Laws about death penalty and resurrection

[Piratecat]

I touched on this subject a few years ago in my last campaign; a king died, making his younger brother the new king. they brought the old king back to life, but the younger brother had no interest whatsoever in relinguishing the crown -- especially when the former king started to go mad. Turned out an unrepented sin in his youth had doomed his soul to hell, and even though he couldn't remember the experience it was starting to affect him. civil war erupted as a result. The PCs had to choose sides, and they didn't all agree.

I love the idea of a person who was executed with the codicil that he was never to be brought back to life. His family stole the body and had him raised anyways, and now he's wanted for the crime of not being dead.

Good thread. What an interesting subject. I'll steal this for my own game.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Steven Brust's Vlad Taltos novels have occasionally touched on this subject. Since resurrection magic is easily available to the wealthy, killing someone who steps out of line is often a means used by the assassins'/thieves' "guild" (House Jhereg) to deliver a warning to him. That being, they can kill him at their leisure and next time it just might be permanent.

If they want someone permanently dead, there are a number of magical ways to either bind or destroy the soul. Merely possessing a weapon capable of soul destruction is a serious offense. I find it an interesting take on "cheap" resurrection.

 

[roguerouge]

I think one of the biggest holes in D&D storylines is clerical magic.
In a world filled with Healing spells, cures and raise deads, why would there ever be plagues? Hospitals? Populations would soar as everyone would be raised from the dead. In the least, kings would never die young.

There would be plagues because of how the population tables for cities work, namely, there's not enough cleric 5s in a major city to stop a virulent plague. Paizo had a good article about this, actually.

But, yes, old age and selfish princes are the only things stopping kings from abusing rez magic.

 

[BrokeAndDrive]

Not everyone gets resurrected, regenerated, etc. for the exact same reason not everyone in the real world gets the best doctors, lawyers, etc.

 

[Vegepygmy]

In a world where magic exists, where people know about the possibility of resurrection since they've read it on some book, one would guess the laws would reflect the possibility of someone being raised from the dead after a death sentence.

What would you think government laws would say in such a case?

In the real world (well, California, anyway) we have life sentences with the possibility of parole and life sentences with no possibility of parole, depending on the severity of the crime. I'd imagine in a fantasy world they might have "death" sentences and "death with no possibility of resurrection" sentences.

 

[Runestar]

Very intriguing question. It also highlights another rift between the rich and poor. Rich criminals could theoretically arrange for a raise dead (or even wish/miracle if need be) to resurrect them after their execution (where they may then carry on with their life under a new identity), while poor criminals remain dead.

So even if the majority of people likely cannot afford it to make this a widespread practice, the fact that people are able to circumvent the death penalty could result in a societal upheaval or a class war.

Why stop there? What about clones? If you are executed and you awake in your newly cloned body, are you considered to have paid for your crime?

 

[Orius]

Inmteresting idea. I think most in, societies where this would be a problem there would be plans in place to deal with it. First, resurrecting a duely executed criminal is outlawed. If there's concerns that the convict's associates will steal the body for a black market res, then there will likely be binding magics of such put in place to ensure the convict stays dead. Then there's economics, someone poor isn't likely to be ressed, so you're probably dealing with treasonous nobles, rogue adventurers and the like. Possibly priests who raise/resurrect executed criminals my face serious penalties as well.

You could have a lawful evil society have a diabolic pact in place where the devils agree not to torment the criminal's soul in hell and in fact make things very pleasant so he doesn't want to leave --but only as long as he can be resurrected (true resurrection is 10 years/level, so that's 200 years at level 20). When resurrection magic can no longer work, then the devils play catch up on damnation. They know how to be patient.

OTOH, you could have a choatic evil society where death is really only temporary. Loki would probably enjoy bringing the bastards back to life to spread more chaos.

There's also the lovely Vaarsuvius approach to things, provided that true resurrection isn't an issue.

 

[Starfox]

In the OP, you say its a cyberpunk/fantasy works. I think issues like this are very appropriate for such a cyberpunk setting. The death penalty would assuredly include dismembering and/or burning the corpse to make the resurrection more difficult, perhaps even animation as an undead. This should be true in a medieval fantasy society with resurrection. In a more advanced society, measures would be stricter, up to and including capturing the soul.

