It is totally something that a sufficiently wealthy medieval or imperial society would do to kill and revive someone as a form of punishment, or even to kill someone and allow them to be revivified as a way of letting the rich get off easy.
One should expect that in a world where resurrection is a well known possibility, courts will take that into account. Even if it’s expensive and can only be performed by a selected few, the law should make sure that one cannot escape punishment by simply having money and connections.
Using our world as a template, it probably would be illegal to revive a convict, but itd be an open secret that a few well placed bribes and a bit of influence is all it’d take to bend the rules
No, no. It would be illegal to revive a convict using abilities that are affordable or available to the general public. And it would be a crime to both use those methods and to be revived by them.
For more elite methods, though, they wouldn’t even be covered by law. They’d go unmentioned and unregulated by statutes and edicts.
I dunno about the worlds you’re playing in, but resurrection magic tends to not be affordable or available to the general public. You don’t get access to it until fifth level spells, which 9th level. That’s around where most official 5e campaigns end, and most of the time you need thousands of gold in diamonds as a consumed material component. That’s nation-level wealth. Folks tend not to think about it this way because we’re all accustomed to the PC perspective, but really, by the time we get to that level each of us is a Jeff Bezos to the common folk.
This is my long standing hot take and point of contention with rules as written in conventional D&D fantasy rule sets: death, if the rules of the game were actually applied to the setting, is less about finality (except for the lifespan limitation contrivance) and more about health insurance or lack thereof. People who die that have enough money should by all means have family that pay for raises (or resurrections when the body isn’t available) as a matter of course and the material consequences of that would be that premature death from violence, illness, or accident would be mostly a poor people thing. Funerals would be awkward in setting: “sorry you can’t afford a rez. The divines bless the departed I guess, lol.”
There’s this constant tension with D&D where it wants to be medieval and it wants to have easily-reproducible magic. Follow the magic through to its logical conclusion and you get essentially modern technology with a mystical/medieval aesthetic, ignore it and you get big blatant plot holes.
There’s this constant tension with D&D where it wants to be medieval and it wants to have easily-reproducible magic. Follow the magic through to its logical conclusion and you get essentially modern technology with a mystical/medieval aesthetic, ignore it and you get big blatant plot holes.
For decades, Forgotten Realms tried really had to be this “peasants have their minds blown if they see even a level one Magic-User spell being cast; this is a grounded and gritty setting sort of” pretense in the official materials, but then there’s basically a magocracy running most cities (even the fucking Luskan pirates and other “savage frontier” big mean guys!) and maps full of “oh a web spell is on this window at all times” sorts of signs that maybe those peasants should be a lot more familiar with the very special very rare spellcasters that rule over them and make all the important decisions.
It’s the same thing with superhero and paranormal ttrpgs. Everyone wants that 🤯 moment when civilians sees the party in action, because it’s very rewarding.
I haven’t played it other than in videogame form, but I think Vampire: The Masquerade is one of the few systems that addresses this problem head-on
Yeah, it kind of makes sense if magic is rare, difficult to obtain, but not entirely foreign. Basically a luxury good.
To use an example luxury good, we all know what a private jet is. We couldn’t build one or buy one, but we know there are people who can. It’d be cool to be in one but not some unimaginable experience.
That is why I enjoy settings like the Netherese so much more. Where magic is common and everyone uses it, even the cleaning staff have magical autonomous brooms that sweep on command.
I don’t know if 5e has starting age tables? 3e and Pathfinder do, it’s an optional character creation thing that helps show the general age of most things. It starts off with the starting age of a given race and then has a table with different classes and dice. So for a human the starting age is 15, Barbarian/Rogue/Sorcerer is 1d4, Bard/Fighter/Paladin/Ranger is 1d6, and Cleric/Wizard/Monk/Druid is 2d6.
So a typical cleric starting age would be 16-27. At that point they are a level 1 Cleric and have a grand total of one level 1 spell per day. 5e is more generous and gives them two level 1 spells per day.
That spell should do a lot, and in a small village would be amazingly effective, but at a certain point there just aren’t enough spells per day for everyone. It should actually be hard for adventurers to get healing because the local cleric should probably have spent all his healing for the day by the time they get to him, he can probably squeeze them in tomorrow when he’s recovered spells.
Except that it’s exceptionally expensive. 5e is probably the most forgiving with its currency, a Raise Dead spell costs only 500 GP (assuming no extra fees) and while it’s hard to approximate wealth in the game I found an old Reddit post that approximated it to ~1 GP = ~$1,000. So $500,000 minimum for a Raise Dead.
