Speak with Dead

Spell — see Magic and Spellcasting for the rules and the Spell Index for the full list.

Arcane 3, Divine 3 Type: esoteric, necromancy

Range: 10’ Duration: 1 turn

This spell grants the caster the ability to communicate with a target corpse or skeleton. The target corpse or skeleton must have come from a sapient living creature and must still have a largely-intact brain or skull with a mouth or jawbone. If both the brain and skull have rotted away or been destroyed, the target does not remember anything. If both the mouth or jawbone have rotted away or been destroyed, the target cannot answer any questions. When someone is slain to keep them quiet, the killer will often bash in the skull, cut away the brain, and remove the lips and jaw to avoid the remains being able to answer questions.

The caster may ask the target corpse or skeleton one question per two caster levels. He may ask questions at the rate of one per round; each question is answered by the corpse or skeleton during the same round. 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 often brief, cryptic, or repetitive. Any given corpse or skeleton can only be targeted by this spell once per week.

Speak with dead does not actually contact the deceased creature’s soul. Instead, it draws on the remnants of spiritual residue that still linger in the corpse or skeleton. Thus, the remains possess only the knowledge that the creature had while alive, but not any information about events that transpired after its death or experiences in the afterlife. For instance, the corpse of a man who was slain by bugbears and then ritually impaled on a chthonic totem would remember everything up to the moment of its death but would have no information about the ritual that caused its impalement or about what life is like in heaven or his current reincarnation.

This spell cannot target a corpse or skeleton that is or was ever animated as an undead creature.