Resurection is limited by the availability of clerics, which in turn depends on the level of development in society. In a socially advanced society, there would be many specialists - in a fantasy society not just doctors and engineers, but also clerics and wizards. Magic suddenly becomes available on a completely new scale - and issues like the one in the OP come to the fore.

I recall Dragonstar and the discussion we had about elite kamikaze agents spending their time dead, being Resurrection True-ed when needed and deployed again as deep probe suicide agents. All you need to resurrect them is their "social security number" or other unique identifier. The time between missions is spent in their alignment's version of "heaven" - even demon lords could make pocket paradises for such people to spend their "dead time" in, just to keep the agents willing and viable. A very scary angle on the Hassashin theme.

 

[Tuft]

I recall Dragonstar and the discussion we had about elite kamikaze agents spending their time dead, being Resurrection True-ed when needed and deployed again as deep probe suicide agents. All you need to resurrect them is their "social security number" or other unique identifier. The time between missions is spent in their alignment's version of "heaven" - even demon lords could make pocket paradises for such people to spend their "dead time" in, just to keep the agents willing and viable. A very scary angle on the Hassashin theme.

Yep, there are lots of interesting plot complications that arise in a world where the soul has a social security number, and where there are galaxy-wide insurance companies...

(For a SF novel view of resurrection-suicide-stormtroopers, I recommend Glen Cook's "The Dragon Never Sleeps".)


Other complications that arise if you have resurrection, combined with an assured heaven/hell destination are:

A) Evil people are sent to the hell or the abyss. There, powerful bad people tend to turn into more powerful, more bad devils/demons. These wage war on the rest of Existence. So, isn't killing bad people actually just making things worse for you? And would not redeeming, rather than killing them, make things better? A war for souls, not for bodies...

We had an interesting twist on this lately - the Campaign Big Bad had marked all his subordinates with an indelible mark, and when they died, their souls went to make him personally more powerful. Unfortunately, the writers of the adventure path had made very little of it, but at least there were some interesting discussions.

B) Similarly, good people are sent to heaven, and you know it. So, why don't you simply do a Jonestown when things in this world starts to go a little sour? "Oh, an orc army approaches... where is the Cool-Aid?"

And, besides resurrection, there are ways for the baddies to return ever worse, such as coming back as undead, devils or demons. A risk that makes capture and imprisonment really attractive compared to slaying...

Which in turn begs the question why a hero couldn't come back as an angel (or other good outsider), rather than being merely resurrected. You know, the whole Gandalf thingie....



As a DM, you can explore these things, as a means to make things odd, surprising, and give you an opportunity to play around with the players preconceptions. Or you can either do an "don't ask, dont tell" or outrightly forbid these things, to stop things from straying from the comfortably normal.

 

[Hand of Evil]

First see the DM Advice for links on the subject, there are some.

The problem should not be the resurrection of a person but proving that they are "who" they were before death. While the level to resurrect may be rare, the shear number of monsters in a game will cause people to question a persons return from the dead; zombies, vampies, deamons, etc. are not rare.

Hate to say this but it comes down to who gets resurrected, it is not cheap. So, it is mostly important people that arrange for it and only for events they can't control, death before their time. But now you get into the politics of the subject; the transfer of assets, power and rights. This effects other people and they will be pissed in not getting something; a title, land, money, etc. They will question the whole process on the grounds that they person resurrected is now is controlled by the church/person that brought them back, that they lost any title, lands or money at death. Again, them having to prove who they are.

So, we are back at the question; how does a person that is dead prove it. Most cases, it comes down to witch testing. The result being, a person who dies is always dead. They lose everything they had in life, most likely taking to the road and becoming adventures. Even if they stayed in an area, they would be seen as the cause for any bad thing that happened, sooner or later they will be killed again...burned at stake.

Dead is dead.
Zombies have no rights.

Sidenote: Whoever performs a resurrection should be faced by other people who want someone they love to be resurrected, the old "why that guy, why not my bady".

Sidenote: Afterlife should be part of every DM's world myth, the travel, the return, the life in it.


Again, see the DM Advice link.