So I am playing in a longterm 3.5 campaign, it is in its third year now. With some of the original characters still being around, some of them have been replaced by new guys now; including mine.
Turns out one of the PC's really died over 3 in game years ago, and over 2 real life years ago. Whoever he is now, looks exactly like the character did before he died. Now some back story
I recently went on a solo quest to help save the world. The sidequest I went on was to meet up with a BBEG of the campaign, who had turned over a new leaf and was now trying to save the world, I decided I would seek out his help in saving the world, but couldn't let the party know about it.
The BBEG was an epic level wizard and knew a lot of secrets about the world which the party has no clue about. He warned me not to tell the party about the deal I made to help him, and especially not the PC in question because we couldn't trust him. He gave me some weird cryptic warning about him. The wizard offered to teleport me back to where I wanted, so I chose the city the PC came from at the beginning of the campaign, to do some digging around about this past.
What I found out was not what I thought I was going to find out at all. I made friends with a local innkeeper and just talked about him in general stuff, I eventually brought the conversation over to the PC and the innkeeper was a little shocked and disbelieving at first. Eventually I got it out of him that the PC's body was found in a mine in the nearby mountains over 3 game years ago, and he was brought back to town and giving a heroes feast and such to mourn his passing. The party went into those mines in like the third or fourth session of the campaign, we were knocked out and captured, later escaping. So we have been traveling with some kind of impersonator for years without realizing it.
I have no idea how to proceed at this point. Do I go and confront him? Tell the party behind his back?
Kill him in his sleep when the other pc's find you with a bloody knife,scream"he isn't really him,he's someone else".
I don't think that is a very good option 
I'll have no proof and they will probably try to kill me for just murdering another member of the party.
well, it seems like the goal should be to find out who the impostor is, and what his intentions are. it's probably some huge plot twist that is surely leading to something.
Given that, I would expend every available resource on divination and enchantment to get to the bottom of who this guy is. short of that, then you're just not trying.
i'll need to have more info to give anymore input.
Ask him about his past, his youth, facts he can't know, but you learned about in that city
Try to trick him. Corner him until he admits something.
Well I don't really have any methods of divination or such at my disposal at the moment. We have a 12th level wizard in the party, not sure what spells they have available. However I am not sure I can mention any of what I learned to the party. It would probably mean exposing my meeting with the BBEG and how I came suspicious of the PC in the first place. Due to the nature of what we have planned the party is not to be trusted with that knowledge. It is nothing against the party and will help them rather than harm them so I am not trying to stab them in the back.
They are all part of a homebrew race called 'yurath' which is a special type of half breed. Yurath human, yurath elves , yurath half-elves etc.... In order to save the world me and the BBEG need to attack some NPC called "mother" which has strong mental powers over all yurath. My PC is not a yurath though, but that is a totally different story. So if they learned of our plans, they would likely wish to help, and then in the attack get mind controlled and spoil the whole thing, so it must be kept secret.
My best hope for help is from the epic level wizard I am working with, but he contacts me, I don't have any way of getting in touch with him. So I must wait until he contacts me again before I can ask for his help in divination. I'm not sure he will be able to help though. Due to an unusual force at play.
There is some kind of universal force of destruction in our world that exists in all worlds and has existed in all our campaigns going on for many years now, and is added to pre existing ones like FR. It is called the void and is not what you consider typical evil. It seeks to eradicate all of existence the entirety of time and space itself leaving nothing but emptiness behind. The clone/doppleganger/whatever he is PC seems to be connected to this force somehow, so it is possible it would mask us from using magic to find out the truth. No one currently alive in the campaign world knows about his connection, my previous character knew something of it, but he is dead and never coming back.
Let me know if you need any more details.
Also I don't know anything about his past, and I already left the city he was from to reunite with the party. There is only one PC left from the original party, but I am not sure even how much he knows about his past. At the time the campaign started they had only recently met him, then he died like 2 sessions later.
Meh, he's been fine for two years right? Bound to be a nice guy 
You didn't say his body was cremated so... you could go check on that. Even if it was, there's still some Speak with Dead/Resurrection sorts of things probably.
Well he might be a nice guy, and he might not be.
His race is a native outsider, and according to our house rules only a true resurrection spell can return one of those to life. This change was done to make it so death seems less trivial. However I am not aware of anyone in the campaign that has 9th level cleric spells(it is a low power / low magic world), and even if they did, they probably would not be likely to help me. Speak with the dead might offer limited answers perhaps about how he died, but I think that is the best we will get from him. He had a grave and the innkeeper told me he was buried in it so I think the body is still there, but I didn't try digging it up.
Have you considered that this could be a trick meant to turn you against your ally?
Have you considered that this could be a trick meant to turn you against your ally?
My thoughts exactly. Although I still you should keep going along with the GM's BBEG.