While there are probably people in your life that would sell everything to bring you back, would you really want them to? How many times could your family and friends pull together $500,000 to raise someone in the group?
If you’re so obscenely wealthy that you could afford multiple Raise Dead in your lifespan you’d have other, more political problems. For example you’d have people lined up down the street asking you to raise [insert tragic story].
Speaking of Political problems, you have to find someone willing to raise you and someone willing to finance it. If the king dies and the Prince takes over what are the odds that he’s going to raise his dad and give up that power? If he’s a bad king it might be hard to find a cleric willing to do so and even if he’s a good king a benevolent cleric might not have 500 GP to finance it himself. You could leave the money with a cleric you trust, but he could always just keep the money. If the Prince isn’t willing to Raise the king he’d also probably go out of his way to hide, protect, or destroy the body to make a Raise Dead by an outside source more difficult.
In setting I think you’re right, a good person, who is exceptionally wealthy, can probably ignore death. Someone like Lord Nasher from Neverwinter probably doesn’t have to worry about a simple stabbing, someone will Raise him in 10 min and probably be rewarded 100 fold. However, if you’re able and willing to attempt that sort of assassination you’d also know how limited the effect would be and probably wouldn’t even try something so simple.
The punishment is a sentence of death. Not “being killed”. You are to be placed in the state of death for the crime. That’s why you don’t get to walk away if a lethal method fails. You can keep reviving them, but they’ll be incarcerated and killed again until it sticks. And I’ll put the rest of the party in contempt of court for attempting to subjorn lawful punishment.
There’s some stuff about devils and how souls are recruited for the whole endless demon war thing that implies that everyone gets re-incarnated but its usually random, while elves and devils are always re-incarnated as the same race except in special circumstances.
Not everyone. Most souls go to outer planes and just sit there. Lower planes have a special property of wiping memories through the river Styx and converting them into fiends. Which then either slowly evolve into useful fiends or much more likely are destroyed in the Blood War or eaten by night hags or higher level fiends.
I’m not really looking to get into fantasy legal dispute, but I will say that you are debating the count without even touching the core of what I said: the terms of the sentencing. Being sentenced to death is like being sent to prison. If you step in and then juke out, you can’t say “prison sentence over”.
We don’t specify term limits here because it’s typically not a place you come back from.
Of course you let them do it. You also let the victims’ family be horrified by the miscarriage of justice and make it their life’s work to seek revenge.
Nobody dies of “old age”. As you become older, it is becomes harder to survive various diseases or afflictions. But where do you draw the line? If someone was to weak and fragile to leave their bed, and died due to no longer getting any energie from food, is that dying of old age? And what if they are to fragile to leave their cage?
If one is allowed to set timespan for “execution” to “however long it takes me to die of old age”, then I argue it is also perfectly fine to take some liberty with the definition of “die of old age”.
That actually worked once, for a Jester named Triboulet who did things like slap the King’s bottom and spread gossip. He chose his execution method as a joke and the King actually laughed, so he was exiled.
Nah, this totally makes sense. Revivify costs 300 gp, which is about 5 months of work for a skilled hireling (or 4 years for an unskilled one). Laws are only for the poor.
If you convert to the relative value of labor instead of the real life value of diamonds, it’s probably something like $40k to $60k to revivify someone. Seems like enough cash on hand to somehow get away with murder.
Yeah. I'm running into that problem with higher level players now. They are being held to account for burglary, kidnapping and property damage they did 8 levels ago before they were nobles with land from another king.
You can't really imprison or execute people this powerful. The amount of force you'd need to bring to bear isn't worth the collateral damage. You just fine them and force a public apology if they want to do business in the capital ever again. Their wealth and social standing is more important.
Honestly it seems like a waste to revivify the party member post trial when they could have let the rogue fight to the death solo and revivify in the streets much sooner, or they could have revivified somebody they murdered unless that person really deserved to remain dead, but doing it at the execution is silly they’re going to have to roll initiative for all the guards again.
If anything, the DM is probably angry that they now have to freestyle regional laws about the use of revivify on death row criminals and create a brand new series of combat encounters with law enforcement, and becoming outlaws definitely has some effect on the main story arc.
I would at least grab the body from the corpse pile later. It’s a little less suspicious. Unless there is a time crunch then the rogue might get animated instead.
Realistically I imagine that having access to resurrection would have fairly dramatic consequences on how a society applies punishment. It’d probably be a crime of some sort to revive the executed, sorta equivalent to breaking someone out of jail, states might be more harsh with handing out death penalties when it is possible to undo them if new evidence is found, and the remains of the executed probably would be carefully stored and locked up to prevent unwanted revival and to have in case the state decides to bring someone back, assuming the body is needed for it.
