Where did my soul go?

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User3
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Where did my soul go?

Post by User3 »

I hope that the Complete Divine answers these questions:

Ok, when a Magic jar ends, all souls return to their bodies. A soul with no place to go dies.

Now, if I cast that spell from Book of Vile Darkness that makes it impossible for a possessing spirit to leave its host, and I cast it on myself while I am in another body, do I die, or am I trapped in the new body? And what happens if the trapping spell is later dispelled or cancelled in an AMF?

If I cast that BOVD spell on the focus gem that was holding the soul, does that soul die when the MJ ends, or does it stay trapped in the gem? A gem is not a natural place to put a soul, except when enchanted with a MJ spell.

One argument is that the once the MJ effect ends, I die, since the MJ effect was making it possible for my soul to exist in the other body. I know of one literary source where this argument is made.

The other argument is that I stay trapped, and when the trapping spell ends, I return to my body(if in range). Or not. Just as many literary sources posit that people stuck in new bodies stay in them.

Or if the new body is killed, the trapping effect ends, and the MJ effect where I pop back into my body, if in range, happens.

In fact, what happens to my soul in an AMF when I’m in another body?

PS. Since a body with no soul has no Wis, Int or Cha, is it an object, and thus subject to things like Shatter, or Animate Object(a spell that can be made permanent)? What happens when my soul returns, and I’m not an object any more?
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Absentminded_Wizard
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Re: Where did my soul go?

Post by Absentminded_Wizard »

I would say in the first case you mention, that you would die. The description of magic jar from the SRD clearly states that

If the spell ends while you are in a host, you return to your body (or die, if it is out of range of your current position)....

I assume this result would apply if you are unable to return to your body for any reason.

As for your second case, an online excerpt from The Complete Divine has this to say about magic jar spells.

The magic jar spell separates a character's soul from body without killing the body. Souls separated from their bodies by magic jar die whenever they don't have an appropriate receptacle (the gem or an available body). Just as the souls of dead characters do, souls deprived of a host body feel the inexorable tug of the afterlife after a round or two, so they pass on to their final destination.


Assuming that the magic jar is allowed as a target of the BoVD spell, you probably would die, since the spell was all that was making the gem an "appropriate receptacle" for your soul. If you're blocked from returning to your own body, you have no appropriate receptacle to return to and you're SOL.

And the AMF scenario is just impossible to figure out, since the field "supresses" but doesn't "dispel" (and thus end) the magic jar.
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