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

[Torquar]

Wouldn't it be ruinously expensive? Way moreso than simple imprisonment.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

I doubt the deity of health and medicine aproved the use of rotting undead corpses.

 

[Ixal]

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

What a bleak world when everyone can only look forward to an eternity of extreme unpleasantness.

Still, a good reason to escape likely final dead with a temporary one.

 

[Thunder Brother]

I don't see the point. Why have have the death penalty in the first place? If the idea is purely based upon punishment, then imprisonment for X number of years would probably accomplish the same thing, cost significantly less, and not direct limited resources needed for resurrecting people worth resurrecting.

Now that I think of it, this is vaguely similar to a subplot in Iain M. Banks' Surface Detail.

 

[Oofta]

Because not bringing them back makes them morally worse than the criminals, such that they would go to The Bad Place themselves?

If you believe there's an after-life there are two options. The criminal goes to the good place because they were falsely convicted or it was just a one time mistake and they truly regret what they did. They won't want to come back. If they went to the bad place, then they deserve what they get. If the gods, or whatever forces decide this kind of thing don't believe in giving people at a shot at redemption, why should humans override that edict?

Can't really get into it much because it starts getting into real world philosophy and religion, other than to say that I think The Good Place TV show had a really interesting take on the whole thing.

Or, try this...

An oracle has decreed that enemies will come, take the land, and destroy the civilization. Maybe this can come as a kind of "mutually assured destruction option" - the criminals are ritually sent to death, in such a manner that they will come back if the priesthood does not perform a ceremony once a year to keep them in their graves. If the priesthood of the reigning power falls, that throws a (pun totally intended) "dead man's switch", and the dead criminals rise and wreak havoc on the conquerors.

Which is fine and all but has nothing to do with punishing criminals.

 

[Mirtek]

Because not bringing them back makes them morally worse than the criminals, such that they would go to The Bad Place themselves?

Note how few documents, or even cultures, survive a thousand years. We'd have to question whether anyone is going to remember, or care, to raise you after a millennium. Or even a century.

Well, if there's a very real risk of them not being able to bringing them back, then they're already morally worse than the criminals for passing and executing such sentences in the first place.

So welcome to the Bad Place my dear judge, jury and executioner. Should have thought about your capability to fullfill your end of the sentence.

 

[Bill Zebub]

How about an evil theocracy where the guilty are burned to death and then immediately resurrected?

(But they aren't allowed to vote until they've paid for the 1,000 gp diamond, plus the firewood.)

 

[Umbran]

If they went to the bad place, then they deserve what they get.

Are you sure about that?

I mean, this is mortal tampering with the system of life and death, using it for short term criminal justice, which probably isn't its original purpose. Because, to be perfectly honest, people mucking whit the natural order of things... usually doesn't turn out well.

So, I am not convinced that human's coopting life and death in this matter actually ends in justice.

If the gods, or whatever forces decide this kind of thing don't believe in giving people at a shot at redemption, why should humans override that edict?

Soooooo many metaphysical assumptions there. Since this is homebrew, we cannot take those for granted.

Can't really get into it much because it starts getting into real world philosophy and religion, other than to say that I think The Good Place TV show had a really interesting take on the whole thing.

I find it interesting that you raise a clear example of a system gone totally wrong to the point of being clearly unjust, after asserting that people "get what they deserve".

Which is fine and all but has nothing to do with punishing criminals.

Sure it does. This is, in essence, conscripting criminals to fight a future war for you, whether they like it or not.

 

[Deset Gled]

Wouldn't it be ruinously expensive? Way moreso than simple imprisonment.

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)?

 

[Jmarso]

Anyone interested in this concept should check out Altered Carbon on Netflix. Or read the books.