Creative way to bring back dead PC?

[Gnome]

Alas, one of the PCs in a 5th-level group has fallen during the last adventure. Fortunately for them, they have also come across a bunch of treasure, so a raise dead or the like would be within their means.

However, I would like to make the process more interesting than them simply finding a cleric and ponying-up the gold. My thought was to come-up with a reason that the character's spirit was stuck between realms or whatnot, requiring a small quest to free it, in order to allow the raise dead to work.

This character has a dark past, and much unfinished business on the material plane. He was a wild elf whose island was taken over by a small, but expanding militaristic empire, and the character himself was enslaved as a rower for 30 years. He was traumatized by the experience to the point that he almost never speaks, but he does hope to help free his people someday when he has a means.

Anyway, it seems like a tormented soul like this would probably end-up a ghost, but I don't want to go that way with it (since it would taint his soul and not be much of an adventure), but perhaps for some reason his soul can neither pass on, nor haunts the material plane?

Any clever ideas out there? For what it's worth, the campaign is Greek-isles themed, and uses the Pathfinder RPG (an evolution of D%D 3.5). I think I will more or less be using the standard D&D cosmology with a Greek flavor, so any ideas can be expressed either in terms of Greek mythology or the standard D&d planes, and I will figure out how to make it fit.

Thanks in advance for any ideas!

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Here's an idea I had a little while ago.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/genera...t-worry-well-rez-you-after-2.html#post5003686

 

[Umbran]

However, I would like to make the process more interesting than them simply finding a cleric and ponying-up the gold. My thought was to come-up with a reason that the character's spirit was stuck between realms or whatnot, requiring a small quest to free it, in order to allow the raise dead to work.

A standard that I've used that my players said they liked was simple - in order to be raised, the character must also agree to a geas/quest from the deity that provides the power that raises them.

 

[Alzrius]

I tend to look for third-party mechanics to let a character come back without waiting for the party to resurrect them.

Restless Souls (for Pathfinder) is the big winner here. A template that lets you come back as your own postmortem incarnate soul? Want!

There's also the Lazarus-Borne feat, from Ronin Arts' More 101 Feats. This feat lets you self-resurrect with a successful Fortitude save...but the DC goes up every time you come back. And when you take this feat, no other forms of life-restoring abilities work on you, so when you fail that Fort save, you're forever dead.

 

[Rechan]

My favorite trick is this:

Take the player aside and have a small roleplay encounter with him. His character wakes up standing in a boat, on choppy water. The only thing keeping the boat from drifting away is a cloaked figure on the dock.

The cloaked figure makes him an offer. "I can bring you back. But now, you owe me. Or, I can let go."

This is a plot device that Soemthing Out There is interested either 1) in this PC's mission, or 2) A related mission to some plot, and the PC is going to get used.

If the player chooses Yes, then have the dead PC just wake up back in his body, his wounds significant (but not mortal wounds). Offer no explanation to the party.

 

[Pig Champion]

We had a player come back from the dead on sheer will before. He had been romantically involved with an NPC that was in the group and as the party was carrying his body around it became a bit of joke that everyone they met had a thing for a "grieving widow".

And, out of jealously his soul forced itself back into his body to become the undead champion of his lady's chastity.

Another twist is you could have the soul force itself back into the wrong body and have the PC share a conscious space with Joe the Farmer or Billy the Blacksmith, who wants nothing more than control of his body back.

 

[Kinneus]

A minor dungeon crawl that leads to a forgotten altar 'charged' with enough divine energy to bring the guy back. Adds a wrinkle to the revolving door afterlife, gives you an excuse for a fun little side-treck, and has that nice, solemn moment of expectation when you lay the fallen hero on the altar and then perform the ceremony to bring him back.

 

[lin_fusan]

If you are using 4e, you could make this a Skill Challenge. The spirit or God of Death challenges the party on the merits of bringing this dead character back to life. Meanwhile, the dead character could also participate in the Skill Challenge as the soul or ghost.

Success means he gets raised as normal. Failure means some additional penalty (a bribe or quest for the spirit/God) or the body comes back cursed or sickly.

It could have some cool flavor, like a seance for the living, and the dead character could be negotiating with Charon or walking whatever afterlife he/she belongs to.

(Crud, I didn't see the tag for 3e/OGL. Sorry. Move along, nothing to see here...)

 

[YourSwordIsMine]

I escaped somehow. Let's go!

 

[Hand of Evil]

See, this is why it is important to think about your planes and the afterlife.

Some thoughts:

• Rite of passage was not performed by the party on the body, this rite allows the spirit to move on. Failure of a rite of passage ties the spirit to the body for X days before it fades away.
  
• No coins for the ferryman - crappy other party members stripped the character of everything they could sell and did not leave the two coppers to pay for the boat ride.
  
• Deal made on the "other side" - it just is not your time and you have a job to do.
  
• I married a monster from the other side - the character's body is host to something from the realm of the dead. While the character is alive, something is changing them...