Problem with Resurrection and Similar Spells

[Dave Meyer]

Doing some world building for my homebrew and have realized that resurrection and the like could potentially be a serious problem. Not so much the spell, but the ramifications of using the spell to return life to someone after death.

Let me explain; Say Duke so-and-so's beloved son is killed in battle, the Duke of course has him resurrected. Fine. What if he's been dead for a few years and for reasons he is not able to be resurrected, a new heir to the Duchy has been named, or even becomes the Duke and then poof, the son miraculously does get resurrected. Uhmm... He's still the heir apparent... right?

Or the Queen dies, her family is squabbling over who gets to sit their royal backside on the throne next, and then someone resurrects the old Queen's sister, and she's got more of a legitimate claim to the throne than the Queen's kids.

And I'm not even going to get into the can of worms that is inheritance of wealth, cause that just gives me a headache. "Well yes, you are named in your father's will, but someone resurrected your great uncle Harry, who should have inherited your father's wealth anyway, but was killed before he could. But he's back now and it all goes to him."

The nobility is famously insane about tracking lineages, and resurrection has the possibility of throwing a huge wrench into the orderly passage of titles and such. And what is to stop someone from plundering the Family crypt for a suitable candidate to bring back and take over? The Lost Prince Returns thing is almost a staple of fantasy, but with the resurrection spell, it could well become the DEAD Prince Returns.

On the one hand, it is a huge plot-hook just waiting to be exploited for my fun. But on the other, this is something that, in world, has to have been encountered before, and dealt with one way or the other by the population in the game world.

Any ideas on how this should be handled, or how a DM has done it in their game?

[Azothath]

several writers have commented that TTRPGs do not make good Books/Stories. It's true for several reasons BUT they do provide a plot and details.
It's a Game. There has to be a reset button for players. It's about (projected) ego and, let's say Playability and Sales.
So take a hint from published adventures, script it as best you can with an assumed PC success, or a worst a success of sorts. It is the job of the Home GM to manage the stage direction and how he implements it for his group.

For example look at the level cap milestones; 20th level NPCs will never die. There's a ton of silly magic in the Game. Death is really just something you need resources to overcome...

Should there be unforseen problems with coming back from the dead? sure. But you need to write those into RAW. Traditionally I think money(resources) and caster level was used as the gatekeeper and there's never been a long-term storyline plot complication outlook to spells. One and Done. Back in the days(3.0 etc) a PC lost a Con with each Raise Dead and Magic Item Creation cost XP. Also see my first paragraph above.

[Phoebus Alexandros]

Dave, I think you answered your own question in terms of how this should be handled.

Magic should involve opening cans of worms. It should result in dynastic squabbles and disputes over succession and inheritance, and those probably should result in either covert struggles or overt wars.

What this all comes down to, in my humble opinion, is how nuanced and "living" a given GM wants their campaign world to be. Which is to say, figuring out what resources powerful people have access to at various levels of a given society. On a very basic level, you might rule that the Settlement Size and Base Value rules and Spellcasting services rules represent the limits of immediate/local access to magic. Beyond that, you can determine to what extent those services come with strings attached.

For example, a tyrannical LE duke might not be able to expect a resurrection spell from either the very ambitious and scheming LE church or from the NG church he drove into hiding, despite being positioned in a metropolis. On the other hand, the benevolent but the reclusive NG druid might just come through with a restoration spell for the LG frontier lord who has always kept his word about keeping sacrosanct the woods bordering his villages.

[I grok do u]

Agreeing with the above, you're also right about the world making considerations for such things. Inheritance laws and succession lines probably incorporate some legalese about resurrections invalidate claims of the resurrected (specifying lengths of time, etc). Not that that won't stop potential conflicts if the GM wants, but it would be something the inhabitants of a world could expect.

The major Golarian nod to this issue is the Red Mantis using magic to identify resurrected targets for reassassination.

[Taja the Barbarian]

One real-world concept you might want to familiarize yourself with (if you aren't already) is 'Heir Presumptive' as it a kinda similar concept:

The Heir Presumptive is the someone who is currently set to inherit but could be expected to reasonably lose that position: If my older brother were Duke and had no children, I'd be the Heir Presumptive until such time as he has a legitimate child, who would become the Heir Apparent and I'd be in line after that child (and any other legitimate children my brother might have, and any of their children in turn, etc.).

