| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| barry |
Posted - 24 May 2011 : 18:43:06
When Catie -brie is effected by the blue flame and she is unable to be cured , then why not kill her and then resurrect her? Would this negate the effects on her? |
| 17 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Milith holder of HB8 |
Posted - 03 Sep 2011 : 03:48:47
If I were to do it, I'd say that there is a danger to resurrection. Death isn't something that should be kind and gentle and great; the afterlife is a world of darkness, danger, and terror.
You're in a world of darkness. Occasionally, as you travel the blasted wasteland where death deposited you, you find a soul, feverishly praying to their god to rescue them. Now and again, you see such a being, erupting in a brilliant light that warms your heart for a short time--just long enough for the angel to collect the soul and return to their god's domain. You chant your prayers every day, but an angel has yet to appear before you. You've seen this before. You've seen other souls, sitting in the dust of the bleak realm, muttering pitifully to themselves before they fade away. You wonder what has happened to them. Did they cease to exist?
What's more, every day you have to hide from the wandering bands of creatures searching for souls too weak in spirit to resist them. Some are devils, who assault souls with deeds passed, accusing them of being heretics and unworthy of a new life with their god. In return for going with them, they won't allow them to fade away. Others...others don't ask. They're creatures of different origins and reasons that hunt down souls, dig their chains deep in their bodies and drag them away to where even the gods won't find them.
At last, you're called by your angel. You've survived in the bleak horror of that desolated realm for a tenday. After three days in a beautiful paradise...you're called back to save the kingdom from invasion. You do so. During the battle, you die from terrible wounds. You return to the afterlife, expecting to embrace the arms of your dead lover...to find yourself back in the horrible realm of the Shadowfell. You stay there, praying and evading savage titans that have picked up your death yet again. But after your tenth day, you are still there. Another tendays pass and another--finally on the 37th day of your time in the shadowfell, an angel appears before you and takes you to the realm of your god.
A tenday later, someone wants to resurrect you to save the kingdom yet again.
Do you go? Knowing that you might not survive your time in the shadowfell? That a devil might break you? That foul creatures of shadow and night will drag you away from the sight of your god? Or that this time...this time perhaps that angel won't come back at all? |
| Ayrik |
Posted - 03 Sep 2011 : 03:47:58
I can't see a deity being particularly amenable to granting the power for a resurrection after a person effectively commits suicide to "cure" an ailment. Similar logic is described in the old find familiar spell, a wizard who simply murders his familiar so he can roll up a better one offends certain deities and invites their punishment.
It's been suggested before that the Blue Flame and it's effects were seemingly governed by intelligence; if it was design and not accident which spellscars an individual then any attempt to defy or reverse it might invite divine wrath. |
| Milith holder of HB8 |
Posted - 03 Sep 2011 : 03:26:22
quote:
Originally posted by Lord Karsus
quote:
Originally posted by Diffan
Jahera and the leader of the Flaming Fist were both brought back (in the same day or close to it I think) in the Baldur's Gate novel by Phillip Athens. Done so by priests of Gond in the House of Wonders.
-Never read that book. Or played the game.
The book is absolutely terrible. The game however, is one of the best RPGs ever made. You need to try it out. |
| Lord Karsus |
Posted - 30 Jun 2011 : 18:21:59
-Since I just finished it, "Too Long in the Dark", a short story by Paul Kemp in Realms of Shadows perfectly illustrates the "perils" of attempting to resurrect a dead individual, in regards to their decision to return to the world of the living. |
| Erik Scott de Bie |
Posted - 28 Jun 2011 : 14:49:27
From an author's perspective, once you introduce casual resurrection into your story, you're sacrificing one of the most valuable tools in your arsenal: the fear of death. It's still there, sure, but it becomes more of a hurdle than a full stop. If characters can just come back--or (more significantly in some cases) their loved ones can just come back--how do you really hurt/scare them? And as noted above, doesn't it cheapen a noble sacrifice if the only sacrifice is a little bit of experience?
For this reason, resurrection is always going to be more common/sure in the game than in fiction. In a novel, it needs to be really miraculous/rare to be effective.
Cheers |
| Alystra Illianniis |
Posted - 27 Jun 2011 : 18:07:21
I've had two characters rezzed- one in a story (it was from an inadvertant Wish, and was a pivotal moment in the story, as it happened very soon after his death) and the other in game- several times. Granted, that particular PC is both incredibly ambitious, and had no desire to remain ithe afterlife of her chosen deity- perhaps because said deity was Tiamat!! |
| Lord Karsus |
Posted - 27 Jun 2011 : 17:37:13
quote:
Originally posted by Halidan
Indeed. I've had several players who always chose not to return from thier God's plane to answer the call of a Raise Dead. I've had other players who would come back once, but never more than that. I've always respected thier wishes and admired those who chose to create new characters (house rule - at one level lower than the average of all surviving players) than be raised from the dead.
-That's what I did with my last character, who died. Admittedly, I already had a new character that I liked (I always have a 'back-up' character, just in case), but when my fellow party members were thinking about resurrecting my character, I hinted that he was very happy in the afterlife. |
| Halidan |
Posted - 25 Jun 2011 : 20:21:12
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
Indeed. I'm just saying that there are reasons people could choose to answer the call to return.
Indeed. I've had several players who always chose not to return from thier God's plane to answer the call of a Raise Dead. I've had other players who would come back once, but never more than that. I've always respected thier wishes and admired those who chose to create new characters (house rule - at one level lower than the average of all surviving players) than be raised from the dead. |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 25 Jun 2011 : 15:00:26
quote:
Originally posted by Lord Karsus
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
On a more serious note, it's not unreasonable for a dead person to feel the need to come back to finish a mission or accomplish some goal. Again, Fflar.
