Quick Summary: it sounds like what is being suggested is exactly like the process involved in creating a Thanatari Guardian - and I presume that something like the process they use (destroying the original spirit) or the process the Pharoah uses (convincing the spirit to 'move on' in a non-violent fashion) is necessary.
The difficult question with moving into a new body is simply what happens to the spirit of the old body.
Possessing a body that is dead at the time does not work properly, unless it is your own, as part of the very difficult Resurrection ritual. A spell to allow someone to take over a dead body that is not their own would probably be considerably MORE difficult than resurrection. I can't really see it being a routine magical operation in any culture. Delecti does use this process - but he doesn't care if he is half dead.
Just binding a spirit in to a dead body as a bound spirit isn't going to work. It might sort of work - check out the RQ3 creatures book original zombie description for how the process works.
Possessing a live body works - but its a lot of trouble. The original occupant is still there, and still wants his body back. If you ever let your mps drop...
But to do it properly, you need to transfer your spirit into a body while it is still alive, and at the same time remove the occupying spirit. You have two basic alternatives - convincing the spirit to move on while its still there, or destroying it. The Pharoah does the first, but I think it requires more than simply grabbing a convenient peasant or slave girl. The second is obviously hideously chaotic.
I don't think turning the Guardian into an allied spirit is a necessary part of the the Thanatari ritual. I think the Thanatari could use it as a Resurrection substitute for powerful dead priests and so on. Of course, the other Thanatari would have to want the dead guy back, and back in authority rather than in a subservient role. And the priest would have had to die by normal means - and a good deal of Thanatari actually die because one of the other priests forced the succession, usually with Create Head or Consume Mind. But still, there are any number of disgusting Thanatari plotlines - I like the one with the children an awful lot....
Difficult question raised by the discussion - What happens when you Sever Spirit a body that is possessed (and thus with two spirits in residence)?
I can think of three or four possibilities. Both die, only the original spirit counts, both roll separately, etc.
David
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