Lore

Life, Death and Resurrection - by T.A. Saunders ©2011 v1.5

The Life and Death of Heroes and Villains

Just as the gods and spirits of Imarel struggle to control the fate of the world, the souls of mortals are likewise contested. Those who have followed the path of Law and Balance will ascend to Indaris, the Bright Heavens, whereas those who have followed a path of darkness will descend into the Xos, the Frozen Dark. These souls who have the touch (or taint) of the spheres they followed in life will naturally go to their chosen deity in death. The Afterlife is the great mystery that has many legends and stories from those who have touched Heaven or Hell and have been called back; these individuals are those that have been resurrected by way of extremely powerful magic or divine rites.

Resurrection from the dead is not a small matter on Imarel, regardless what your sphere of ethos is. Except for the greatest and most epic of purposes no mortal being can be resurrected more than once. Any attempt to do so will have a 100% chance of failure. To attempt to resurrect the dead at all is a task fraught with peril that can endanger the life of the one attempting the resurrection as surely as it can call back a spirit from the Beyond, since the one attempting to call the dead back to life is opening themselves up to divine or infernal forces that can and often will demand something in turn to give life back to the dead.

What that could be is entirely up to the deity in question. Zorah, who holds province over Life and Death for those of lawful and neutral belief has aged or crippled those who have attempted to call back those she feels deserve their final rest. Khazaar, who holds province over the Dead who have damned themselves, has outright slain those who have attempted to raise souls he particularly wishes to bring to final darkness.

Priests and Knights (Defenders only) can call back the dead to live again through a Divine Rite of Resurrection. These individuals must worship an Imarel deity or spirit to attempt to call back the dead. Deities of other faiths have weakened influence on Imarel and cannot affect souls lost here. To complete this rite, the caller must be in good standing with their deity and the person they are resurrecting must be of like or similar ethos to themselves (dark priests cannot resurrect a Defender and so forth). To attempt to do so will result in instant failure and a strong chance of divine retribution or demand for atonement. If the one attempting the resurrection has been true and the soul being called back will further the particular ethos' involvement in the prime plane by living once more, they are given one more chance at life.

Magi, including Necromancers may also call the spirits of the dead back to life, through Sorcerous Rite of Resurrection, which in some ways is more treacherous than relying on divine rite and in other ways more simple. For these types, there is no need to follow a similar path to the one they are attempting to call back from the dead. They are not asking for a deity's permission, they are in effect attempting to summon the soul back into the body, before it can reach its divine (or infernal) destination. Doing this means that the Sorcerous Rite must be attempted within hour of death, or cannot be attempted at all with any measure of success, whereas a Divine Rite can call back the dead from their final destination, providing they have suitably preserved remains.

A Sorcerous Rite does have a chance to evoke divine retribution however if a soul is particularly wanted by the Power in question that controls the fate of the recently departed. In many cases, these retributions are far worse than what a Divine Rite might risk, including the possibility of indirect intervention against the caster with minions of that deity coming to slay the caster or in the very least, coerce the caster brutally to cease their activities. Regardless, if the Sorcerous Rite is completed within the hour of death despite intervention from the gods, the dead will return…whether they wanted to, or not.

Neither rite will be successful however, if there is no corpse to resurrect or not enough of it left. The whole original body must be present; the body must be able to sustain the life before life is put back into it. Wounds must be closed, diseases cleansed and limbs mended or replaced. No deity on Imarel will allow a soul to be resurrected into a body not their own, though some neutral or chaotic gods may allow such a soul to be placed within a construct. Attempting to do this will always result in failure and likely a massive retribution from the deity whose soul is being returned.

Necromancers have a loophole in the aforementioned situation where there is a desire to place a soul into a body or item not their own. If the Necromancer has the soul in a Soul Gem, that catches the soul before it departs the world, where it can be later restored to life using a special rite. The Necromantic Rite of Reconstitution is not without its dangers however, as it defies the very will of the gods and imparts the necromancer to infuse a soul into another body (since the soul never leaves the mortal realm, the gods cannot then lay claim to the soul of the departed hero). Placing a soul within a foreign body, or a construct or a magic item has a base 35% chance of driving the revived person irrevocably insane. It is important to note, that capturing souls must be done with a prepared Soul Gem and by no other means, otherwise failure is assured.

Even after all these requirements are met for resurrection, there still must be an even exchange of life-force, or risk incurring punishment from higher/lower powers. A person must be willing to sacrifice themselves to return the dead to life, if it is to be done without penalty or retribution.This individual must be a person of similar power, knowledge and experience in the world to the person being resurrected. This individual can be almost anybody of equal power and experience, including the person performing the resurrection. To be able to return somebody to life at all is the greatest power a deity can bestow upon one of their chosen, or in the case of arcane casters, one of the most powerful spells in their arsenal; to do so requires some small facet of the Cosmic Balance to be addressed.

It is impossible to return the dead without one willing to sacrifice themselves in some way for the fallen. To return life to the fallen is an extremely dangerous and unpredictable undertaking that should be given great consideration before attempting. The life of the one performing the resurrection is equally imperiled when performing a resurrection in this manner and could very well end up being the foci for sacrifice against their will, should the gods will it. (OOC Note: When a character is resurrected in this fashion, the GM will do a dice roll to determine the result to avoid favoritism or lack thereof).

NOTE: Resurrection rules and their application only apply to characters who die during GM events, Random Encounters and player vs. player non-storyline confrontations. Those players who have an ongoing story line that wish to kill their character have the option to bring them back with no need to roll on the chart below.