How is death (and raising the dead) handled in D&D novels?

[Faraer]

Speaking for the Realms, there are many magical, ethical, social, religious, political, and ecological considerations that apply to the casting of spells. Just because the Player's Handbook doesn't go into them doesn't mean that resurrection in the Realms is just a financially draining inconvenience. And largely, the reasons why treating death as trivial is bad in prose fiction apply the same to roleplaying-over-rules RPG campaigns.

As well, although Ed adapted his world in the 1970s to D&D magic, it's not a perfect fit, and we can't assume that any given spell exists in the Realms proper exactly as it does in any version of D&D.

And obviously the Realms doesn't have epic-level characters in every hamlet, or anything remotely like it.

 

[jonesy]

From Dragonlance:

- Riverwind in Chronicles. Unclear whether he actually died, or if he was merely Healed. Revived by Goldmoon.
- Goldmoon possibly after killing Onyx in Chronicles. Brought back by Mishakal. Although it could have been just a quick use of a teleport.
- Goldmoon in Legends. Brought back by the Kingpriest.
- Goldmoon in the Dragons of a New Age trilogy. Brought back by a mystic.
- Cathan in the Kingpriest trilogy. Resurrected by the Kingpriest.
- Verminaard and Rashas. Both seen dead. Both seen alive later. Editorial mistake or resurrection (though there is the little matter of Sevil Draanim Rev in the modules).

 

[jgsugden]

The only time I remember a successful use of the raise dead spell in a D&D novel was the pool of radiance novel. In that one, the spell was used to terminate a wight ...

 

[palleomortis]

I think they just consider it more of a rare thing. That or they just don't exist.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Okay, this is going to be a bit rant-y, but that's partially because this is something of a pet peeve of mine.

How do you have dramatic tension when the death of a major character isn't an emotionally-draining tragedy, just a financially-draining inconvenience?

Creativity, dramatic writing, conflict, goals, failure, torment, and not relying on common, dull, happens-to-everyone death as the final answer to a need for drama all come to mind. E.g.: The *good* writers will handle it the same way that it is handled in the game. The *bad* ones will ignore it/overwrite it/relegate it to the background.

Thus, the dead stay dead because that makes a better story.

Oh, man, I better tell Sophocles that his story Oediups Rex is totally gonna suck if he doesn't have the guy fear death....

Fear of death doesn't make a good plot. Fear of death is just one of a possible millions of fears that protagonists can face, overcome, or fail agianst. It's a realistic and easily sympathetic one. Not many people WANT to die...at most, maybe some ACCEPT it.

But drama and conflict can be created whole cloth out of immortals and invincibles just as easily as it can be created out of mortals and peasants. One of the common tropes of tragedy is that the person is powerful to begin with, but is humbled by the end. And you don't need to kill to humble.

Death is the easy way out. Death is precieved as final. It sets things in stone, becomes an immutable rock, and must be worked around. Screw that. Especially in a D&D book. Screw. That. The laws of the universe don't work for your narrative contrivance, and it's transparently utilitarian of you to say that in this instance they do. These are things that an author should think through and embrace, not write around.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Steven Brust's Vlad Taltos novels are set in a high-magic environment. People die and get brought back all the time.

If the brain is damaged, it can make revivification impossible. Beyond a certain length of time, the spirit can't be called back. There are spells that can prevent raising, and if your soul gets eaten, that's it. There's also the suggestion that a really badly-damaged body (even if the brain is intact) is harder to revivify.

But it's a major aspect of the setting. If you hire an assassin, it costs more to have him make sure the victim can't be raised. It's mentioned that duels are fought to the death every day at Castle Black, with no rules other than "No cuts to the head, and revivification for the loser".

In a lot of ways, that element makes it more D&Dish than the FR novels

-Hyp.

 

[John Morrow]

I've always felt it is a little unrealistic to expect a D&D movie that is actually faithful to the game, simply because there's relatively little that you can do to a D&D character that can't be fixed. How do you have dramatic tension when the death of a major character isn't an emotionally-draining tragedy, just a financially-draining inconvenience?

I think that maybe the authors need to spend more time looking at how superhero comic books pull it off. And while it's true that superheroes die, it's also possible to kill high-level D&D characters, at least so that a simple Raise Dead or even Resurrection won't do the trick. There are also plenty of ways to make the death of a major character an emotionally-draining tragedy by having it accomplany failure rather than the death, itself, being the tragedy.

If a GM or author really wants a death to be real and lasting, simply eliminating True Resurrection, making True Resurrection incredibly rare and hard to get, changing the material component from 25,000 gp in diamonds to a 25,000 gp diamond (no "s"), or assuming that diamonds have become incredibly rare from being used to raise people centuries ago could do the trick. I think all of the other spells to raise the dead require a corpse or part of a corpse and it's not that difficult to figure out a way to totally destroy a body (Golum, anyone?), especially if the bad guys are purposely trying to prevent the character from being raised.

 

[Felon]

Okay, this is going to be a bit rant-y, but that's partially because this is something of a pet peeve of mine.

It's OK to be ranty, as long as you have a strong point to make....which you don't.

Creativity, dramatic writing, conflict, goals, failure, torment, and not relying on common, dull, happens-to-everyone death as the final answer to a need for drama all come to mind. E.g.: The *good* writers will handle it the same way that it is handled in the game. The *bad* ones will ignore it/overwrite it/relegate it to the background.

For all your bombast, this response is vague and evasive.

Here's the situation: one medium-level, not-too-hard-to-come-by spell can bring the guy back in one minute. It won't be dramatic, it won't be imaginative, it won't be full of torment. The spell can be repeated under the same circumstances and produce the same outcome any given number of times. That's a basic law of the world you're writing about.

All this hollow elitist posturing about "good" writing and "bad" writing does not address that simple conundrum. How do you, as an author, keep that basic law from draining the tension from a battle to the death when "to the death" doesnt' mean much? "Good writing" certainly isn't about making up the rules as you go along and turning a blind eye to established premises whenever they're inconvenient. That's not creative writing, that's just sloppy.

 

[the Jester]

iirc, Gygax's Gord the Rogue books have some death/raising...

But I could be misremembering. :\

 

[NiTessine]

All this hollow elitist posturing about "good" writing and "bad" writing does not address that simple conundrum. How do you, as an author, keep that basic law from draining the tension from a battle to the death when "to the death" doesnt' mean much? "Good writing" certainly isn't about making up the rules as you go along and turning a blind eye to established premises whenever they're inconvenient. That's not creative writing, that's just sloppy.

Resurrections are all good and well, but you still need to get your body to a priest for them to be any useful. If you and your friends are all killed in the wilderness or in a dungeon, the chances of some helpful priest just stumbling across their remains and raising them out of the goodness of his heart are fairly slim... especially if there are animals around to munch on them, or, worse yet, a necromancer in need of some manual labour.

There are hundreds of ways in D&D where raising, even when it is a financially viable solution, just isn't an option.

And actually, I'd say that experiencing death and a raise dead spell would be fairly dramatic and would contain at least medium amounts of torment. I'd imagine death is hardly pleasant and level loss isn't fun, either. Chapters could be written about a character coping with it.