In a fantasy world, there would probably be a 'statute of limitations' on resurrections where if they occur after a certain point, any inheritances aren't legally required to be undone (though they might be if the current holder of title and/or property is willing): If you wait 100 years to resurrect a King, he's legally not actually the King when he returns. Death would probably be considered similar to an abdication of some sort: If resurrected, you're alive, but you someone else now holds your position and you have no legal right to your old title.

In fact, there might be a specific title-modifier for such a person to make clear they once held the position (and are due a certain amount of respect accordingly) but no longer do (like 'Pope Emeritus' in the real world).

[Pizza Lord]

Yeah, you basically answered the things I would say. It's no different than a prince who was thought dead on a battlefield finally returning home after years. It's a plot hook, and how the people or kingdom reacts is... entirely up to the people and situation. Say the dead king, even a good king, comes back, but a new ruler has ascended and he or she is amazing. There's issues like the time that's past, the current situation (maybe there's a war brewing and one ruler is a better commander while the other is a better all-around), and then there's the schism. The nobles might want the old king, the people and merchants might want the new one... one or two neighboring powers want one or the other.

The PCs may not care which one statistically or morally speaking (let's assume neither is an evil tyrant). It just might come down to which faction can convince/lie/offer the most to them to pick a side.

And that all comes down to the GM and their world or story building (assuming they don't have an assumed expectation, which the PCs will almost certainly screw up)

[Mysterious Stranger]

You have some facts wrong about how inheritance usually worked in the past. Titles were passed through the oldest child and then to that child’s children. The original title holder’s sibling moves down the line of succession as children of the heir are born. So, in the case of the Queen her resurrected sister would not have a more legitimate claim then her children or grandchildren. That is why Prince George is 3rd in line for the throne instead of Harry.

Sometimes an inheritance must be confirmed before it is bestowed. The coronation of a king is a good example of that. Many times, the ceremony is religious in nature. In a world where deities do intervene in mortal affairs those ceremonies may have more significance and may even show the favor of the deity. That could mean once the coronation or other ceremony takes place that is it unless the deity in question decides otherwise.

[Brightsaber]

If the concept of resurrection is a real possibility in your campaign world, then the societies that it affects will develop customs and/or laws to deal with it. If resurrection has been around for a long time, then each society will have a solution that fits with its cultural traditions. If resurrection is something that is newly available, then there will be discussion and/or turmoil as things get "figured out," and new aspects of the issue might continue to come up long after the initial solutions are determined (e.g. think about how the Internet has affected the world since it was opened to the public in the mid-1990's--laws, law enforcement, crime, taxation, espionage, warfare, etc. are still evolving a generation after its introduction).

If it's early days where the solutions haven't been around long enough to be set in stone, then, yes, resurrection is indeed jumping up and down waving its arms trying to get selected as the plot-hook of the next adventure you create.

What can be done about resurrection? Well:

1) You can side-step the issue. Just create a house rule that resurrection is not available.

2) You can limit the issue by adding non-RAW conditions. After all, you've said that this is a homebrew world that you're making, so you have complete control over how it works.
2.a) Maybe resurrection requires the permission of a deity of death/underworld/etc. If I remember correctly, the 1st edition AD&D description in the Dragon Magazine of the Suel deity Wee Jas said that her clerics had to commune with her to get permission before they were allowed to raise/resurrect the dead.
2.b) You could limit resurrection to its weakest form--raise dead. People who have been raised from the dead will have been gone for less time than a U.S.A. school's summer vacation, so a short absence should not cause much of a problem.

3) You can set a statute of limitations for resurrection. This could limit what titles/offices/honors, properties, etc. that a resurrected person can get back after being acknowledged as dead and succeeded by successors and having property distributed to heirs. There could be time limits for what can be restored to the resurrected person.

If you look redcelt32's Lines of Succession for Kingmaker, Pharasma's permission is needed, and a reasonable delay before succession can occur provides the opportunity to raise/resurrect the dead. If the dead person is restored to life after the mourning period ends, succession has legally occurred, so that resurrected person gets nothing from his/her/its previous life.

I can't find it now, but I think someone else in the 1st edition Kingmaker subforum said that, in their Kingmaker game, a person who is restored to life after succession is a commoner (if they were previously noble/royal) in addition to not being entitled to anything from their previous life.

I suppose there might be a small exception could be made if someone makes a will with a provision to hold certain possessions in a trust fund (hello lawyers' fees and trustees' fees and storage fees!) to be delivered to oneself in case of resurrection.

I haven't read about recent developments on the matter, but I believe the mythic sorceress Hao Jin turned up alive long after the temple of Abadar started executing her will in the manner she had previously specified. I doubt that any of her items awarded to the winners of past Ruby Phoenix Tournaments will be stripped from them and returned to Hao Jin.

