So could you slap him with someone’s dismembered dead hand?
Sure, if the arm in question somehow became severed without human intervention – if you deliberately cut it off, it would qualify as a weapon made by living hands!
What if the party necromancer made zombie blacksmiths?
Technically the weapons would still be made by living hands as living hands made the zombies that made the weapons
If we’re allowing arbitrary nesting of “made by living hands”, it all comes back to the particular metaphysics of the universe. If something counts as made by living hands if it was made by something made by living hands, then it might actually be invincible if the setting has theistic origins and its creator deity counts as “living”.
There’s also the question of “made by” – everything within (speed of light)*(time since nearest origin of life) has been influenced by the existence of life, and thus everything could be said to be “made by living hands” in the sense that it did not exist in present form without the involvement of life (even if “present form” just means a passing photon or two ruffled some electron spins).
Personally, I tend to go with Nobilis rules on that count: from a metaphysical standpoint, actions taken by a magically animated or compelled subject are considered to have been performed by the party doing the animating or compelling. So if I were running this scenario in a tabletop RPG, I’d allow the “zombie blacksmith” loophole, but only if it was an intelligent and free-willed zombie blacksmith acting without magical compulsion of any sort.
(I would also make the zombie blacksmith a cantankerous prick, because if they just help you out of the goodness of their rotten heart, where’s the fun in that?)
Push them into a volcano?
This is probably overthinking it, but if I had to justify the wandering phrasing in the original post from an in-character perspective, what I’d likely go with is that the Evil Overlord is trying to be poetic about a prophecy that doesn’t translate well, and the only thing they’re really sure of is that “living hands” are somehow involved.
Which is to say that pushing them into a volcano wouldn’t work, because that involves “bringing them low” (i.e., causing them to fall) using your hands (or an implement held in the hands, at any rate), but kicking them into a volcano is a plausible workaround.
(You could probably also get away with using your hands if you managed to contrive a means of death that involves ascending rather than falling, if you’re really determined to do things the hard way!)
What about a Warforged, of its own free will, created the weapon?
Does the weapon have to be created with the intent of being a weapon? (For instance, killing them with a rubber duck bath toy or pool noodle.)
If the weapon is prestidigitated whole cloth, does that count?
Does weaving count as ‘forged’? (Carbon fiber bat.)
You could probably also get away with using your hands if you managed to
contrive a means of death that involves ascending rather than falling,
if you’re really determined to do things the hard way!
Teleporting them ABOVE the volcano would then work, as any somatic component of the teleport doesn’t bring them low, it raises them up. However, since there’s nothing under them– gravity does the dirty work.
Another commission for @tevruden-dawnspear! A demonic version of their character, and lets just test if male-presenting nipples are still valid to post LOL
I miss when the internet was a decentralized weird place for nerds and not like 3 monolithic hellsites where racist uncles and shithead billionaires can broadcast their putrid brain sharts to literally everyone.
