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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Barastrondo" data-source="post: 832911" data-attributes="member: 3820">Fascinating idea…I see this as having several potential interpretations and possible side effects. One: A necromancer can likely temporarily remove his or her name from the lottery pool, replacing it only when their researches are at a stage when they could genuinely use a nice, fresh body or a living subject. I would actually assume that there would be some social peer pressure for necromancers who don't need a lottery win to bow out, levied by those necromancers who would really like to receive another subject. This would be a neat way to introduce another level of, if not intrigue, at least interesting social dealings in the Underfaust. ("Gentlemen, I just received a shipment of fine wines from Vesh, and there's a bottle in it for anyone who's willing to withdraw from the lottery for three months' time. Who will drink with me tonight?")Two: Keeping a vivisection subject alive indefinitely is the sort of thing that would probably draw some sort of social stigma — after all, you're not really studying the subject dying, are you? Not to say that it couldn't happen, but this is the sort of thing that would probably "feel right" if you were establishing the necromancer in question as particularly cruel and vicious, or if there was some personal grudge at stake (for instance, if the sentenced criminal had raped and murdered someone that the necromancer knew personally). The necromancer who went to extra lengths to prolong his target's suffering (keeping the vital spirit in the body, mind) might be the subject of unwholesome rumors at the commissary. ("Did you hear? Khaudra's test subject is still alive and kicking. I wonder if she wouldn't have been happier back when the Society of Immortals was still around...") More might come of it (after all, Hollowfaust isn't a good place, but there are more good-aligned people on the Sovereign Council than evil), or not. Depending on how you wanted to play the politics. Three: I'm pretty much with Oni on the morale issue. Final Forfeiture is meant to be a death sentence, and as such, tends to be levied on people who are presumably better off dead than alive, at least as far as the community is concerned. This includes people that the common folk would want to see dead as well as those that are deemed too dangerous by the Council. There might be an interesting problem with public morale if it got out that certain condemned criminals were not in fact dead as the public had hoped they'd be.(Unlike Graf, I happen to believe that people who have commited crimes agaisnt the citzenry would not receive public trials, but would receive public sentencing. Floggings would probably be public if the criminal had injured some popular member of the populace, and the proclamation that a murderer  or rapist has received final forfeiture would probably be posted publicly simply  because it would (in theory) make the public feel safer. People like to know that criminals are being punished (or in the case of the civil rights activist, that the criminal is being "treated" or "rehabilitated"); they want to be told that a particularly violent criminal will not be committing any more murders, mutilations or rapes. And in a society that D&D implies — where it's socially okay to solve problems with swords and fireballs — the average citizen is probably more in favor of capital punishment than the modern person is, or else they'd be stoning adventurers out of town for their lax attitude toward "frontier justice." Of course, none of this is actually in the book, so it's just my opinion, nothing official, of course...)A really neat set of scenarios just suggests itself, though. Great thinking. Hope you have fun with whatever it is you're planning for your poor heroes, Harlock![Random Necromantic Note: The Chinese saga "Journey to the West" includes a description of a "Face-Preserving Pearl," a magical pearl placed under the tongue of a corpse to preserve it from decomposition until removed. It's used in the book to preserve a drowned official until he can be resurrected. How's that for literary precedent?]</blockquote>

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