cases I can just say nobody likes a loser and even his closest friends won't bring the bad guy back. But often that just doesn't make any sense. (Ignoring hong's laws of fantasy for the moment.) What I want to know is how my players can keep their enemies dead anyway.

Soul bind comes to mind. But the gem can be stolen and destroyed, freeing the soul. How do you defend against magical attempts to steal it? What if someone uses wish or miracle? (These magics can theoretically transport a very valuable gem that's in someone else's possession, can't they?) Or the Alter Reality salient divine ability?

If the character in question was, like, the chosen of his deity, the god just might want to bring him back, too. Especially if she needs him to enact some plan. How do you prevent that?
Assuming the deity's personal involvement is limited to the following because other deities would intervene as well if she did much more:

• Locate the soul with her Remote Sensing ability. (That should work on souls of your worshippers, no?)
• Get hold of it via miracle, Alter Reality, or something like that.
• True resurrection.

Barghests are handy. But they only have a 50% success chance against 9th-level magic and many good characters will not want to consort with them.

The ELH suggests the Garrotte, an epic assassin organization, but I don't really want them IMC.

What else can be done? Would a sphere of annihilation work?

Hm. Maybe drag him into a major temple of an opposed (to him, not you) Greater Deity and cast imprisonment?
This would require taking him alive, I think - not always easy. (Turning him into an undead would work too, though.)

 

[Darkness]

Barghests ... many good characters will not want to consort with them.

On a second thought... Whatever works, right? I need suggestions regardless of whether good-aligned characters will be happy to resort to them. Worst case, a neutral party member (or allied NPC) can take care of any dirty work that might be necessary to get the job done.

 

[diaglo]

petrify the body and take it to the opposed God's plane.

some form of not really killing the BBEG is the best way so... true rez and miracle won't work.

or use a cursed item on the BBEG. say helm of alignment opposition.

 

[maddman75]

This is a tricky one. If the BBEG's god wants him back to life, all his followers have to do is get ahold of the body. Not even that for a True Res.

That leaves either taking him alive, or using the Soul Bind trick. In either case, I'd suggest a mission to take either the BBEG after his capture, or the gem containing his soul, to Carceri. The place is the prison of the gods, and the perfect spot to lock someone away for all time. Perhaps they need to take him to the most disgusting place in the plane and cast Imprisonment. This leads to a fine adventure to lock him away, and leave the possibility of escape attempts in the future.

Another idea, depending on how you interpret things. Feed him to undead, or use energy drain until he's a wight. Then have a Hunter of the Dead kill him. That stops him from coming back to unlife, but its DM's call if it also stops True Resurrection.

Another idea, depending again on interpretation. True Res does have a limit, the creature must have been dead for no more than 10 years per caster level. Kill him and find yourself an alternate plane where time moves more quickly. If you can find a good one, dump him there until he's decompsed for say, 500 years. Then disintegrate the body for good measure. The only question here is does a Miracle have the same restrictions as True Resurrection? If so, then the BBEG would be forever dead.

Another route - use a wish or miracle so that the BBEG would find himself in an afterlife so pleasing to him that no amount of urging even by his deity would have him agree to return. Remember, no one can be forced to return to the land of the living.

 

[CRGreathouse]

The ELH suggests the Garrotte, an epic assassin organization, but I don't really want them IMC.

What else can be done? Would a sphere of annihilation work?

Hm. Maybe drag him into a major temple of an opposed (to him, not you) Greater Deity and cast imprisonment?
This would require taking him alive, I think - not always easy. (Turning him into an undead would work too, though.)

Soul-trapping magic of various sorts is useful, as you pointed out. Another possibility would be changing his type to one that can't be rased and killing him.

Even if you don't want to use the Garotte, their special "can't-come-back" poison could be used, probably including a quest for the substace itself.

Total annihilation could work, but I'm generally of the opinion that a wish + true resurrection would be effective against that, as it would against a type change + death.

What about abusing an ancient promise of the gods (possibly, but not necissarily, including the character's god)?

Generally, I think of anyything that could be done with a wish as something that could be undone with anoyther wish, but you could consider doing something indirect: instead (or in addition) to making it more difficult, it could afflict the person invlived. So anihilate the character, wish that the character can't be raised, and wish that anyone raising the character will have X bad thing happen to him/her....

 

[shilsen]

Play Eberron and use a Keeper's Fang weapon (IIRC). It's consecrated to the Keeper, the deity of Death, and anyone killed by it has his soul trapped in the Keeper's domain, so it cannot be brought back from the dead. It's, unsurprisingly, an evil weapon.

 

[John Q. Mayhem]

Read the attempts in the Black Company books to keep old evils down. They include:[sblock] burying the Dominator and surrounding him with the ghosts of those who died to take him down (doesn't work), planting the sapling of a tree-god over his grave (doesn't work), sealing his soul into a silver spike and pounding that into a tree-god (doesn't work), chopping the Limper's body up and burying him (doesn't work), chopping the Limper up in a null-magic field (doesn't work), removing the Limper's head and rendering down the body (doesn't work), shooting Soulcatcher with arrows inscribed with her truename (doesn't work), cutting Soulcatcher's head off (doesn't work),[/sblock] and I think a few more. That might not be too helpful, but maybe it'll give you ideas. I doubt this guy's up to the level of the Dominator or the Limper, anyways.

 

[Rikandur Azebol]

Good options:
How to prevent deity from ressurecting bad guy ? Kill the deity.
Or petition good deity to keep it locked for all eternity, if this Bad Guy was really bad it's a good option and easy to do. All gods like to show weakness of opposing deity.
Sanctify guy ... and brainwash him, gently persuasion of Evangelist should help.

Bad options:
Kill Kill Kill ! And devour his/her soul for dessert.
Forge the soul into Weapon, so it will scream in torment when You would wield it.
Sacrifice him to Darkness. You will benefit ... and he will face Annihilation.
Slay all clerics that would ressurect your victim.
Turn him/her into pet wampire and unleash it on it's friends.

 

[Bauglir]

Something to note about true res is that "This spell functions like raise dead, except that you can resurrect a creature that has been dead for as long as 10 years per caster level. This spell can even bring back creatures whose bodies have been destroyed, provided that you unambiguously identify the deceased in some fashion"

Note that you can peform the spell without the body if the body has been destroyed. Otherwise it's as raise dead which does require the body. If this doesn't sit well with you then it's very clear that you cannot ressurect someone who has been animated as undead, until you first destroy the undead.

I would suggest you

* Animate the body as a skeleton
* pop said skeleton in a bag of holding
* pop said bag of holding in a portable hole (from a safe distance, while wearing safety goggles of course)

Voila, contents "forever lost". Never to be destroyed, never to be resurrected.

 

[maddman75]

Ooh, better idea! Utterly destroy the BBEG's body, then use a wish or miracle so that anyone attempting to speak or write the name of the bad guy or describe him would come out in gibberish. No way to unambiguously identify him then.

If the DM would let that kind of thing work.