It is quite possible that the PC doesn't know either remember, I don't know how familiar you are with Spiderman, do for a huge section of his history, the Spiderman in the comics was not the real spiderman but a clone who thought he was Spidey. Clone also had all Spideys morals, alignment, etc, I think the end of the storyline ended with the clone sacrificing himself, didnt read it so cant be sure.
If what you found out from the BBEG is true, I bet you find the "real" PC has already been ressurrected, so you can't speak with dead or ressurect.
wht level are you guys? just mind fog then hypnotise the bastard and he'll tell you everything
wht level are you guys? just mind fog then hypnotise the bastard and he'll tell you everything
*slaps forehead* Good call. I forgot that this was taking place in the edition where magic ruins solves everything.
We are level 12. You are right that the PC doesn't know. He has always been doing something secretive privately with the DM, solo sessions he is not allowed to talk about. So there is something up there. However when I mentioned what I found out to him, he was shocked and confronted the DM about it to the tune of something like "you never told me about this."
Mind fog might work. I think I am going to need to have a long talk with the BBEG about what we should do about this information. I actually trust him more about this than I do the party. He isn't exactly evil, just very driven to getting his lost love back who was sacrificed to a demon lord. So he wants to free her soul. Problem for him was until very recently his soul was trapped inside the body of our parties wizard. So they would have to struggle for control of it. Whenever the BBEG took over he would use all sorts of spells on us which usually ended in pain. But their souls were eventually seperated and he was given a new body, and since then he is a lot nicer.
It is possible he told me this info just to mess with me, however there have been a lot of warnings about this PC all campaign from various sources, just my current character hasn't heard any of them besides the latest.
wht level are you guys? just mind fog then hypnotise the bastard and he'll tell you everything
*slaps forehead* Good call. I forgot that this was taking place in the edition where magic ruins solves everything.
lol that's exactly how i feel too. i remember once while planning a 3rd ed adventure and i could never get it done because all the person kept saying while i was plannign the thing ws "so what's stopping the players from casting x spell to avoid y?" simple answer would have been anti-magic fields everywhere but I hate that spell so i just never got the thing done
wht level are you guys? just mind fog then hypnotise the bastard and he'll tell you everything
*slaps forehead* Good call. I forgot that this was taking place in the edition where magic ruins solves everything.
lol that's exactly how i feel too. i remember once while planning a 3rd ed adventure and i could never get it done because all the person kept saying while i was plannign the thing ws "so what's stopping the players from casting x spell to avoid y?" simple answer would have been anti-magic fields everywhere but I hate that spell so i just never got the thing done
I've been playing 3.5 for several years now and I've never really had any trouble with this. As long as you know what spells the pcs have, you can usually plan/work around whatever they want to do...and your npcs have the same magic available to them as the pcs do, which can present some interesting counter opportunities.
i don't have much experience with the edition so maybe that's why i had such a huge problem. also it was the frist 3rd ed adventure i was designing too
Is anyone else thinking season 4 Battlestar Galactica? Starbuck. Is she or isn't she?!! Hehe.
Honestly, and you'll likely hate this answer, but look to your character for the answer. I'm going to assume that you as a person are a very logical and sensible individual. Likewise for your DM.
Did you grant your character the same personality as you? There's absolutely nothing wrong with that, but if so then just put yourself in that situation, make a judgment call and stick with it for better or for worse. Its ok to screw up so long as you didn't do it with that as your goal. You are somewhat cheating by asking for help, because your character doesn't have help. Your character is in the very unenvyable position of having to balance strong loyalties.
If your character does not have your personality then your job is easier. Just ask yourself what he would do. I have had a variety of characters that would react differently in the same situation. I've had the paranoid dark cleric who would immediately expose the party. I've had the calculating warlord who keeps silent, biding his time so that if the imposter is evil my warlord could surprise him just as the bastard makes his move! I've had the smart overprotective type who knows he has no proof, but can't just do nothing so when the two are alone he lets on that he knows and that he's watchin; "one wrong move and you get taken out buddy!"
The key is have faith that your players will respect what you are doing (because you seem the kind of person who doesn't do things just to do them) and have faith that your DM has already at least given a thought what the consequence, good or bad, would be for any path you might take. And if he hasn't... well have faith that he's good enough to make it cool anyway.
Honestly, your only problem is that if you ever lose this DM you may never find a worthy replacement. 
1) It could be an intricate plot by the wizard to get you to attack someone you shouldn't.
2) The body that was found might not be his body, but a fake. You could still be with the real PC.
3) You could still show suspicion and confront him or talk to the rest of the party. Lie about how you came about the information. You don't have to tell the truth about your meeting with the epic wizard. Any reasonable story will do.
the PC could have been given a second chance at life by a diety
could have made a pact with a demon/devil for a help
could have fake his death to start anew or to cover something up.
could a demon/devil possessing his corspe.
could be a vampire or some of other inteligent undead
or alot of things...all i can say is this.....legend lore!!!(unless your playing 4 in which i have no idea what to do.)