Depending on the edition, speak with dead requires the corpse to have a working jaw, so just destroy that. If you hide the head, someone can just find it.
A skull is an object(since Mending can repair wine skins, which are made of animal product, it just can’t be a living thing), and all the breaks are just breaks. So, you acid off all the nonessential bits, puzzle the skull (or just the mouthy bits) back together and then mend the cracks. Done, a perfectly usable Speak with the Dead target. Would anyone do this in real life? Definitely, since there’s so much info you could get. I’d let It play as DM
And if you can’t find all the pieces, what then? And even if you did, assuming a human skull is an “object” (which I dispute), there will certainly be more than a single tear or break. So what, is each pair of puzzle pieces now an object you can cast mend on?
I don’t think that matches the intention of the spell at all.
Although CSI Faerun would be kinda fun, so maybe I’d allow it.
Depending on the edition, speak with dead requires the corpse to have a working jaw, so just destroy that. If you hide the head, someone can just find it.
Why hide it? A maul is cheap.
Mending
Mending fixes a single tear or break in an object. No way should that work on a head that’s been splattered halfway across the Sword Coast.
A skull is an object(since Mending can repair wine skins, which are made of animal product, it just can’t be a living thing), and all the breaks are just breaks. So, you acid off all the nonessential bits, puzzle the skull (or just the mouthy bits) back together and then mend the cracks. Done, a perfectly usable Speak with the Dead target. Would anyone do this in real life? Definitely, since there’s so much info you could get. I’d let It play as DM
And if you can’t find all the pieces, what then? And even if you did, assuming a human skull is an “object” (which I dispute), there will certainly be more than a single tear or break. So what, is each pair of puzzle pieces now an object you can cast mend on?
I don’t think that matches the intention of the spell at all.
Although CSI Faerun would be kinda fun, so maybe I’d allow it.
Can’t find all the important pieces, it doesn’t work, simple as that.
RAW, you can cast mending multiple times on the same object to fix multiple breaks, so that should be fine.
It’s got the right level of complete nonsense, excruciating tedium, and hilarious results I love to see at the table.