Phoenix,
I think that my personal feeling was that "if somebody wants to bring back their character? They can." (so long as the body isn't lost, etc)
So... a PC will never "fail" to raise. If the player wants to bring them back? They have an unfulfilled destiny!
With regard to the "general" point of "coming back" in the setting? I guess I'd sort of assumed that
1. The priests can tell if they can raise someone
and/or
2. It doesn't work and nothing is consumed (Hadeys is a crooked creep, but not a thief, he cloaks himself in a veil of legitimacy).
Again though, there could easily be other possibilities. If someone has a great adventure idea I see no reason why it couldn't change in some sort of strange way (The target comes back as a free willed undead for a short period of time, or as a spirit or whatever would work for the story).
Dunamin,
Your assessment is correct.There are virtually no NPCs.
To the degree possible the setting has been undefined so that people feel that they can come in and leave their mark. I'm happy to have people make suggestions, covaithe wrote up the five (though they got tweaked a bit going in), Halford named the Mayor, etc.
I have my own ideas in many cases (the merchants of Bacarte really being the "rogue" navy of the Empire of Hzaka, so the "unnamed hobgoblin" could be a sort of
Chiang Kai-shek but I felt like it was better to leave that unsaid....
