No Resurrection.... Clone?

[thundershot]

A couple years ago, when my players ran through the RttToEE, Tharizdun had been freed, and it began the War of the Gods, where gods of various pantheons (Greek, Asgardian, Egyptian, D&D) were selectedly made insane by Tharizdun, and proceeded to destroy each other. In the end, only a small list of gods remained (28 total, I think) and formed a new pantheon. Odin was the most powerful remaining god, so he became the king of the gods. To punish the mortals for releasing Tharizdun (who was once again sealed away, they couldn't kill him) Odin decreed that mortals could no longer be resurrected, raised, reincarnated, etc.

The party has done pretty well at avoiding death, with the exception of two casualties in the Bonegarden, but the spirits are trapped there anyway, so there's hope for them. The players, however, made new characters and are moving on. The group goal is the find a way to bring them back.

However, the party wizard came up with a great idea.... CLONE. Instead of the spirit departing to the outer planes, it immediately goes into the cloned body. Now they're talking about having him make a bunch of clones, preserve them, and store them away "just in case". It hasn't happened yet, because the character just got the ability to cast clone, and to me it sounds pretty reasonable considering the stipulations that I made involving resurrection.

However... it doesn't explain why no one ELSE has done it in the past 3 and a half years. Or at least that anyone knows of. There are other powerful wizards out there... I need a good in game reason why it hasn't been attempted. I was thinking about either having a REALLY high cost to making it, or a hefty XP cost to make the clone. Or both. That would explain why no one else has done it, at least publicly.


Thoughts?


Thanks
Chris

 

[drothgery]

Don't worry too much that apparently no one has done it before. There are lots of reasons. It's only been 3 years; quite possibly no one else thought of it yet (IIRC, in the real world a lot of pretty useful technology went undiscovered for decades or centuries after people knew all the background and theory for it). Or maybe others have -- they just haven't talked about it.

Besides, it's an 8th level spell that takes 1000 gp worth of components and a 500 gp focus, it takes 2d4 months for the clone to grow, the clone must be magically preserved until it becomes active, and is more than a bit ethically questionable. And if Clone becomes a common practice among the very high-level types, so will hunting down and destroying Clones before they become active.

 

[Cheiromancer]

Well, if any of the high level wizards are specialists with Necromancy as their barred school, then they couldn't use clone. Others might in fact have cast the spell, but just haven't died yet. Or they have been brought back as clones, but nobody knows that they did. (It is probably embarassing to admit you were killed in an encounter). Still others might not yet have researched it; either they aren't worried about their mortality, or they have moral qualms, or they are researching other possibilities, like lich-hood, having their souls transferred into lifelike golems, etc.. Or they haven't realized that clone is a loophole to Odin's decree.

Or it might be that clone is *not* a loophole. Perhaps Odin's decree prevents any spell from working that seeks to prevent a soul going on to the afterlife. Even undeath might not work- the soul of a vampire might have moved on, and what is in the body is just an evil spirit with access to the body's memories.

 

[EP]

It isn't exactly an easier spell to use anyway. The clone has to be maintained in a specific location and the description of the spell doesn't seem to allow for a fully formed clone to be carried around. If a PC dies, he'd have to wait until the party returns back to HQ to rejoin the game or walk his naked self to the dungeon where the rest of the gang is still slugging it out.

It is a good way to avoid death with resurrection out of the picture, but isn't as automatic as you might think at first. That's what happened in our campaign and no one really thought about it until it happened.

 

[Cheiromancer]

And the clone's memories date from when the tissue sample was taken. It would have no idea where the dungeon is unless the party left a note at HQ.

Just to add to the general inconvenience.

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

Assuming that it works, this is one way to arrange it.

Once a clone is grown via the spell it's placed in a large ornate iron coffin with older second-line gear the PC doesn't really use anymore but is still good enough. Then you cast temporal stasis on the condition of the spirit of PC entering the clone releases it from stasis.

Then you hide them, never more than one in any single location. Preferably in little rooms hidden under the basements or foundations of ordinary building the PCs have bought covertly. The activities above are camouflage for the role it plays as clone safe. The room should have adventuring necessities, a stash of money and most importantly of all information. A big part of it is having notes describing important things to the clone who won't be entirely up to date.

If you can handle 9th level spells there is a stasis clone spell that handles this aspect to an extent. If it hasn't been converted to 3rd edition yet I remember it was in the 2e Volo's guide to magic.

 

[Cheiromancer]

HeavenShallBurn's advice is good. It would also apply to any PCs who are liches. Replace "clone" with "phylactery".

 

[Aust Diamondew]

If a PC dies, he'd have to wait until the party returns back to HQ to rejoin the game or walk his naked self to the dungeon where the rest of the gang is still slugging it out.

By the time you're that high of level you'd just have to teleport you naked self to the dungeon. And a smart wizard would probably have an extra pointy hat, staff, robes and spell book where ever his clone was at.

True ressurection is still a better choice though, no level loss

 

[thundershot]

Yes, it takes a long time to grow, but the party wizard is a Necromancer, and plans on making clones of all of the party members (3.5 doesn't seem to have a restriction about having only one clone at a time) and have them magically preserved (whatever that low-level spell is that keeps a corpse from rotting) and stored in a safe location (they're pretty wealthy and have some connections in high places). So the plan seemed very easy... too easy, which is why I wanted to come up with some speed bumps for them.

I supposed it's not different than having a contingency that magic jar's your life force into a gem at the moment before your death....

 

[Cheiromancer]

Make sure you make careful notes of the PCs levels and campaign knowledge when the clone is made. It's a reload, not a resurrection.