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<blockquote data-quote="Hellcow" data-source="post: 6311220" data-attributes="member: 15800">This is a point I often bring up when discussing world-building. Raise Dead alone is a spell that will have a huge impact on society, should it exist as a reliable commercial service. In 3.5, it requires 5,000 GP worth of diamonds. Which means that the people with the diamond fields are sitting on the gateway between life and death. A nation with diamond fields is going to wield tremendous political and economic influence, and likely be the center of the resurrection industry... something that's not really explored in most settings, Eberron included. I don't believe Eberron is a good model of a world in which Raise Dead exists as a reliable service, which is why in all the sourcebooks I've worked on I've tried to provide reasons why it's unreliable for most people (ranging from most religions taking a dim view of it to the fact that it often brings unwanted things back, ranging from ghosts to maruts). I think it's very interesting to explore the impact reliable D&amp;D magic can have on a world. Eberron goes down this path, but not completely. Stephen Brust's Taltos books show a civilization that's more mystically advanced than Eberron, with teleportation, resurrection, and sending all around as casual services. Of course, you get a weird economic loop. If diamonds are required for commercial resurrection, you would expect them to be in high demand, which means their price would shoot up. Does this affect the quantity of diamonds required to perform the spell? If the value of diamonds triples, does the spell now require 15,000 gp in diamonds, or do the gods cut you a break and take 5,000 gp at the current market rate?</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Hellcow, post: 6311220, member: 15800"] This is a point I often bring up when discussing world-building. [I]Raise Dead[/I] alone is a spell that will have a huge impact on society, should it exist as a reliable commercial service. In 3.5, it requires 5,000 GP worth of diamonds. Which means that the people with the diamond fields are sitting on the gateway between life and death. A nation with diamond fields is going to wield tremendous political and economic influence, and likely be the center of the resurrection industry... something that's not really explored in most settings, Eberron included. I don't believe Eberron is a good model of a world in which Raise Dead exists as a reliable service, which is why in all the sourcebooks I've worked on I've tried to provide reasons why it's unreliable for most people (ranging from most religions taking a dim view of it to the fact that it often brings unwanted things back, ranging from ghosts to maruts). I think it's very interesting to explore the impact reliable D&D magic can have on a world. Eberron goes down this path, but not completely. Stephen Brust's Taltos books show a civilization that's more mystically advanced than Eberron, with teleportation, resurrection, and sending all around as casual services. Of course, you get a weird economic loop. If diamonds are required for commercial resurrection, you would expect them to be in high demand, which means their price would shoot up. Does this affect the quantity of diamonds required to perform the spell? If the value of diamonds triples, does the spell now require 15,000 gp in diamonds, or do the gods cut you a break and take 5,000 gp at the current market rate? [/QUOTE]

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