-Note, he was torn, though!
Indeed. I'm just saying that there are reasons people could choose to answer the call to return. |
| Ayrik |
Posted - 25 Jun 2011 : 10:20:51
Haha, "then why not kill her and resurrect her?" ...
I would think that murdering a loved one is more involved than a simple medical procedure. Who could do it for Catti-Brie, and how would that person feel after the fact? Especially since, as already pointed out, raise and resurrection magics are not always successful. The spiritual damage inflicted by such an action would extend beyond the one person seeking a "cure", and worst of all, there's no certainty the cure would actually work. |
| Lord Karsus |
Posted - 25 Jun 2011 : 05:45:02
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
On a more serious note, it's not unreasonable for a dead person to feel the need to come back to finish a mission or accomplish some goal. Again, Fflar.
-Note, he was torn, though! |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 25 Jun 2011 : 05:26:52
quote:
Originally posted by Diffan
Besides, who want's to be ripped away from your deitie's embrace and shoved back into a body that might suffer more pain and anguish at a further date? Or have to live a life back in those days where it wasn't very clean and life was hard, very hard? No thanks.
It would depend on the deity! 
On a more serious note, it's not unreasonable for a dead person to feel the need to come back to finish a mission or accomplish some goal. Again, Fflar. |
| Lord Karsus |
Posted - 25 Jun 2011 : 05:26:18
quote:
Originally posted by Diffan
Jahera and the leader of the Flaming Fist were both brought back (in the same day or close to it I think) in the Baldur's Gate novel by Phillip Athens. Done so by priests of Gond in the House of Wonders.
-Never read that book. Or played the game. |
| Diffan |
Posted - 25 Jun 2011 : 04:27:56
quote:
Originally posted by Lord Karsus
-That aside, resurrection is used very sparingly in novels, and rightfully so. The spell exists in D&D as a way to bring the characters of players who don't want them to be dead any longer back to life. In the Forgotten Realms, as a setting, resurrection is something that happens very sparingly, for plenty of reasons- difficulty to cast, problems it causes with things like birth/death certificates, or noble succession, for example. In novels, that general rule is followed. I can think of only one example off-hand, when a character was brought back to life (Captain Fflar, Starbrow Melruth). In novels specifically, something like resurrection would cheapen the story, to a degree, if it involved heroic deaths and the such. What good is a heroic sacrifice if, ten pages later, a priest/priestess brings that individual back to life, from the point of view of literature? It makes the dramatic event a hell of a lot less dramatic.
Jahera and the leader of the Flaming Fist were both brought back (in the same day or close to it I think) in the Baldur's Gate novel by Phillip Athens. Done so by priests of Gond in the House of Wonders.
Aside from those aspects and Cadderly from the Cleric Quintet (which was resurrected by his deity) it should be done very sparringly for the aforementioned reasons. Besides, who want's to be ripped away from your deitie's embrace and shoved back into a body that might suffer more pain and anguish at a further date? Or have to live a life back in those days where it wasn't very clean and life was hard, very hard? No thanks. |
| Kentinal |
Posted - 25 Jun 2011 : 04:07:19
It should also be noted that resurrection could never really exceed natural death, unless magic used during life to take a few years off.
No human can live over 100 years, the time line jump was 100 years. Unless potions of longevity were used, (2nd Edition) there is no way a human could live that long.
This of course excepts the Chosen or other specials infused with long life. |
| The Simbul |
Posted - 25 Jun 2011 : 03:32:15
In 3E raise dead and similar effects do not remove magical diseases or curses, these effects must be cured separately. In 4E the Raise Dead ritual does not mention this at all, yet a ritual only does what its description states, and therefore it can be assumed it does not either.
In 4E a spellscarred creature can be cured by the Purify Spellscarred ritual, though it should be noted there is a difference between spellscarred and plaguechanged creatures.
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| Lord Karsus |
Posted - 24 May 2011 : 19:00:08
-Firstly, in terms of negative effects, there'd be whatever negative effects the Resurrection spell has in 3e and/or 4e. I forget, but I know it's something like a certain amount of EXP loss, something like that.
-That aside, resurrection is used very sparingly in novels, and rightfully so. The spell exists in D&D as a way to bring the characters of players who don't want them to be dead any longer back to life. In the Forgotten Realms, as a setting, resurrection is something that happens very sparingly, for plenty of reasons- difficulty to cast, problems it causes with things like birth/death certificates, or noble succession, for example. In novels, that general rule is followed. I can think of only one example off-hand, when a character was brought back to life (Captain Fflar, Starbrow Melruth). In novels specifically, something like resurrection would cheapen the story, to a degree, if it involved heroic deaths and the such. What good is a heroic sacrifice if, ten pages later, a priest/priestess brings that individual back to life, from the point of view of literature? It makes the dramatic event a hell of a lot less dramatic.
-Also, keep in mind, a spirit/soul needs to agree to be brought back to life. Once it reaches nirvana, being in the domain of whatever deity they primarily worshiped, why would it want to go back? The Last Mythal trilogy gives us a good view of this, in regards to the aforementioned Captain Fflar. He mentioned how he only had fleeting memories of the paradise that Arvandor was, and that it pains him just thinking about the fact that he gave all that up to come back to the Material Plane to answer the summons for help. At the end of the Erevis Cale trilogy, we have Erevis Cale "looking in" on his slain pal, Jakk. He's in paradise, with his family again, and all of that. Cale had the ability to attempt a Resurrection spell, but didn't, because he didn't want to have the guilt of "stealing" Jakk away from everything he had in the afterlife (he figured Jakk would have answered his call, to help his friend out back in the mortal world, sacrificing everything he had). It's not a decision to be taken lightly. |
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