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How do royalty die in D&D?
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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6449493" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>Well, first, for the simple reason that it tends to provoke succession crisis if you put a sovereign on a throne and then resurrect an heir with a better claim, it's generally the case under the law (at least in my campaign world) that:</p><p></p><p>a) It's almost always illegal to resurrect a person in the line of succession to a noble title.</p><p>b) It's almost always the case that such a person loses all title to the throne. </p><p></p><p>Societies tend to do that out of self-defense. Consider the case of the younger brother who never expected to inherit who suddenly finds himself the lawful heir, and is sworn to the throne. Two days later the older brother shows back up and says, "Heh, that throne is mine." Even if the younger brother said, "Ok, sure. Glad to have you back.", what tends to happen is that later on the younger brother is like, "OMG I can't believe how stupid my older brother is. I would have totally ruled differently." and some people are like, "OMG, I'd so much rather have the younger brother as King." It just creates a lot of messes. The only exceptions tend to be related to cases where a person in the line of success has been found guilty of manipulating the line of succession through murder, or if the death of the person in question has left no clear heir and so does provoke a succession crisis. </p><p></p><p>Secondly, you cover the cases pretty well, but its worth pointing out that assassination techniques if they are to be effective generally have to do away with the body. If you've got a body, then you can bring the person back. No body, and things get dicey. Seriously powerful people generally have to be assassinated by NOT killing them. That is to say, it's often easier to do away with someone for a long time by trapping their soul in something or polymorphing them into something or turn them to stone then put various anti-divination defenses on the new form that it's not easily found. One popular defense among those powerful enough to manage it is a curse triggered by anyone that attempts to divine the location of the thing you want to find, but simple 'you can't find this' magic will work on its own. Stuffing the object or creature into another plane of existence works pretty well if you can manage it. That way, resurrection magic just doesn't work. </p><p></p><p>Generally speaking, if assassins can't manage that then they...</p><p></p><p>a) Use poisons that are resistant to magic and/or destroy the body.</p><p>b) Inflict diseases that are resistant to magic and/or destroy the body. </p><p>c) Ensure the body is consumed utterly by feeding it to something. A simple green slime works wonders here. Pour a bit on a dead body and in a few minutes there isn't enough left to resurrect. </p><p>d) Employ magic which ages the corpse unnaturally, making it harder to raise.</p><p>e) Turn the person into undead, and take the body with them.</p><p></p><p>At best, that forces the person rely on things like True Resurrection which - outside of silliness like the Forgotten Realms where every small town has a 20th level cleric - are likely to be pretty darn rare. </p><p></p><p>Anything that approximates a skilled assassination amounts to the same thing. Many monsters don't leave a corpse to work with - see 'swallow whole'. Ships going down in the ocean tend to leave no bodies to recover.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 6449493, member: 4937"] Well, first, for the simple reason that it tends to provoke succession crisis if you put a sovereign on a throne and then resurrect an heir with a better claim, it's generally the case under the law (at least in my campaign world) that: a) It's almost always illegal to resurrect a person in the line of succession to a noble title. b) It's almost always the case that such a person loses all title to the throne. Societies tend to do that out of self-defense. Consider the case of the younger brother who never expected to inherit who suddenly finds himself the lawful heir, and is sworn to the throne. Two days later the older brother shows back up and says, "Heh, that throne is mine." Even if the younger brother said, "Ok, sure. Glad to have you back.", what tends to happen is that later on the younger brother is like, "OMG I can't believe how stupid my older brother is. I would have totally ruled differently." and some people are like, "OMG, I'd so much rather have the younger brother as King." It just creates a lot of messes. The only exceptions tend to be related to cases where a person in the line of success has been found guilty of manipulating the line of succession through murder, or if the death of the person in question has left no clear heir and so does provoke a succession crisis. Secondly, you cover the cases pretty well, but its worth pointing out that assassination techniques if they are to be effective generally have to do away with the body. If you've got a body, then you can bring the person back. No body, and things get dicey. Seriously powerful people generally have to be assassinated by NOT killing them. That is to say, it's often easier to do away with someone for a long time by trapping their soul in something or polymorphing them into something or turn them to stone then put various anti-divination defenses on the new form that it's not easily found. One popular defense among those powerful enough to manage it is a curse triggered by anyone that attempts to divine the location of the thing you want to find, but simple 'you can't find this' magic will work on its own. Stuffing the object or creature into another plane of existence works pretty well if you can manage it. That way, resurrection magic just doesn't work. Generally speaking, if assassins can't manage that then they... a) Use poisons that are resistant to magic and/or destroy the body. b) Inflict diseases that are resistant to magic and/or destroy the body. c) Ensure the body is consumed utterly by feeding it to something. A simple green slime works wonders here. Pour a bit on a dead body and in a few minutes there isn't enough left to resurrect. d) Employ magic which ages the corpse unnaturally, making it harder to raise. e) Turn the person into undead, and take the body with them. At best, that forces the person rely on things like True Resurrection which - outside of silliness like the Forgotten Realms where every small town has a 20th level cleric - are likely to be pretty darn rare. Anything that approximates a skilled assassination amounts to the same thing. Many monsters don't leave a corpse to work with - see 'swallow whole'. Ships going down in the ocean tend to leave no bodies to recover. [/QUOTE]
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