Where to get a Raise Dead near Turtleback Ferry? (spoilers)


Rise of the Runelords

Silver Crusade

So one of my party died retaking Fort Rannick, and nobody in the party can cast Raise Dead. They've got the loot to pay for it, but I'm trying to figure out where the nearest city that would have that service available would be.

Kaer Maga's the closest big city, in straight line distance, but it'll be tough to get to. Magnimar is further than Kaer Maga or Korvosa, but it's a direct boat trip, so that's probably the fastest.

Is there a small town closer than those big cities where a scroll of Raise Dead might be available? I considered having the church in Turtleback Ferry have one available to buy, but that just seems too contrived.

Grand Lodge

*Fishes out Inner Sea Guide and Gamemastery Guide*

The nearest Large Town or larger settlement, which is what has 5th level casting (Raise Dead being a 5th level Cleric/Oracle spell), is Kaer Maga. Every place closer is too small, though you're right about river travel likely being much faster and efficient.


You could handwave it and say there's somebody at Ilsurian who can do it. Ilsurian is in the Town of the Inner Sea book.


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I set up a backup plan for this sort of thing at the beginning of the campaign - in fact for all the campaigns I have run. My characters kept hearing rumours about a mythical site somewhere in Sanos Forest where a 'powerful sage and cleric of the Old Ways' lived. Then, when a character needed to be raised/resurrected etc, there was to be a small side quest where they could go into Sanos Forest and find the sage/cleric.

I haven't used it so far, but was going to make the sage/cleric some sort of Fey - somewhat akin to Tom Bombadil - who would help them in return for a 'small favour'. It would then be a recurring NPC should another character need raising, or if they needed to find out information.I chose Sanos as it was fairly central, so they could reach it quite easily and not slow down the campaign.

I always keep such a device in my back pocket - helps keeps things moving and makes the characters work for their raise/resurrection, rather than a free pass.

Silver Crusade

My party did pretty well prepping for emergencies, except for this. They were actually walking around with 3 scrolls of Restoration, which the party oracle can use, that they bought in Magnimar before heading off to Turtleback Ferry. They've also got scrolls of stuff like Remove Blindness, Remove Curse, etc. One of those actually came in handy already, when a foe (I think it was the ogrekin sorceress, but I can't remember for sure) successfully hit the party archer with Blindness/Deafness to blind him.

They returned to Turtleback after retaking Fort Rannick, and I had the flood kick in. The party paladin got 2 negative levels from Black Magga's bite, so they'll need one more scroll of Restoration, plus one of Raise Dead for the cavalier who died at the fort. And maybe extras, in case they need them again in the future.

So besides offering them 1000 gp to investigate Skulls Crossing and find out what caused the flood, Mayor Shreed also said he'd send messengers to get a scroll of Raise Dead for them, if they provide the similarly valued goods to trade. So all those +1 Ogre Hooks they got at Fort Rannick will be sent with messengers (probably to Magnimar), and it'll happen while they're fighting trolls at the dam. There will probably be some waiting around time after Skulls Crossing before the messengers return, which is why I was trying to find some place closer that they could get what they need.

This also means they're a man down for Skulls Crossing, but it was a 5 PC group plus companion animal, so it should be ok. One of our players left a while ago, so we had one guy controlling two PCs since then, and it's his first one that died. So the player still has the backup PC to play in the mean time. I'm debating if they could use help from the two remaining Black Arrows and/or Shalelu at Skulls Crossing. Jakardros, Vale, and Shalelu are back at Fort Rannick and don't know about the flood yet, but it's on the way, so I could imagine the PCs stopping in there to let them know and asking for help at Skulls Crossing.


In my campaign, I decided that the smaller settlements had weekly or monthly market fairs where reasonably high level priests would come out from a big city to bless the proceedings - Abadar does love commerce, after all - so if they waited around they could usually get it taken care of.

They don't come all the way to Turtleback Ferry, but Ilsurian was close enough.

