NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 5638270" data-attributes="member: 4937">There are times when it is believed that a particular person has an unfulfilled destiny which it is desired by a particular deity or group of deities that they return to fulfill.  Deities then allow the return of the soul to fulfill that destiny.  But its not the sort of request that most clerics would fulfill just because you plopped 5000 coins worth of diamonds down on the table.  My basic point is that raising the dead is a big freakin' deal from a social perspective, however 'easy' it may appear from a magical one.  They could, but you are making the assumption that the dieties are nearly omnipotent beings which have time in their day to be actively reviewing and controlling everything that happens in their sphere of influence or to one of their believers.  Most deities are far from that powerful.   If the deity could really do something like that all the time, surely they could just show up to prevent their clerics from ever doing anything which would lead to their fall.  Mostly it works like this:Cleric: Mighty Lado, Patriarch Ilias here.  Today at the break of this new day, I find myself with the need to raise a soul from the dead.Lado's Planatar Bulter *checks the shelves to see if he has 'Raise Dead' in inventory*: Patriarch Ilias, your request is granted.  Bestowing the power on you now; use it wisely.Cleric: Thank you mighty Lado.Lado's Planatar Bulter *making note to remind Lado to give him some more 'Bestow Raise Dead' scrolls*: Don't mention it, Patriarch.  Moving on now.   Busy and all.Cleric: It sure is swell how Lado always find time for little old me.It's generally believed that dieties, when they are looking in on the affairs of mortals, spend most of their time looking in on a few (where 'a few' could mean anywhere from 1 to a few thousand depending on whether we are talking the demigod of toads or some family head like Jord or Corwen) specially selected individuals.  These individuals are then subject to repeated manipulation by the deity toward some end.  They experience lives which, to an observer, appear to be profoundly lucky and filled with wierd coincidences.  In fact, it's one or more deities continually manipulating the circumstances of their lives.  Individuals that are believed to have deities directly manipulating them to are called Elected (the opposite, to have offended a deity and have no other deity protecting you as a patron is to be Damned).  Those that have formed personal relationships with the deities that are interested in them (similar to Odysseus's relationship with Athena) are called Saints.Understand that in my vision, deities are extraordinarily active in the world.  All PC's are assumed to be Elected, and its not uncommon for a 1st level character to have a chance to encounter a deity.  Overt divine intervention pf the "Crom grant me vengence!" sort is fairly common - it's happened twice in ~25 sessions, albiet both times with the boon of 1st level spell since deities don't in fact have unlimited power to spare (and must work against each other in any event).   As Elected, PC's - especially in the early stages of their career - are much more likely to be considered valid targets of a raise dead spell than others.   That however doesn't mean that a priest from the temple of Lado is going to be easily convinced (by anything less than a Commune) to raise a PC associated with the temple of Aratos (much less Barmal!).  On the other hand, if a PC has been doing Lado's work, and there isn't some obvious complication, then raising them from the dead is likely to happen.Not every society emphasises the rights of the individual over the needs of the group.  In a society heavily invested in ancestor worship, if one of your ancestors wants to come back to life you just do the proper thing and move out of their way and give them back the leadership role which - for all practical purposes you assume they've never abandoned.  I mean its not like you can't make a collect call to 'Great-Great-Grandma' to seek her advice, so in some cultures the society is literally ruled by ghosts already.  (One of the more prominent families in Harlond regularly gets advice from an 3000 year old entombed vampire, so it could be worse.)Nor is every society all that interested for that matter in maintain a social order.  Some want to openly overthrow it.In some societies the justification for raising dead could be as simple as, "The King needed you alive.  (So stop allowing yourself to be killed, and get back to work.)"  Indeed, the general justification for raise dead is always, "Some deity wants you  back in the world for reasons of their own."  So it could be like, "In the name of Karophet the All Cunning, arise Bolkrum the Destroyer and avenge yourself on your foes.  Once more unleash your terror on the Sword Coast; sack and burn the villages of the Hulsheen, and drive our mutual foes before you."   Whether that's legitimate or not depends on your point of view.</blockquote>

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