Although Bilbo Baggins does not die in The Hobbit, he discovers at the end of the book that he had been declared dead while he was away. He eventually gets Bag End back from the Sackville-Bagginses (starting/intensifying a feud with them), but he did have to buy back much of his other property, and I think it's mentioned that he never got all of his silverware back.

If you are modeling societies in your world after real-world nations, you might find it helpful to search for those real-world nations' laws for what happens when a missing person is declared dead but is later found alive (and how imposters posing as declared-dead missing persons are dealt with).

[Valandil Ancalime]

You might look at "War for the Crown", a pf1 adventure path that dealt with these sorts of issues.

[Azothath]

I think it scales with game play and is more an issue past 11th level. Something to think about for GMs that want more realism.

[Derklord]

Dave Meyer wrote:

Any ideas on how this should be handled, or how a DM has done it in their game?

I see three main ways:

1) Let them squabble over it. Fighting over succession was absolutely normal throughout history, and e.g. the prince starting a revolt because he deems the resurrected queen to no longer be a rightful ruler can be a story in itself.
2) Have the nobility set up a "once you're dead, you stay dead for purposes of authority and inheritance" rule. The webcomic Girl Genius for example handled it this way.
3) Change the magic system to not make resurrection easily available. This is what I have in my current campaign, where every resurrection is pretty much a direct divine intervention. This way you can justify resurrection being available for the protagonists that are fighting the forces of evil (or forces of another god!), but not for some power-hungry aristocrat who sits idly on their throne.

[Mysterious Stranger]

Raise Dead is not that much of a problem because it only works on recently dead characters. Most inheritance are not confirmed right away. Even in the real world there is usually a period of morning before the inheritance is finalized. In a world with Raise Dead the morning period is probably going to be a month to make sure Raise Dead is not used.

Reincarnate gives the character a new body that may not even be of the same race as the original character. That should sever any claims of inheritance by the character.

That leaves resurrection and wish (which can duplicate resurrection) that may cause problems. Resurection is a 7th level spell that can normally only be cast by cleric, oracle, or as an 8th level spell for a shaman or witch. It takes a 13th level cleric with a wisdom of 17 to cast resurrection. Other classes require even higher level and in the case of the shaman and witch an even higher stat. Characters above 12th level are supposed to be world class powers with only a handful per world Finding a character that can actually cast the spell is going guaranteed no matter how much wealth the person looking to resurrect the character has.

Clerics have the least requirement as per level and stat, but they are servants of their deity. As such they will not cast the spell if it will be against the interest or teachings of their deity. Oracles have no such restriction but have a limited number of spells known especially at high levels. No oracle mystery grants resurrection, but life does grant True Resurection as a 9th level spell. So, the chances are that an oracle is not going to have the spell. Shamans as prepared divine casters will have the spell available, but they must be at least 15t level. Witches are prepared divine casters, and no patron gives resurrection as a patron spell, but healing gets True Resurection as a 9th level spell. The chances of a witch knowing resurrection is better than an oracle but is still going to be low. The numbers of casters both willing and able to cast resurrection is going to be small.

Even if you do manage to find a caster that is willing and able to cast the spell the target must be willing and able to return. If the target of the resurrection is not evil, he has gone on to his reward. For the most part the afterlife is supposed to be your reward for the way you lived your life. Often it is a realm of pleasure and joy. If someone is in such a place, why are they going to want to come back?

For evil characters the afterlife is usually less pleasant so they would probably like to return. But many evil characters make bargains with lower powers for favors in life and their souls are not free to return. Typically, that often results the character not being able to be brought backs without facing the power that holds their soul. If that power is a on the level or an arch devil or demon lord that is going to be difficult to overcome.

[Belafon]

Quote:

Any ideas on how this should be handled, or how a DM has done it in their game?

"Previous Ruler Coming Back to Life" is a plot point in some fantasy novels. I read a lot (of varying quality), so here are some of the ones I remember. Limiting myself to ones where the person comes back with memories, personality, and appearance intact.

