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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Greenfield" data-source="post: 5482197" data-attributes="member: 6669384">In our last campaign, the vehicle for raising the dead was Shadow Walk, though Plane Shift would have certainly worked as well.  We also had a physical place, a temple that held a physical entrance to the realm, in case the spells weren't available for whatever reason.  It had its own challenges, of course.In any case, all roads lead to the same place, "Death's Door".  The entry to the Land of the Dead was a set of open gates guarded by an appropriate beast. Fenris wolf, Cerebrus, the Great Serpent, pick your poison (or flames, or fangs, etc.)   What you encountered wasn't always predictable, but was always a challenge best met with something other than brute force.A line of the dead, "Petitioners" they were called, moved through unchallenged.  Living beings were challenged, of course.If the death is recent enough you might find the person you seek in that line.  it seems to stretch for miles, and doesn't seem to move all that fast, yet if you keep pace with it you'll find yourself at the castle in no time.  The castle is the Halls of Judgment, where the final fate of the dead is determined.There are many temptations here, distractions set up to lure souls off their destined path.  You might find your missing person there, but take care not to fall into temptation yourself.Once judged, souls are sent on to the various "final rewards" (or punishments) based on the deity they followed, and how well they followed them.Pulling someone out of that final place is a real problem.  Hell, even finding them can be a problem.Once you have them you can depart.  Or at least you can try.  Attempts to gate, plane shift or shadow walk out will land you just inside those same gates again.  You now have to face the guardian monster a second time.After that you have a long walk across the twilight lands, the so-called Plane of Shadow, back to the lands of the living.  The recovered spirits must travel that whole distance to earn their life back.  No magical short cuts allowed.  Try to Plane Shift or Gate back and all you have is their spirit, which is soon drawn back to the Land of the Dead.  Living characters can escape that way if they have to, but doing so means that the mission fails.And, of course, aside from the perils of the shadow realm, there is the Wild Hunt.  The huntmaster patrols this region, and will be relentless in his pursuit.  It's his job to make sure the dead don't escape and he takes it seriously.  He also takes it seriously when someone tries to aid such an escape.  He's a Devil (CR21) who rides a Nightmare (advanced), and he'll have others with him, mortals called to his service, as well as a pack of hell hounds.In short, a scary guy who heads a bunch of other scary guys, always tough enough to present a good final challenge for a quality side adventure.We made that trip a total of 4 times over the course of a 20+ level campaign, and each time was a tale worth telling.  (In one trip, we lost a PC while down there.  We grabbed her out of the line on our way out and kept going. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> )</blockquote>

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