Worlds with Liberal Use of Resurrection?

[takasi]

Have you developed or played in any worlds where people frequently come back from the dead? What was it like?

I'm thinking of an entire economy revolving around the concept. Using D&D 3.5 rules, any NPC over a few levels would have enough cash for a reincarnation. What if the key to escaping the judgement of the gods was simply a matter of possessing more money? Imagine a very evil world where rulers hoard resources and wage war with each other very recklessly. Reincarnation, raise dead, resurrection, true resurrection...it's all readily available and used frequently by anyone who can afford it. It's one of the reasons there is little progress in the world and why times are so dark.

What impact would this have on a traditional 'hitchhiking hero' outlook in life? He can kill the henchmen and stop a villain's plans, but he can never really get rid of an enemy through battle alone. Each time he stops a villain he'll become a bigger target of revenge, so the hero will also need to keep money set aside to stay alive.

In my experience this has never been common in game worlds. Most of them treat raise dead like it's extremely fantastic, and only rarely happens (usually only with higher level PCs and very rarely with villains).

 

[Bumbles]

Brust's Vlad Taltos series is probably the best example of it. And it even started with a game.

I think there was a D&D novel involving this as well, but I never read it.

 

[kitsune9]

Have you developed or played in any worlds where people frequently come back from the dead? What was it like?

I'm thinking of an entire economy revolving around the concept. Using D&D 3.5 rules, any NPC over a few levels would have enough cash for a reincarnation. What if the key to escaping the judgement of the gods was simply a matter of possessing more money? Imagine a very evil world where rulers hoard resources and wage war with each other very recklessly. Reincarnation, raise dead, resurrection, true resurrection...it's all readily available and used frequently by anyone who can afford it. It's one of the reasons there is little progress in the world and why times are so dark.

What impact would this have on a traditional 'hitchhiking hero' outlook in life? He can kill the henchmen and stop a villain's plans, but he can never really get rid of an enemy through battle alone. Each time he stops a villain he'll become a bigger target of revenge, so the hero will also need to keep money set aside to stay alive.

In my experience this has never been common in game worlds. Most of them treat raise dead like it's extremely fantastic, and only rarely happens (usually only with higher level PCs and very rarely with villains).

I run games where raise dead, resurrection, etc. are readily available if the PC's have the cash. As far as reading any books, I have no clue, but I typically play in a campaign where death is a major hassle, not a speedbump.

 

[Obryn]

Yep, the Taltos novels are the only ones I can think of off the top of my head. It's also the only series I can think of which takes frequent teleportation seriously.

He does well and uses resurrection as a plot point, too, noting that killing someone could just be a way of sending them a message. Kind of like an intermediate step between roughing someone up, and mangling the body (or destroying the soul) in order to prevent resurrection.

-O

 

[balard]

Remember to make the war for the material component(i.e. diamond dust) the center of all geopolitical conflict.

The one who controls the diamond, controls the world.
or
The diamond dust must flow.

 

[Dire Bare]

Heh, when I first saw the thread title I somehow parsed "liberal" in the political sense of the world.

Can you imagine a world where the Republican party and Democratic party fight over the proper use of the resurrection spell?

Let's not actually describe such a world in this thread, due to the ENWorld "no politics" rule . . . just take a few moments and imagine!

 

[Mouseferatu]

I've long thought this would be a very interesting idea. (I do love how Brust handled it, but I'd love to see some more of the sociological consequences.)

For instance, you'd have a political/social situation not unlike Vampire: the Masquerade, in which the current generation has almost no chance of advancement, because nobody above them is moving on. (Yeah, I know you can't resurrect someone who dies of old age, but there are ways around even that with powerful enough magic.)

What sorts of political systems would develop when nobles/rulers/whatever don't die? What happens with an area's limited resources? When the aristocracy can fight duels to the death with no repercussions, what happens to the society's sense of honor and insults? And when those traditions filter down to the lower classes who can't afford resurrection, what then? For that matter, what happens to belief in the gods when the notion of death and an afterlife are no longer considered inevitable by the ruling class?

I'd love to see, or be part of, an exploration of all this, but to this point, I've never had the time/energy to devote to it.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

Some ways I have ran it:

Taxes and Technology: To keep up the upkeep of the means of performing ressurections the population is taxed. The means too of resurrection is very controlled, and government run. It is done by having one "scanned" and their essentially being translated into a book of punch cards that run through a Difference Engine can recreate you.

Now obviously doing such gives the government a perfect record of who you are. So many underground and criminal organizations do not have their members scanned. Instead they either go without, or have underground sources do it (though god forbid if either the punch cards or engine is faulty). Also those who cannot pay the taxes are not allowed to be resurrected (and this is many).

This has created a upper-class of near immortals, with a lower class that only through subterfuge and crime can also reach a similar state. To assassinate one of those with punch cards one must steal and/or destroy all punch card records.

Necromancy: While not resurrection per-normal, in a setting of mine necro-tech is quite abundant. This has reached the point that births and deaths are viewed almost as non-entities, they very rarely occur with births generally being done only to foster spare parts, or as a eccentric hobby.

This has helped lead to a perpetual endless war in one country, with a Great War style trench warfare with both sides throwing quite literally endless amounts of troops into the fray. It has also lead to the training of many snipers (destroying the brain is the only true way to kill someone).

Crime is also different with many taking the form of a person being resurrected into a specific task. Their brain placed inside a tank, or inside the body of body-phone conductor, etc. To get rid of this, they must do this task till their time is up.

Also, the idea of "ones body" has been utterly destroyed. Random killings, hunting of people, willingly being killed, selling your body, twisting and changing your body all these things occur and are viewed as common things. You may have someone decide to kill of their one body and put their brain inside a dead horse to see what it is like to move around as a horse, or shot themselves in the heart, or kill someone, etc.

 

[roguerouge]

What sorts of political systems would develop when nobles/rulers/whatever don't die?

Well, one would imagine that it would look a lot like the elvish governance. And, actually, given the deadliness of a population boom, their birth rates.

 

[Hand of Evil]

I have tied it all to my game world mythos and the way my planes are set up. The ghost world sits pretty much on top of the physical plane and is mostly a transit plane (forget the Manual of Plane speak).

When a person dies their spirit/soul moves to this location and then moves on after a period of time; my rule is one month plus level in weeks. After that time or you get ate (see below), resurrection is not possible.

It is only after one month, by state & church law in my game, you are considered dead and title and / or wealth is passed and the Will is read. IF you do come back after that period of time, you are not legally recognized --- oh, and may be seen as something bad!

Now, the power of faith. The ghost world is not all safe, there are creatures that eat souls. In game, the showing of faith; remembering your holy days, giving at shrines, etc. provides protection from those creatures. I have house rules around random encounters but basiclly there is a 85% chance you will be attacked if you do not follow a faith, number of times rolled a day is your level. Yep, level equals soul power and the higher the level of the character, the brighter the soul in the ghost world. Holy ground carries over to the ghost world and provides 100% protection.

The Undead - Necromancy is different, in my games it is tying some of those creatures above to a physical form, the creature remains in the ghost world but has a physical form in hope of killing something and sending the soul to them as food. Vampires and such are creatures from the ghost world or other planes that have crossed over into the physical.