I’ve learned a long time ago that when you need a character to die permanently, with no chance of rescue from the party,

1. It has to happen fast (from complete safety to vanished utterly in a single round, if at all possible)

2. The body has to be completely lost (taken away in a dragon’s stomach, submerged into lava, planeshifted to the elemental plane of acid, whatever)

3. Ideally, it should be very clear to the observers that the character was without a doubt dead (their body being separated into different–and large–pieces is generally the only way to do this, though if you turn them undead before moving on to step 2, it can also go a long way toward selling the event)

If you do all of these things, you have an approximately 75-85% chance of the character being permanently dead. In the other 15-25% of cases, they somehow manage to miraculously figure some nonsense out, and yes, you should absolutely reward that effort; though if nobody was counting spell slots in the events that occurred in the original meme, that’s honestly a fairly decent way to go about it.

That and if you really need him dead for the current story, just have the spell mysteriously not work. Not all souls can be called back; maybe he’d rather be feasting with his ancestors or maybe he’s a devil’s prisoner and the next adventure is a rescue mission.

Depending on which cheeks said lich was hiding that Pearl of Power with. Talk about rewarding the effort. 🤌🏼