Divine Spell (Necromantic)

You grant the semblance of life and intellect to a corpse, allowing it to answer several questions that you put to it. 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 corpse was inimical to you in life, the answers may be grudging or incomplete but not untrue.

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.

Basic magical overcome actions are explained in the Simple Magic guidelines.