Might also get things like a monarchy which kills off heirs to the throne after a certain age and stores them careful to revive when the current monarch dies or abdicates, to prevent scheming between them to increase their place on the line of succession or take over from the current ruler early, and to ensure they are young and healthy when they take the throne.
If a trial is ongoing during the date you’d become unrevivable or it’s considered important to extend the date for some other reason, maybe they just revive you and kill you again to reset the timer
I started reading Jhereg by Steven Brust, and it takes resurrection magic into account with the world building. Part of assassination involves hiding the body until the resurrection window passes. IIRC, the legal penalties for murder are also much less severe if you just kill someone, rather than make sure they’re permanently dead.
There are also “Morganti” weapons. They’re pretty much the Black Blade from Elric, so they eat souls. So not only do they make resurrection impossible, but the victim is extra dead, not even existing in an afterlife. As a result, using one is a high crime, punishable by death… by Morganti blade.
using one is a high crime, punishable by death… by Morganti blade.
Man, if I were a soul killing assassin, with knowledge that souls and the afterlife is real… Getting my soul dissolved vs going to my eternal reward … sounds like a pretty good deal.
Fair, I guess it depends on what the afterlife looks like in the fictional world. :P I actually didn’t get that far in the series, what with real life getting in the way, but I enjoyed it and mean to return to it.
In the Forgotten Realms, the Kingdom of Cormyr has strict penalties against resurrecting monarchs. The penalty is death for the resurrector, and castration + exile for the former king. And the famed War Wizards of Cormyr absolutely have the capability to enforce that law.
I’m not certain (and don’t have either my notes or the novel those notes were taken from to hand), but IIRC a resurrection of someone formerly in the line of succession puts them at the end of the line, even if they were as high up as the king’s eldest son prior to death.
This naturally creates an issue if the prince dies and is resurrected while a long way from the capital, and returns to the kingdom to find the king has also died while he was gone. Who died first is going to matter greatly, but might be rather difficult to determine.
I’d hesitate to call it an absolute monarchy because they do seem somewhat constrained by law or tradition, but I’m not aware of any formal process by which either the nobles or the commoners (I don’t believe there is any Parliament) can officially exert any authority.
I believe it’s based on a mediaeval English or French monarchy.
The closest non-D&D fantasy kingdom I can think of would by Andor in Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series, except that there is a very clear very strict line of succession instead of Andor’s nobles essentially voting on a successor.
Book 4 of Erin M. Evans’ excellent Brimstone Angels series is set in Cormyr and deals extensively with its politics, and I would highly recommend that book to anyone interested in that sort of political intrigue.
Whose idea was that law? If I were the king and someone discovered resurrection, I’d say that if I die, I get resurrected and keep my kinghood. Likewise if I conquer an area and become a king after it already exists.
Does it at least not apply to cloning? That’s the only way to avoid old age as far as I know, and I can’t imagine kings would be in favor of a law that requires they grow old and die.
Here are five passages from Fire in the Blood, the 4th book of the Brimstone Angels series by Erin M Evans, which I mentioned in my earlier reply to @MouseKeyboard. The quotes contain minor spoilers for the end of the eponymous book 1 of the series, and major spoilers for the content earlier in book 4. I would highly recommend both the series in general and this book in particular. This book and the two that follow if your interest is in political manoeuvring (this book on the politics of Cormyr, books 5 and 6 on the somewhat more exotic politics of the dragonborn kingdom of Tymanther). The series as a whole if you have any interest in the politics of the Nine Hells, or the interaction between a warlock and her devil patron, or what it’s like to be a tiefling in the Forgotten Realms—a race that, by the Player’s Handbook’s own admission (at least prior to WotC’s culling of so much excellent content a year or two ago) isn’t innately evil in any way, but frequently gets treated as though it is.
The quotes don’t go into cloning at all, but I don’t think that a clone would be considered the same “person” as the existing monarch, and so a clone would probably take its own separate place in the line of succession. Probably not very high, given the existing laws’ precedent of attempting to make the succession as straightforward and clear as possible, and minimising the ability of anyone to use magic to mess with that.
“Cormyr’s full of rules that don’t make sense,” Dahl said. “Commoners can’t wear more than one kind of feather in their hats, adventurers need special permission to hunt monsters, and if a king gets resurrected, they castrate him like a yearling and throw him out of the country, and his benefactor gets executed—gods only know what that’s about.”
“Did you not hear me?” Brin demanded. “You can’t bring him back.”
“I did, though!”
