D&D General A weird idea for a setting where raise dead/resurrection is used for finite death sentance punishment

[MarkB]

I'm reminded of the bit in The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy where rock star Hotblack Desiato turns out to be spending a year dead for tax purposes.

For this idea to have any legs, there'd need to be a clear idea of what it accomplishes beyond just having someone unpleasant not exist for awhile. And for that, you need to establish some clear concept of what the afterlife is like, what effect that has on convicts, and what ensures that they're both willing and able to return to life when called.

You'd also need penal mausoleums in which the corpses are kept, safe and preserved, with a staff of clerics and wizards visiting each corpse once every ten days to renew a gentle repose.

 

[Tonguez]

What happens while they are dead? Are they aware that they are being punished? Is the body stored? Do their souls go to the afterlife? Do they become ghost?

Hmm, turning criminals into temporary undead slave labour might be an option and actual punishment.

Also I thought ressurection only works if the target consents to being raised.

 

[MarkB]

I could imagine contracting with certain devils for the temporary loan of souls. The devils gain some short term liquidity, and in return they ensure that the criminals are properly punished and willing to return once their time is served.

And sure, the devils could decide to hang onto those souls, but that would just result in the supply drying up, so it works out better to maintain their part of the bargain.

Which isn't to say that they might not have some deeper plan in motion, one that a group of adventurers might need to foil.

 

[Ancalagon]

This was my though. Raise Dead requires a 500gp diamond in 5e. Why does society have to pay 500gp to raise a theif that steals 100gp, when they could incarcerate them for 5gp a year (or use them an slave labor to earn 50gp a year)?

5 gp a year?

Do the math please. the lowest amount of money it takes to sustain someone is 1 sp/day, or 36.5 gp a year. Now add the cost for the guards, the maintenance of the building... keeping people in jail is expensive..

 

[Stalker0]

I think people are underestimating the rehabilitation possibility of "going to hell".

I see it like this:

1) If actually bad, person goes to hell. Spends X time there. As soon as a res chance is offered they jump at the chance. Now they are back, and are likely willing to do anything not to go back there. Now you have a newly rehabilitated citizen, who will tell every person they can how horrible it was there, and that YOU DO NOT WANT TO GO THERE!!!

2) If they were good, they go to heaven. When the res chance comes up, they decline (after all they are in paradise).

So I think the concept is sound, I could see how some well meaning good people would think "if we expose bad people to the real punishment that awaits them....they will jump onto the team good bandwagon".

So we have a few options here:

a) People are killed, and raised within 10 days.

This is the simplest method, as you don't have to do anything extra to extend the raise dead limit. Assuming hell is truly hell, maybe 10 days is considered enough. Then the person maybe goes into forced community service (to pay back that expense), or maybe if the conversions seem very effective, its just the cost of doing business for this good society to keep its citizens good. Imagine what a crime deterrent it would be to have a few people literred around a city who have LITERALLY BEEN TO HELL, and are happy to tell you how insanely stupid you are to consider any life of wrongdoing with that awaiting you.

b) People are killed, and brought back after longer periods (1 year/5 years, etc etc).

So logistically.... we would need a mausoleum of some kind, with clerics casting Gentle Repose to maintain the bodies for raise dead. As GR is a ritual, we don't have to worry about slots, so a single cleric could maintain roughly 400 bodies (5 bodies an hour x 8 hours a day x 10 days = 400 bodies....with some pad for rest or interruptions, aka we aren't working the clerics to the bone here).

That's doable and still likely much cheaper than housing live people in jail (dead people don't need a lot of space or facilities). Still, considering the expense of raise dead, your probably only doing this for capital or pretty heinous criminals.


Now the real question here.... why are the lords of hell allowing their citizens to just pop back out and "go straight". The answer of course is some devilish scheme, ultimately this idea is doomed to fail....the devils have rigged the game in some way shape or form, which is why they allow it to keep happening. How it all falls down....well that's what the adventure is for!

 

[Blue]

If they have easy access to ressurection magic, you would expect that they would use it on productive members of the community before criminals. Anyone dies ot accident, brought back. Adventurers trying to do good, brought back, etc. And the cost of being brought back is covered by whom?

Now, turning them to Stone, so they experience the whole time, and turning them back, which doesn't have a costly material component. That works.

Though the idea does remind me a bit of the Taltos books by Steven Brust. The wealthy and high ranking have pretty ubiquitous access to resurrection magic, which can be thwarted in a few ways including these soul-sucking weapons that are unfortunately common. Assassination was used regularly - but with skilled assassins intentionally not making the body un-revivable. It was seen as a lesson or to get someone out of the way. It was a big deal for an unrevivable contract.

 

[Lanefan]

The idea is that the experience of being dead is extremely unpleasant.

Yes, but how much of that experience is remembered by the revived person? Not much, I'd posit; or else you'd have situations where characters were gaining levels, knowledge, etc. while dead and I'm not sure about how that'd work out.

The only way this temporary-death-as-punishment idea works is if there's a lasting (i.e. permanent) consequence tied to revival. In 1e you always came back down a point of Constitution, which would fit this idea well.

 

[Steampunkette]

So... couple things.

1) The point of the Death Penalty isn't to "Punish" a person.
Oh, sure, it feels like a punishment, I'm sure. But it's about two things. Acknowledging that some crimes and intentions are absolutely unresolvable with a reasonable society, and permanently removing bad actors from that reasonable society in a manner that presses others to not perform the same moral transgressions.

Because once you're dead you feel nothing. The pain is intentionally brief and as "Humane" as possible. Prisoners aren't tortured to death, after all. This wasn't -always- the case, such as the Roman methods of execution, or some of the Egyptian ones... But by and large things like Hanging and Beheading are meant to kill as swiftly as is reasonably possible.

Heck, the Guillotine was specifically designed to that end. As was the Electric Chair and Lethal Injection. The latter of which is supposed to make you drift off to sleep before stopping your heart.

2) If the death itself were the punishment, why stop at one?
If you've got a system in which people can routinely be killed and resurrected, and you want to use the death itself as a punishment, why leave them in the afterlife for any real length of time, at all? Any system which throws people to the afterlife then yanks them back is, truly, terrifying and wealthy. So. Go ahead and kill them, multiple times, and rez them each time. Have them sentenced to multiple deaths.

This is especially "Potent" in a world with limited resurrections. Say you're in a setting where a character can only be resurrected 3 times before their soul is gone forever. Killing them, twice, as punishment for a crime could be pretty terrifying. Particularly for Evil Wizards and such that you want to keep from returning 300 years later when the planets are aligned for the draconic apotheosis ritual.

Catch. Kill. Rez. Kill. Rez. Kill. Rez. And then either kill 'em again or let 'em live in fear of their final death.