[RPG] A dragon’s soul trapped in a ring of mind shielding wants a new body; what magic could enable her to do so

dnd-5esoul

In my D&D 5e campaign, the characters fought and defeated a young dragon of mixed white and silver lineage, and found a ring of mind shielding on her body. Her original body was destroyed. Unbeknownst to them, her soul has been preserved in the ring and hungers for a way to find a new body.

She is now conversing on a daily basis with the new wearer of the ring and is trying to influence him towards a way that would enable her to achieve corporeal form again. She would prefer a dragon body, but she is also used to assuming humanoid form (from her silver lineage), so that would be acceptable.

What magic documented in any of the official rule books could enable her to find a new physical form? Spells, magic items, or magical phenomenon such as a pool of radiance are all acceptable answers.

Best Answer

If the body was destroyed, the dragon's only real options are Wish and True Resurrection. All other revival and resurrection spells require a body.

The dragon can theoretically manipulate the player wielding the ring, but that's not really acquiring a new body.

Blackrazor wins ... probably

Ring

If you die while wearing the ring, your soul enters it

Blackrazor

If this necrotic damage reduces you to 0 hit points, Blackrazor devours your soul.

Since being reduced to 0 hit points doesn't usually kill you, then Blackrazor would devour your soul.

PHB, p. 197:

When you drop to 0 hit points, you either die outright or fall Unconscious, as explained in the following sections.

Massive damage can kill you instantly. When damage reduces you to 0 hit points and there is damage remaining, you die if the remaining damage equals or exceeds your hit point maximum.

If damage reduces you to 0 hit points and fails to kill you, you fall Unconscious.

Instant Death

It is unlikely, but technically possible that the necrotic damage from Blackrazor could instantly kill a character. I can think of a few conditions that might make this more likely:

Low level character might have fewer than 10 maximum hit points
A character might gain a vulnerability to necrotic damage
A character may have had his/her hit point maximum reduced by life draining attacks from a wraith or other source

In any case, the key part of the rules regarding dropping to 0 hit points is:

When damage reduces you to 0 hit points and there is damage remaining, you die if...

So, do you drop to 0 hit points, and then die? Does Blackrazor swallow your soul?

Your DM will have to resolve this question. To the best of my knowledge, this is not explicitly outlined in the rules, nor has it been officially answered.

For guidance, your DM might consider this answer found on page 13 or the Sage Advice compendium:

If the damage from disintegrate reduces a half-orc to 0 hit points, can Relentless Endurance prevent the orc from turning to ash?

If disintegrate reduces you to 0 hit points, you’re killed outright, as you turn to dust. If you’re a half-orc, Relentless Endurance can’t save you.

The Relentless Endurance racial feature, PHB p. 41:

When you are reduced to 0 hit points but not killed outright, you can drop to 1 hit point instead.

It is possible that this Sage Advice ruling indicates that even though Relentless Endurance would put you back to 1 HP, the effect of Disintegrate, triggered by being reduced to 0 hit points, is still resolved.

That would imply that, when a character is reduced to 0 hit points, you resolve all of the effects that would happen as a result. In our case, one of those is instant death, and one is from Blackrazor. After resolving both conditions, the character is dead, and his/her soul has been swallowed by Blackrazor.

The effect of the ring cannot not be resolved until after the character is dead. At that point Blackrazor has already swallowed his/her soul.

But in the absence of explicit rules or an official answer, the decision ultimately rests with the DM.

[RPG] What happens to a soul trapped in a Magic Jar if the host body dies

It seems to me that there are two possible ways to interpret how this spell relates to the soul of a dead creature:

Once a creature dies, its soul is beyond the control of this spell

By this interpretation, it would means that when the host body dies, the creature's soul behaves just like the soul of any creature who's died (presumably continuing on to its regularly scheduled afterlife).

If the host body dies while you’re in it, the creature dies,

Note that this is explicitly distinguishing between the body dying and the creature dying. Given that the body is already dead, if the soul remained trapped in the container after the body died, what would "the creature dies" even mean in this case?

After a creature dies, its soul is still under the control of this spell

By this interpretation, then presumably both the caster and the target's souls would still be affected by the spell.

If the host body dies while you're in it, [...] make a Charisma saving throw against your own spellcasting DC. On a success, you return to the container if it is within 100 feet of you. Otherwise, you die.

The wording here is pretty similar to the description of what happens to the target creature: if you fail your save, you die. It doesn't say anything about your soul leaving the host body; it only says that you die.

The only conditions the spell mentions for your soul leaving the host body are if:

You use your action to return to the container
You succeed at your saving throw when the host body dies
The container is destroyed
The spell ends

If you're dead, you can no longer take actions. If you failed your saving throw, that only leaves the end of the spell or the destruction of the container.

Conclusion

If the host's soul is permanently trapped in the container, then the same is true about the caster's soul and the host's dead body. Your soul is now trapped in the corpse of the host for as long as the host's soul is trapped in your container.