“No, I mean the law doesn’t allow it. A resurrected Obarskyr goes to the end of the line of succession—now I will be king before Irvel. He’s as good as dead to us.”
“Karshoj,” Havilar said. “Are you listening to yourself? Maybe he won’t be king, but he does get to see his family again.” Brin had the decency to color at that.
“You’re right,” he said. He rubbed his hands over his face. “Forgive me, that was … I’m reeling a little, is all.” He watched Irvel cross the clearing. “We can’t tell him.”
“I think he ought to know.”
“He might want to,” Brin said. “Or it might upset him—you don’t resurrect nobles in Cormyr. And he’d ask where you got such magic, and I can’t imagine he’d like the answer any more than I do.”
The laws about resurrection spells were, as many laws in Cormyr, tortuous and specific, crafted in reaction to ten thousand crises no one wanted to repeat. A resurrected noble lost all of their blood rights. Except a resurrected Obarskyr lost their place in the line of succession. Except a resurrected monarch was immediately deposed, magically neutered, and exiled from Cormyr, their would-be benefactor executed as a traitor.
Nausea suddenly overtook Brin. He dropped down on the covered steps of a boarded-up house and put his head between his knees. Foril was dead. So Irvel was king. And if resurrecting the crown prince was bad, resurrecting the uncrowned king was so much worse that Brin’s guts threatened to invert at the possibility. Suddenly, Havilar’s assistance wasn’t just threatening to make Brin’s life harder—it could actually get her killed.
Irvel blinked. “I blacked out a moment. And then Havilar was there. She’d healed me. She’s a good one,” he said to Raedra. “Whatever else is happening.”
“Your memory of the moment before you blacked out,” Ganrahast repeated, “is Aubrin Crownsilver trying to heal you, and the spirit of his father reaching out? And it’s very clear in your mind?”
“Yes,” Irvel said. Then, “I must have slept a little between then and waking up. I think I dreamed of Hal and my father and a great towering castle …”
Irvel stopped. A chill ran over him. Hal was dead and Foril was dead. And beyond the darkness of death lay the kingdom of Kelemvor.
“What day did they find you?” Ganrahast asked.
“I don’t remember,” Irvel said. But it hardly mattered—he’d seen Foril there. His father was already dead. By law, the crown prince was the king in all but the most technical matters.
The closest thing I found to an explanation in there is this:
The laws about resurrection spells were, as many laws in Cormyr, tortuous and specific, crafted in reaction to ten thousand crises no one wanted to repeat.
But it doesn’t say what those crises are, or why a king would be so desperate to avoid them that they’d outlaw someone reviving them or ensure that their power is taken away if it does happen.
My d&d 3.5 druid has a contingent reincarnate (to activate upon death). That’s the only reviving spell that puts you in a young body, beating aging
The cost is a random roll on what race your new body will be
A game I want someone to run for me is that druid and their party after decades of adventuring all set up with reincarnate, but all with a distaste for cheering the solution, going on one last adventure trying to die making the world a better place
How is the afterlife involved? It’s not much of a punishment if you send someone to heaven. And sending someone to hell early for sending someone to heaven early seems disproportionate.
On the other hand given that death is known not to end one’s existence, it suddenly feels more akin to exile, so it seems like it would be much more prevalent. Ideally you want legal punishment to either rehabilitate the offender or isolate them from the society if rehabilitation is deemed impossible. Death sentence now serves as a cheaper alternative to a life in prison.
This has been stored away in my gm vault for demonstrating what an evil government might mete out as punishment.
PCs walk into town and there’s a public execution happening, it’s all horrifying screams burning flesh etc, until it finally stops and a hush falls over the gathered crowd. The silence is broken when chanting, faint at first, gradually grows louder and louder until it feels like you can hear it in your mind, just when it feels intolerable a flash emanates from the stake, and the screaming begins anew.
That would also lead to some interesting questions if you give it a divine aspect.
If it’s all arcane magic, obviously sure, that all works.
But what if they need a cleric? That means there’s a god out there who condones this sort of thing. And that god can do this with the souls of unbelievers… unless they prepare the condemned by making them believers, possibly through gruesome means.
Honestly it’s more grimdark than I’d usually run a game, but it’s entertaining to think about. :P
Cleric of Urgathoa, Rovagug, or maybe even Calistria might be down for it, depending on the reasoning.
With a resurrection ritual, you just have to have convinced them beforehand that they might be able to escape or you might let them go. Only Pharasma can stop the pain then.
Yes, but only for eight hours if you want it guaranteed to work. And you still have a 33% chance of losing that spell slot, which is much too large a risk to take.
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