Grand Lodge

Fromper wrote:

My party did pretty well prepping for emergencies, except for this. They were actually walking around with 3 scrolls of Restoration, which the party oracle can use, that they bought in Magnimar before heading off to Turtleback Ferry. They've also got scrolls of stuff like Remove Blindness, Remove Curse, etc. One of those actually came in handy already, when a foe (I think it was the ogrekin sorceress, but I can't remember for sure) successfully hit the party archer with Blindness/Deafness to blind him.

They returned to Turtleback after retaking Fort Rannick, and I had the flood kick in. The party paladin got 2 negative levels from Black Magga's bite, so they'll need one more scroll of Restoration, plus one of Raise Dead for the cavalier who died at the fort. And maybe extras, in case they need them again in the future.

So besides offering them 1000 gp to investigate Skulls Crossing and find out what caused the flood, Mayor Shreed also said he'd send messengers to get a scroll of Raise Dead for them, if they provide the similarly valued goods to trade. So all those +1 Ogre Hooks they got at Fort Rannick will be sent with messengers (probably to Magnimar), and it'll happen while they're fighting trolls at the dam. There will probably be some waiting around time after Skulls Crossing before the messengers return, which is why I was trying to find some place closer that they could get what they need.

This also means they're a man down for Skulls Crossing, but it was a 5 PC group plus companion animal, so it should be ok. One of our players left a while ago, so we had one guy controlling two PCs since then, and it's his first one that died. So the player still has the backup PC to play in the mean time. I'm debating if they could use help from the two remaining Black Arrows and/or Shalelu at Skulls Crossing. Jakardros, Vale, and Shalelu are back at Fort Rannick and don't know about the flood yet, but it's on the way, so I could imagine the PCs stopping in there to let them know and asking for help at...

Do they have something to stop troll regeneration? If yes, they should be fine. If no, they could probably do with an extra hand.


A wizard (or other arcane caster) with teleport is the traditional solution to this problem. My group has a cleric but they needed the material components for raise dead (for Vale - Jaagrath's human bane ogre hook is brutal) so they had to teleport there for that.

I like groups that throw party balance out the window (seems like Fromper's group doesn't have access to raise dead or teleport) but my reading suggests at this point the AP starts to "assume" the pc's have access to this kind of high level magic.

The Black Arrows (and Shalelu) have remained with pc's (my group also just fought off Black Magga) and my approach is: the Black Arrows are still sworn to protect the people of the region and the danger appears very real. And the current state of Fort Rannick is very depressing for two (or three) rangers to face alone. It's going to take a lot of work to return it to livable, let alone defensible condition. Shalelu is considering staying behind to help rebuild the Black Arrows but that can wait until the problem of Lucretia (who got away) and the ogres is resolved.

Silver Crusade

My group is mostly balanced, they just don't have those particular spells. The arcane and divine casters are a sorceress and oracle who just don't have Raise Dead or Teleport.

But they do both have Fireball (flame oracle), and the sorceress has the metamagic feat to convert it to acid, which gives her an extra point per die of damage from her draconic bloodline. So troll regeneration won't be a problem.

Their bigger concern while a man down is whether they have enough tanks to keep the bad guys off the casters. They're used to having a cavalier and paladin both tanking in full plate and high HP, but now the cavalier is dead. They do have a ranger, but he's archery focused, and the ranger's badger companion is three levels behind what a druid's companion would be, so it's probably not quite tough enough to tank at this level without getting killed. Besides, they really haven't invested heavily in armor for the badger, since they figured they didn't need it up front very often before now.

Grand Lodge

Just need good positioning. Plant the paladin in a doorway. Trolls are not known for their acrobatic prowess.


Cast enlarge person on the paladin. For bonus points give him a reach weapon.

As far as dealing with the troll, there is a simple way of dealing with a downed troll, if two players can coordinate. In the same round:

Player A stabs troll with a torch, dealing 1 point of fire damage.

Player B makes CDG on said troll.

If they have a paladin with divine bond he can make his weapon flaming.

As for the raise dead, though, I do very much like Grimbold's idea.

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