Speak with Dead

Effect

You grant the semblance of life and intelligence to a corpse of your choice within range, allowing it to answer the questions you pose. The corpse must still have a mouth and can't be undead. The spell fails if the corpse was the target of this spell within the last 10 days.
Until the spell ends, you can ask the corpse up to five questions. The corpse knows only what it knew in life, including the languages it knew. Answers are usually brief, cryptic, or repetitive, and the corpse is under no compulsion to offer a truthful answer if you are hostile to it or it recognizes you as an enemy. This spell doesn't return the creature's soul to its body, only its animating spirit. Thus, the corpse can't learn new information, doesn't comprehend anything that has happened since it died, and can't speculate about future events.
For every question asked of the dead, the land around the corpse decays as the necrotic energy suffuses the land. With one question asked everything within a 30 foot diameter sphere is decayed, unable to produce life. The radius of this spell is doubled for every additional question asked up to nine questions. With 5 questions asked the area becomes desecrated.
At Higher Levels: The number of questions you can ask the corpse is raised by two for every spell slot above 3rd level that this spell is cast at.

Material Components

v, s, m*
* - (1 arcanist incense which the spell consumes as it is burnt, corpse with working mouth)

Gestures & Ritual

Drawing upon the destructive energies of the negative energy plane, you draw the life force around the corpse to fill it with breath, allowing it to speak for a brief period of time.

Related Discipline

Bard, Cleric, Inquisitor

Related School

Necromancy

Effect Duration

10 minutes

Effect Casting Time

1 Action

Range

10 feet

Level

3