Resurrection implications

[benz72]

Originally Posted by Dalin

[*]Would it be fairly common for adventurers to be hired to recover bodies of various people so that they could be raised?[/LIST]

I king of think this will lead to complementary spells/function. Something like a scroll of entombment with a help beacon attached, preserve the body and hope help arrives to recover/resurrect.

[Polkageist]

Splitting the difference a little bit and paying some degree of attention to the wider world that DF really doesn't worry about by default, I would describe the Resurrection spell as available but not necessarily reliable.

It is a divine spell, which means that gods and their capriciousness are involved. For whatever reason, adventurers are perhaps shockingly able to be resurrected reliably. Rulers and Kings and whatnot, not so much. Maybe the gods really like the souls of the nobility and aren't keen on letting them out of the afterlife. And I also like the extreme sports loophole in that the divine powers tend to keep those that do dumb things. There are more reasons for a resurrection to NOT work than there are for it to go off successfully, ranging from the mundane to the divine and for some reason delvers just hit that sweet spot of purpose and circumstance that checks all the ok-to-resurrect boxes.

That means that securing the extra mcguffins to ensure a resurrection spell succeeds for some important so-and-so is a fantastic quest hook. Resurrection is available, but it's not reliable UNLESS some scrappy adventurers go out and do some deeds and acquire some things so make it so.

[martinl]

Originally Posted by Dalin

What are the implications of the availability of resurrection spells on a fantasy world? I recognize that DF doesn't take the world-building element very seriously, but I'm curious how others think about this.
...

Other thoughts? How have you handled this in your games?

The way magic healing and resurrection works in most FRPG games means that the poor have very basic health care, and the rich are better off than the modern rich, health wise. Oh, and the folks making this happen are the religious authorities.

The social consequences of this probably re-enforce divine right and aristocracy, and this is how I've run it when I bothered with social modeling in FRPGs. The king is old (because the last king lived a long time), but is packed solid with scads of buffs and protections at all times. The upper nobility are the same, but less so, the lower nobles and upper class are still way better off than you are, what there is of the middle class often has to choose between "saving grandma by selling everything" and "let her die to keep our position", and the poor get whatever charity they are deemed worthy of, plus herbs and quackery.

[Polkageist]

Lich-kings are definitely a thing

[Dalin]

Originally Posted by benz72

I king of think this will lead to complementary spells/function. Something like a scroll of entombment with a help beacon attached, preserve the body and hope help arrives to recover/resurrect.

That's a neat idea!

Originally Posted by Polkageist

It is a divine spell, which means that gods and their capriciousness are involved.

I like this. With the right sort of pantheon, I could see it making a lot of sense. Reminds me of the Goddess of Death in Douglass Cole's Nordlond setting.

Originally Posted by martinl

The social consequences of this probably re-enforce divine right and aristocracy, and this is how I've run it when I bothered with social modeling in FRPGs. The king is old (because the last king lived a long time), but is packed solid with scads of buffs and protections at all times. The upper nobility are the same, but less so, the lower nobles and upper class are still way better off than you are, what there is of the middle class often has to choose between "saving grandma by selling everything" and "let her die to keep our position", and the poor get whatever charity they are deemed worthy of, plus herbs and quackery.

This seems quite fitting. It could create an even more divergent correlation between life expectancy and social class. The fabulously wealthy can not only afford the best healthcare but they can often be raised after accidental deaths.

Originally Posted by Polkageist

Lich-kings are definitely a thing

But of course!

[Agemegos]

I ran a D&D 3 campaign once in which many churches still had a bier of raise dead (/1 pey day) and most cathedrals still had a bier of True Resurrection (/3 per day), and coming back from death was pretty cheap. The death penalty was considered a hefty fine (worse if you were lower-class, a doddle of you were in good with a bishop or the dean of a cathedral chapter), and for worse crimes (e.g. treason) your family weren’t given the body back. A lot of parish churches had items of cure disease and healing to deal cheaply with sickness and accidental injuries.

Spell services provided by magical items were very cheap in D&D 3 at any reasonable load factor and discount rate, and my players considered the campaign a parody. Until the vampire knights.

