Notes on Resurrection (Including How to Prevent It)

[RHW]

Wrote this for my house campaign several years ago. Figured some might find it useful.

NOTES ON RESURRECTION

DIFFICULTIES OF RESURRECTION:  The target’s corpse must be fully healed and reasonably intact and the head must be attached to the body.  Any missing limbs may be regrown after the Resurrection. Similarly, lost stat points can later be restored with Restore (Stat). And finally, the caster must know the target’s name, lineage, and cultic affiliations (so the caster can find the target in the afterlife). Resurrection is not an easy spell to cast and is not used lightly.  It brings considerable risk to the caster.  Catastrophic failure in the summoning or spirit combat portion of the ritual can cripple or even kill the caster.  Chalana Arroy is one of the only gods in the world with access to Resurrection and no other cult has reusable Resurrection.

COST OF RESURRECTION:  Traditionally, targets of Resurrection gift Chalana Arroy with 50% of their cash assets (cows, silver, gold) and tithe to Chalana Arroy for one year. Failing to do so makes it highly unlikely that Chalanans will every help you again. 

NEGATIVE SIDE EFFECTS:  Some people who have especially difficult Resurrections (summoning barely succeeded, spirit combat was very dicey) get a condition called the Death Sickness.  Other’s get Death Aversion.  People with the Death Sickness become fatalistic and self-destructive, often converting to the worship of Humakt.  People with Death Aversion fear battle or violence and often join Chalana Arroy.  Still others just go  crazy. (NOTE:  PCs will not contract these conditions unless the player agrees.)

WAYS TO (MOSTLY) PREVENT RESURRECTION:  There are a few ways to prevent Resurrection.  Note however that all of these techniques can be countered with equally rare and/or difficult counter-rituals or spells.  In the worst case scenario, the famous Lightbringer Quest can bring back virtually anyone from the dead.  The Lightbringer Quest has been performed successfully only a handful of times in all of history.  Ways to prevent or complicate Resurrection include:

-                    Remove and destroy the head of the corpse.

-                    Destroy the entire body utterly.  Burning it or eating it works nicely.

-                    Erase the victim’s true name and lineage from history. (Extremely difficult.  Usually requires murdering lots and lots of people.)

-                    Kill the victim through a long and complicated ritual such as Crucifixion.

-                    Kill the victim in an area with magic that prevents Resurrection.

-                    Summon and bind the ghost of the victim. (The ghost must be laid to rest before the ritual can succeed.)

-                    Trap the victim in a special, inaccessible hell. (The Lunars did this to their greatest enemy, the Pentian shaman Sheng Solaris.)

-                    Turn the victim’s corpse into an Undead creature (makes the corpse harder to recover)

-                    Kill the victim in the presence of a power artifact (such as a Lead Cross) which prevents Resurrection.

-                    Utterly destroy the victim’s POW (usually the result of the sorcery spell Tap, a powerful Disease, or from a disastrous Divine Intervention)

 

[foolcat]

Well, having played a Shaman in the World of Glorantha, after a successful resurrection I'd definitely go: "DUDE, WTF DID YOU JUST DO TO ME?! I was right in the middle of something..."

😊

 

[RHW]

New Pavis rumor: For an exorbitant fee, the Black Fang cult will not only murder a chosen victim, they will burn the body and scatter the ashes in the Dead Place where the remains will never be found, not even by magic or divination. (T)

Edited April 9, 2019 by RHW

[Brootse]

On 4/9/2019 at 1:07 AM, RHW said:

-                    Destroy the entire body utterly.  Burning it or eating it works nicely.

Last evening a NPC with the group in the Rubble lost too much of his body to rubble runner bellies to be Resurrected.

[soltakss]

We just had Resurrection costing 10,000L and was a debt to the Chalana Arroy Temple. Rune Levels saw the debt taken on by their cult. It was a lot easier back then.