What is the price of being brought back from the dead? help!

[Yusuf]

In my Runelords campaign a PC had the bad fortune of succumbing to the blows of a hungry sinspawn. If the PC was brought back from the dead (for free) what would be the punishment? Keep in mind I mean the story punishment.

Plot spoiler:

The group made their way to the catacombs of Wrath and the final battle with Erylium claimed the poor half-orc monk.

This group is a greedy one, and I think they will not be willing to fork over their hard earned gold to bring back a monk they met a week ago. Sure his useful, but not irreplaceable. They should reach their decision next week (next session) and I'm not sure they will pay the gold needed. If they don't, I need to devise a story reason for the monks resurrection. I wanted to ask you guys for opinions and ideas. What is the price of being brought back from the dead?

Does someone take your place? Does a demon ask you to take a succubus concubine? Are you simply damned to return to hell when you die? What is the price?

[NobodysHome]

This is much harder than you'd think, because Sandpoint doesn't have the resources for resurrection; technically the party would have to go to Magnimar.

On other threads I've seen excellent suggestions of divine (or diabolic) patrons who perform the resurrection for a 'price to be named later'. You can use this as a plot hook to run a side adventure, or to have the patron show up and claim a particularly juicy magic item just as the party lays claim to it. I like the diabolic patron idea: "I'll raise your friend, but one of you has to enter a contract to unquestioningly perform an errand for me at a later time."

Then have the patron require that they need to steal an ancient evil relic from consecrated ground that the devil couldn't enter or some such.

Lots of fun RP'ing possibilities if you want to add story hooks...

[darkwarriorkarg]

Pazuzu and Lamashtu have a feud goiing on, and his last flunky in the area (the Chopper) got himself killed (the module looks like a nice sidequest, BTW).

The monk has a choice as he enters the boneyard. He may go on to be judged. Otherwise, the King of Air offers him a deal: reeturn to the living, gather the bones of his servant and bring them to the secret altar hidden in Chopper's point. Invoke Pazuzu's name when this is done.

Once this is done, Pazuzu appears, claiming the bones and informs the monk that he may call upon the King of Air at any time... he merely needs to say his name thrice.

[Yusuf]

Great stuff!

My idea was to have the Monk travel to the spirit world (or equivalent) and meets two opposing (twin) spirits. One good, one evil.
These spirits are guarded by his master, who tricks the evil spirit to help him resurrect his apprentice, but the spirit tricks him in return. The evil spirit plants a part of himself in the resurrected monk. The monk gains strange markings on his body that glow when he is performing evil deeds and trickery, and also grant him a small measure of extra power. This presents a moral dilemma for the goodhearted monk.

[NobodysHome]

Oh, be careful about 'rewarding the good character for performing evil deeds' path. It REALLY depends on the player. We had a GM who did that and the player simply had his PC embrace evil wholeheartedly, gaining additional power for each new step down the path to perdition. And his PC hid it from the rest of the group. Now we're stuck in a very tense PvP campaign where we know as soon as he slips up in front of us we're going to have to attack him, and with his added powers he's powerful enough to kill us all.

Great in a book. Horrifically unpleasant in a RP'ing game. (We haven't played in 2 months, and the only person who wants to keep the campaign going is... Mr. Evil All-Powerful Gonna-kill-the-rest-of-the-party-if-they-get-in-my-way. So this decision by the GM was a campaign-killer.)

[darkwarriorkarg]

I agree. be careful when rewarding evil done in good's name. The point here is temptation. I wouldn't give the character extra power. But if he invokes Pazuzu's name, he invites possession by Pazuzu. He loses his character for the duration.

In this way, it's the character's decision that gets him out (not his NPC master...)

[Lithrac]

My first "kill" was a little bit later (fighting Nualia), but my players faced a similar problem. In the end, they asked Madam Mvashti to reincarnate the dead druid, which she did.

Hope it helps!

[Malag]

Mine was on shadow's. Classic, they even added one more in that crypt.

I said white and black tho, that raise dead cost's how much it costs plus the expenses to restore negative energy levels. That's ~ 7000 gp.

I suggest you don't make it common to resurrect them or they will start expecting it.

[Yusuf]

@Malag Sure, a very common resurrection kills all the suspense.

@NobodysHome The extra power would't brake the campaign, it'd be like a +1 to attack role or something. And I know the player, he wouldn't play his character evil if he could help it.

Thank you guys, great ideas!

[Matthew Bellizzi]

Well Nualia killed one PC in my group. In this case the player wanted to play something else (he was tired of just being the witch debuffer) so it worked out. Initially though we looked at ways to save his character. In the end it came down to a couple things which is why we decided not to raise her. One the player wanted to play something else. Two just doing a convient Raise Dead spell took away the tension in the game and doing anything else seemed like cheating the acquired negative levels. Three it gave another player playing the sister of the dead character a great role playing bit (i.e. hates Lyrie). Seems weird to say it but, sometimes death is preferable