IJump to
speak with dead:
You grant the semblance of life and intellect to a corpse, allowing it to answer several questions that you put to it. You may ask one question per two caster levels. Unasked questions are wasted if the duration expires. The corpse’s knowledge is limited to what the creature knew during life, including the languages it spoke (if any). Answers are usually brief, cryptic, or repetitive. If the creature’s alignment was different from yours, the corpse gets a Will save to resist the spell as if it were alive.
If the corpse has been subject to speak with dead within the past week, the new spell fails. You can cast this spell on a corpse that has been deceased for any amount of time, but the body must be mostly intact to be able to respond. A damaged corpse may be able to give partial answers or partially correct answers, but it must at least have a mouth in order to speak at all.
This spell does not let you actually speak to the person (whose soul has departed). It instead draws on the imprinted knowledge stored in the corpse. The partially animated body retains the imprint of the soul that once inhabited it, and thus it can speak with all the knowledge that the creature had while alive. The corpse, however, cannot learn new information.
Indeed, it can’t even remember being questioned.
This spell does not affect a corpse that has been turned into an undead creature.
Paragraph 2 of speak with dead, above, notes that the corpse can impart "imprinted knowledge stored in the corpse." The description goes on to say "it can speak with all the knowledge that the creature had while alive. The corpse, however, cannot learn new information."
To me, this implies that the soul's imprint can remember things from its life. However, it cannot remember anything following its death (including the casting of
speak with dead). The answers are repetitive because the thing you are talking to can't remember what you just asked.
But the spell
is language-dependent, unlike a boot print. And, unlike a boot print, the soul imprint can attempt to
resist answering. Not only that, but it resists answering
based on alignment.
The rules are clear: The soul imprint retains knowledge. When you speak with dead, you speak with that imprint. You must communicate in a language the imprint understands. It is aware of the communication as it occurs, or else it could not answer. It is aware of its own alignment, and it is aware of the questioner's alignment. It doesn't remember thereafter, however, because it is not capable of learning or growth.
RC
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