Let's say you ran into a bunch of Green Age statues of great dwarven generals, philosophers, etc. In their original condition the statues would be worth a lot of money to a rich dwarf trying to reclaim his heritage, or to the Kurnan great library. But some bored Athasian Wraith who fought these dwarves during the cleansing wars has had too much time on her hands for the last 3,200 years. She possessed each of these statues and left it stuck in an incredibly undignified position. If you presented these to a proud cultural dwarf, he'd probably think you were mocking him.
How could you fix the statues? Would stone shape do it, or is that too imprecise a spell to work with a fine artistic sculpture, and turn it into a sort of frozen child's play-dough version of the great dwarven philosopher Zadikoff?
Or an explanation that 'this is what people did in the Green Age'...
Lastard >8)
I once had a small ruined crypt with a greater basilisk living in there, in northern Raam. He turned adventurer into stone. The place was also haunted with some Athasian Wraith. The legend was talking about an old sculptor of Raam who was exiled there after Abalach-Re asked him to do a statue of her. The statue was such beauty, that she wanted to make sure this sculptor never make a more beautifull statue of someone else.The legend told that the spirit of the artist haunt the place, kill people and make statue of there death. In fact there, no statue but just a greater basilisk. Since the place is a cemetary for Raamite noble, it's haunted with wraith. It made a pretty big mess, specially when the basilisk killed the PC dwarf, and he rolled 05 on a d100 roll, turning into a Dwarf banshee. I wiped out my party in this adventurer. Almost a TPK. Only the thri-kreen cleric survived. The wraith and the banshee were never killed.
Stoneshape would maybe work, but I think that it would require a pretty high Craft (sculpting) check to ensure that the statue was not mared or flubbed up by an untrained hand.
The problem with sands of time is the time of when the statue was altered in its pose - it may be beyond most casters of the spell (maybe - I am unsure as I have not looked up the spell currently).
But if the substance of the statue was altered so there were joints psionically, and then the controlling presence left, then those changes could remain, and then stay in the position that it was moved to. However I would also say that the statue is permanently ruined and posablity that the mallability of those joint would cause the statue to collapse like a rag doll once the controlling presence left.
Or maybe the material undead do get crazy, but the immaterial ones live a double life in the Gray, an infinite plane of freedom for the undead...
Aside from the comical side of your inquiry, anyone normal mind would go insane after existing for 3,200 years....and since I don,t think that the t'lizes and other long-lived undead of the setting are actually mental instute-crazy, then something happens to their minds with undeath. I'd venture a guess and propose that their minds become partly zen, i.e. they can still be rageful, pitiless, low-life scum, but waiting around for a hundred years while staring at a white wall no longer scares and affects them.
Or maybe the material undead do get crazy, but the immaterial ones live a double life in the Gray, an infinite plane of freedom for the undead...
Not *all* are "institute crazy" but at least some are - many of the TotDL undead weaknesses stem around what amounts to the undead being a total nut-job. Something definitely happens to an undead's "mind" when they rise from the dead - the fact that intelligent undead are most often evil, despite what alignment they may have been in life, is a case-in-point. Beyond that, however, I think that they can still suffer from what amounts to insanity, although these original changes to their mental nature made as part of the undead rebirth greatly affect the end result - creatures like a dwarven banshee are already so restricted in their mental capabilities (at least when it comes to having "free will") that any eccentricities they develop beyond that probably wouldn't matter much, but other undead types that are less hindered by the intrinsic mentality of their undead type (a Thinking Zombie for example) would be more prone to developing some sort of post-undead insanity.
So I half-agree with ya, Penn - there's definitely some sort of mental change that occurs in undeath, at least for many/most undead types, but at the same time I think there's evidence that supports the idea that, beyond these initial changes, it's possible for an Athasian undead to "go crazy" - maybe it happens during the transformation, maybe it happens afterwards, but in either case there are some that appear to be honest-to-goodness whackjobs, at least from the perspective of a living, non-immortal creature.
Do reply to your email, Pennarin.
It's an interesting point, but bear in mind that Athasian Wraiths are usually the undead remnants of loyal officers of the Champions during the Cleansing Wars, so the question of what would happen to a normal mind under the circumstances is kind of academic
I was speaking of undead in a general sense - for wraiths I think they'd more likely be the kind to have their eccentricities but, for the most part, remain relatively safe. Another thing 'bout wraiths - the fact that they have a phylactery may also play a role in how they react, mentally-speaking, to their undead state; IIRC in The Crimson Legion the wraith that Rikus asks something along the lines of "why did you wake me?" and also seems somewhat confused about how much time has passed, assuming that he's Borys and is finally ready to join them, etc. If that's the case then perhaps there's something intrinsic to Athasian wraiths that forces them into stasis (of a sort) for most of the time - if so, then there'd be no reason for them to go insane since they wouldn't be aware of most of the time that has passed since their undeath.