Well, don't give them 10k in diamonds. Make it one of the events during the events phase.
A travailing cleric hears about how bravely you PC have settled this land and resurrects your players character.
Hargulka could be found of diamonds and demanding them when folks join his kingdom. As for a cleric of that high level, no idea.
You could consider providing them with scroll of resurrection. This solves the problem of looking for diamonds specifically.
Reincarnate! Much cheaper and, and is usually packed with ample hilarity to keep things fun!
Ok so yeah, *technically* the rules state that reincarnate has a shorter window.... Buuuuut, what is a "helpful" fey were to swing by the old kingdom and offer to "reincarnate" this lost hero, as a boon for taking care of that nasty troll Hargulka, or something like that?? What is this benevolent fey was an agent of Lady Narissa, and alterior motives were in play? Think of the possibilites available! How could the story alter if Narissa has eyes in the party? MUAHAHAHAHA!
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I agree with Dudemeister, it is only as difficult as you want it to be. Do they currently have the body? You could make it that an NPC (someone the party helped or someone from the dead character's back story) worked to revive the character by themselves. Then the newly resurrected player was either recovering or having a side adventure until the point they rejoin the party. It could also serve as a good excuse for bringing that character back in line for XP/gear.
My personal preference is to have only a handful of 13th level clerics in all of Avistan. I might not have one in New Stetven, IIRC the population in Brevoy is not all that large.
And frankly, once you can planeshift, that generally means you ascend to the plane to be with your god. All the cool Earth prophets do it.
If you're sticking around instead, you probably have a specific agenda, which probably doesn't include taking cash to resurrect dead adventurers.
So once they track down this holy man, his first question should be "what's in it for me?" If the dead fellow was well known or devout in service of that cleric's deity, that might be enough. Otherwise you're looking at another side quest.
It's all a lot of work. But this is the way you play the RAW to make a world in which resurrection is possible but rare.
I rebuilt Bokken as a high-level druid so the group had emergency reincarnate access, but they didn't end up needing it until a little ways into RRR. You could redo him as a naturey cleric instead if you wished, I suppose, and get the same effect.
I gave my party a raise dead spell from the High Priest of Erastil in Restov. They didn't have money to pay for it - the temple paid for it as part of their contribution to colonising and making the Stolen Lands safe. However, they didn't get away scot free. Suddenly there were rumours flying around that the party weren't invulnerable and some settlers decided not to make the trip.
It actually cost them 5bp in resources they didn't get - which is way more than the cost of the spell, but it got them over the "Ah Shoot! The sorcerer died!" moment.
I also made sure they knew what it had cost them, and that a second one would cost even more ... (I use average values and generally classify a BP as worth 3000bp - so the raise cost them the equivalent of 15000gp)
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We've had a couple of characters die in our Kingmaker game, and only two have been raised from the dead. The reactions to different character deaths were quite interesting.
One character was not raised because he got turned into a zombie. He was first level, and we probably couldn't have afforded to have him raised even if we wanted to.
Two characters were not raised because it was adjudged that they died in a suitably heroic fashion and "that's how they would want to go out". One was an Ulfen who died in combat, the other was a fighter who started out as a CN bravo and capped off his transition to CG by not backing down from defending a helpless NPC when he should have run away.
One character was raised, with the raise dead bankrolled by a bunch of Varisians. They finagled a bunch of trade concessions out of us, and the revived PC married one of the Varisians in a political marriage (and so we have a baby gnome who will some day rule the kingdom if we can keep it together that long).
One character was raised, with the raise dead bankrolled by the Calistrian temple in our town. The temple had just been damaged by events at the end of Rivers Run Red, and the Calistrians wanted to make sure that they were at the top of the list for getting their building repaired. The DM also used this raise to deliver a special assignment from Pharasma, "I'm sending you back so that you can deal with an undead menace - you'll know it when you see it."
I feel that this has kept a good balance where not all deaths are permanent, but if you do get raised you know it's going to come with an asterisk.
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One of my characters died to the oh-so-fearsome Hodag in book 2, several levels below access to Raise Dead or Reincarnation. I wanted them to have the option of reviving him, so I told them that a powerful caster had set up shop in a yet-unexplored hex.
This guy turned out to be a 20th level Mystic Theurge known as Magician Humphrey (bonus points to those who get the reference). They got to fight up a winding tower full of monsters and traps and topped by a young giant and lastly answer a riddle from old Humphrey himself, ostensibly to make sure they weren't so dumb as to get themselves killed twice, before he revived their companion.
Of course, if they were to do it again, the tower would be considerably more tricky to climb...
And if anyone asks why one of the most powerful casters in the universe spends his spare time adopting giants and making level-appropriate challenges for random guys? Why, because messing with adventurers is fun, of course!
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Reynard, you are allowed to contradict my points, because you do it with such style.
This guy turned out to be a 20th level Mystic Theurge known as Magician Humphrey (bonus points to those who get the reference). They got to fight up a winding tower full of monsters and traps and topped by a young giant and lastly answer a riddle from old Humphrey himself, ostensibly to make sure they weren't so dumb as to get themselves killed twice, before he revived their companion.
So where has Evil Wizard Murphy set up his castle? The Tors? The Branthlends? Out in the Slough?
Id suggest a visit from your friendly neighborhood witchmarket. They could avoid the gold cost bit pay with something else. (There's s post in this forum about ideas to trade at the witchmarket and it fits the theme of the campaign)
I could think of a couple options with this storywise. Perhaps hearing of their plight one of the religious orders in the world would provide the spell with the understanding that they would be able to establish a church in the region. It could also be a reward to the PC's for having their religion as the primary faith of the region.
Perhaps an order of necromancers are seeking asylum and clandestinely approaches one of the PC's with offering to perform a ritual that will steal a soul from the bosom of Pharasma. It may require some rare components that the PC's would need to gather, a minor side quest to get back a beloved PC. No need for duplicity on the necromancer's part, they really want this to work so they can establish themselves somewhere where they won't be hunted.
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For me, this problem is a no-brainer. Spellcasting services lists the cost at 7th spell level x 13th caster level x 10 = 910gp. Add in another 280 gp for Restoration. Add in 11,000 for material components (which, RAW, can be bought anywhere spellcasting is sold). Voila!
As for where to get this? Settlement rules say that a Large City (pop > 10k) offers 7th level spellcasting. Smaller ones can get it if they have bonuses from Qualities.
The closest source of resurrection is New Stetven. The second closest is Pitax (though it's only a small city, it has the academic quality). The third closest is Daggermark (which, as a metropolis, almost surely has it). I haven't done the math, but I'd say that Sevenarches isn't a bad bet either.
But what if the PC's don't have 12kgp to pay for it? Their kingdom could! Since this would directly benefit a PC, I'd say this would count for "Making Withdrawals from the Treasury." I'd round down the cost of rezzing your guy to 6BP (which, ironically, costs the same as building a monument to your dead friend which the townsfolk would have no problem with).
Unless you'd want to be extra kind and say that the dead PC is no longer a PC until he's rezzed, spending Kingdom resources in this way increases Unrest by 6.
I'm a pretty generous GM when it comes to loot (WBL has pretty much gone out the window in my KM campaign), but there's no way in the universe that I'd just hand a bunch of level 7 players magical spellcasting equal to a CR13 encounter in treasure value.
That said... if I wanted to be super generous to my friend who rolled up a crappy character... I'd just handwave and let him retcon a couple months of Gentle Repose.