D&D 5E How do royalty die in D&D?

[Mishihari Lord]

Assuming a vanilla D&D campaign, they're murdered. Take Forgotten Realms, for example. There's enough magic available to someone "wealthy as a king" that normal causes of death just wouldn't apply. Old age, disease, normal injury, "mostly dead" (within raise dead scope), and poison all have straightforward magic solutions.

 

[Slamm-O]

You can always go the soap opera route. The queen, unhappy with the marriage, commits suicide (unwilling to be raised) and the king goes mad with grief and is removed from the throne.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Raise dead requires a body, see. Make sure the bodies are never found........

A gangster classic from real life !

 

[CM]

Saw the ghost of an ancestor, aged 40 years. Their hearts couldn't take it, unfortunately.

 

[Minigiant]

Princes and nobles who want to be king/queen.

 

[Piratecat]

In my campaign, the term "God-King" is quite literal. When the divine spirit passes to a new mortal shell, the old King is no longer relevant, even if someone raises him from death.

 

[Viking Bastard]

I've always gone with that most souls simply don't want to come back, even Kings. Raise Dead only works on a minority of the population (mostly PCs and villains and others with a quest-fetish).

But, as plot points, I've used both "King Who Refuses to Stay Dead and Let Go of The Goddamn Throne" and that if the very recently dead are resurrected but the soul refuses to return, you get a living body in a comatose state.

 

[77IM]

If raise dead is common in the campaign world, I'd assume that when a ruler dies there is a 10-day waiting period on crowning a successor, just in case the dead one can get raised.


What happens in real life if the king is lost at sea and presumed dead and a new monarch is crowned, but later it turns out the old king is alive?

 

[Warmaster Horus]

How does the 'afterlife' effect resurrections?

Let's say a Lawful Evil noble died and their soul went to the 9 Hells. Then a cleric of a Lawful Good god wanted to resurrect the noble. The noble may well want to get the heck out Hell but would the ruler of the plane their soul was sent to allow it? Would the cleric's Lawful Good god have any pull in the Hells to restore that soul to mortality?

 

[steeldragons]

How does the 'afterlife' effect resurrections?

Let's say a Lawful Evil noble died and their soul went to the 9 Hells. Then a cleric of a Lawful Good god wanted to resurrect the noble. The noble may well want to get the heck out Hell but would the ruler of the plane their soul was sent to allow it? Would the cleric's Lawful Good god have any pull in the Hells to restore that soul to mortality?

I'd say that falls, as I supposed earlier, under the "soul must be free" clause of the spell. Whether the Lawful Evil soul wants to get out of Hell is irrelevant. I would be inclined to say no. I go a step further (as the DM) that the Lawful Good god would not sanction/supply the spell to the cleric, whatever their reasons, to purposely return an Evil soul to the living.