[rosignol]

In the campaign I'm currently playing in, resurrection is possible, but must be performed by a Cleric of the god (or pantheon, if appropriate) the deceased worshiped. Clerics of other gods will refuse to perform the ritual (and they have ways to check). Among the gods, resurrecting non-followers is viewed as something similar to poaching- which isn't to say it never happens, but it's not a thing done lightly.

It makes religion a bit more of a roleplaying consideration than has been typical in the games I've played in. I'm enjoying it.

[Dalin]

Originally Posted by Agemegos

I ran a D&D 3 campaign once in which many churches still had a bier of raise dead (/1 pey day) and most cathedrals still had a bier of True Resurrection (/3 per day), and coming back from death was pretty cheap. The death penalty was considered a hefty fine (worse if you were lower-class, a doddle of you were in good with a bishop or the dean of a cathedral chapter), and for worse crimes (e.g. treason) your family weren’t given the body back. A lot of parish churches had items of cure disease and healing to deal cheaply with sickness and accidental injuries.

I often enjoy this style of just diving into the goofy magic without worrying too much about "how things should be." I could enjoy playing in a setting like that. And there would still be plenty of things for a typical delver to be afraid of: disintegration, lava, acid, being digested, etc.

Originally Posted by rosignol

In the campaign I'm currently playing in, resurrection is possible, but must be performed by a Cleric of the god (or pantheon, if appropriate) the deceased worshiped. Clerics of other gods will refuse to perform the ritual (and they have ways to check). Among the gods, resurrecting non-followers is viewed as something similar to poaching- which isn't to say it never happens, but it's not a thing done lightly.

It makes religion a bit more of a roleplaying consideration than has been typical in the games I've played in. I'm enjoying it.

This has a great flavor. I may borrow it for a future campaign!

[Haseri]

You could have it that resurrecting the dead is seen as very tacky. Not a sin or a crime, but more of a "please don't". Adventurers are already operate outside of social norms (if they are the average play group), so resurrections could be quite rare on top of the expense.

It might also be that most people just don't want to come back. After crossing that threshold from this vale of tears, the soul might feel like they want to stay, their work done. Or they went the other way and Hell doesn't want to give them up.

[Kromm]

Also look at the economics. Delvers aren't the world. They aren't even much like the world. For this, I need to whip out some GURPS:

At TL Olden Tymes, $15,000 is 15× starting money. It's the equivalent of $300,000 today, paid cash up front. It's a little like, "Oh, let's just buy a house for cash." Your trusted attorney walks into the megachurch, approaches the minister with perfect teeth, hands over a briefcase packed 3×10 with stacks of hundreds, and says, "Bring back da boss."

Looking at it another way, if you assume TL Olden Tymes is mostly TL3, the gaps between typical monthly pay at each Wealth level and monthly cost of living at the associated Status level – or what you can spend after what you must spend – are:

• Status 5 / Multimillionaire 1 (greater noble): $100,000, or a resurrection every 4.5 days "just because." Call it once a week and you have plenty of spending money.
  
• Status 4 / Filthy Rich (lesser noble): $10,000, or a resurrection every 1.5 months, or slightly less often with little hardship.
  
• Status 3 / Very Wealthy (landed knight, guildmaster): $2,000, or a resurrection every 7.5 months, or slightly less often with little hardship.
  
• Status 2 / Wealthy (knight errant): $500, or a resurrection every 2.5 years, if save all your money for nothing else.
  
• Status 1 / Comfortable (wealthy merchant): $200, or a resurrection every 6.25 years, if save all your money for nothing else.
  
• Status 0 / Average (freeman): $100, or a resurrection every 12.5 years, if save all your money for nothing else.
  
• Status -1 / Struggling (most people): $50, or a resurrection every 25 years, if you live that long and save all your money for nothing else.
  
• Status -2 / Poor (serf): $40, or a resurrection every 31.25 years, if you live that long and save all your money for nothing else.

So the societal effect amounts to the overwhelming majority of people not ever being resurrected, wealthy merchants swinging it occasionally if they set aside earnings against a rainy day, knights perhaps doing it once or twice if killed in war, almost all nobility managing it if assassinated, and the greater nobles actually risking death for fun and honor. Of course, the temple might have something to say about it . . . the higher up the social spectrum, the more likely they are to do the resurrection.