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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Embermage" data-source="post: 5611230" data-attributes="member: 85312">In Sharn: City of Towers (pages 20-21) six people are listed as being capable of casting raise dead, in the biggest city on the planet.  None are capable of regeneration or resurrection.  Barring the use of gentle repose, that leaves 9-12 days for the deceased to be brought back, which may not be possible during the war (especially since it might take days just to find the king's brothers on a large battlefield).As others have pointed out, the only vaguely friendly npc specifically called out as being able to cast resurrection or true resurrection is the Keeper of the Flame, eleven year old jaela Daran.  But the Keeper only has access to those spells within the confines of Flamekeep, and the church of the Silver Flame specifically avoids raising the dead - even the most virtuous champions - because of the belief that those souls join with the Silver Flame after death, and to bring them back is counter to that doctrine.So realistically, not much is needed to ensure that a dead man stays dead.  Per the spell description on Raise Dead, "While the spell closes mortal wounds and repairs lethal damage of most kinds, the body of the creature to be raised must be whole.  Otherwise, missing parts are still missing when the creature is brought back to life."  A DM could interpret this (as I do) to mean that raise dead fails on any corpse that has been torn apart, since it says nothing about reconnecting limbs or reattaching heads.  From a strict reading, decapitation prevents raising, making permanent death as simple as a coup de gras.But what about the queen, assassinated in the heart of the country, where it should be easy to take her to a Jorasco clinic for raising?  Other people have pointed out that death magic prevents raising, but that's not what the spell says.  It specifies that "a person ... killed by a death effect can't be raised by this spell" (emphasis mine).  How does one kill a queen?  With an assassin, of course.  And the assassin's death attack prevents raising, by RAW.  That's why they get paid the big bucks.As you can probably tell, I've struggled with this question as a DM also, but the bottom line is that making death permanent in Eberron isn't difficult at all.  Not every corpse can be raised, very few people can cast raise, and plenty of conventional means exist to keep the dead dead.  The same coup de gras that makes sure your foe/victim is dead, rather than merely wounded, can also serve to make sure that he remains a corpse forever.</blockquote>

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