1. From a fantasy setting where pretty much everyone was being continually reincarnated: Death triggers succession, old ruler is no longer a royal and has to go find something else to do. As I recall this was so ingrained that only the big bad of the series refused to go.
2. Ruler from a couple of hundred years ago comes back to life because of a mistake in a ritual done in his tomb. Decides to launch a rebellion to claim "his" throne.
3. One of my favorites was a very minor plot point: A king (who was a side character himself) went to the dungeons to consult his many-times-great-ancestor. This original king had managed to make himself effectively immortal (coming back a short while after he died every time). Thought of himself as the "wise, advice-giving elder" for all his heirs. After several generations, his descendants got fed up with his condescension and trying to pull all the strings. So they imprisoned him but still consulted him when necessary.
4. Old queen is continually recognized and gets completely fed up with everyone saying "how much better things were" while she was in charge (before she died). Really doesn't want to deal with the politics any more. Leaves the kingdom to go adventuring.

[Dave Meyer]

Thanks for all the responses folks, appreciate it. Think I've decided to go with, after a certain period of time/period of mourning the person is question loses all claim to titles/inheritances, etc.

Unless such a thing was set up beforehand, either by themselves, ie. They squirreled money away for just such an occurrence, they are entirely on their own. It is even possible tat family continue to allow him to be around, (if he was a decent sort.) just not as a member of the nobility. Perhaps as a possible advisor, or something similar. How long would they continue to stick around without the rank/privilege they used to have is another question entirely. Imagine that would start to rankle after a time.

Of course, if he was disliked, he's on his own, "here's a few gold, go be somewhere else." And could lead to all sorts of problems later on. After all, they didn't lose their knowledge when they died, and are no doubt intimately familiar with any secrets, or family drama, or whatever else I can think up. At least anyone seeking information, or dirt, or leverage on that family would certainly be willing to offer a reasonable fee for that information. And revenge of a cast off member of a family is always a good fantasy plot point.

[Pizza Lord]

Now that you've made your own decision for your game, people can point out problems or flaws or issues that could arise. The thing is, it's mostly a legal issue. It can vary by race, or tribe, or culture, or kingdom, religion. One country might wait a year with someone gone/dead. An elven kingdom might require 100-200 years.

It's really no different than someone being lost at sea or going missing after a battle and presumed dead. Most places will require either proof of death, which could be wrong or even false, like a witness saying they saw the person die. Typically, in any case, you need some legal figure (depending on the area, it could just be the mayor or a local judge), or in larger areas could be a king, or a council, or even a priest of the main religion.

The fact is, powerful magic exists, so it would be unreasonable to think that they aren't going to take it into account (but again, it can and will be different even one kingdom over). It's reasonable that if you declare someone missing or dead, that a magistrate requires you to have a priest at least cast a divination to assure they're dead.

In this case, the discussion is that they're dead and come back, so it's also reasonable that one location might rule that before they dissolve or release the deceased's property that they at least cast a speak with dead. Yes, it's a bit of a cost (about 150 gp, and some clerics may just do this as a service or reduced donation), but if the estate can't afford it, then it probably isn't really worth quibbling over if the person is raised. Especially since it should be standard before raising someone, since you don't want to spend all the material costs of that, and find out that they didn't want to come back. Even with no body (or one that was damaged) or even missing, they have corpse rebuilding spells, and they have other divinations or communes to speak with their god or find out.

This is also why people have last wills. If their property or estate is enough to be an issue, then they should have such things stated ("Hey, if I die, I want my property split between my daughters and the Church of Urgothoa,' can reasonably just as easily be "Hey, if I die, use my property to resurrect me before anything else." End of writing.) And if they didn't have a will... it would be reasonable that parties get a speak with dead spell to just say, "Hey, how do you want your property used/dispersed?'

[Azothath]

the associates of the vast majority of the populace that dies cannot afford any sort of NPC spellcasting that revives the dead. It is just the rich and adventurers.
I think the easiest solution is once dead the risen character must take on a new name and loses legal rights to most of his previous assets. He would retain assets and items in his tomb, or let us say assets he set aside in a trust for his afterlife.
• The "in game" example would be the Kalistocrats. They amass resources in order to create a safe afterdeath mindscape in a gold pseudo-golem.
• The next would be ancient osirian tombs which are egyptian themed. In the old faith they expected the person to use the offerings for the ka & ba to become an akh.
• Another is powerful undead. They tend to take on new names and eschew their previous life.

[dunelord3001]

It sounds like stuff that would be settled by law because it's not like this is new stuff popping up. They were already be dozens of examples. And then for the most part the law would be ignored and whoever had the biggest army would get their way, at least among humans.

[Neriathale]

The alternative approach I’ve seen used in another game is to say that only some people can be raised from the dead. Most ordinary people die and that’s it, but a few have ‘vitae’ - they are chosen by fate to change the world and can come back from death. This isn’t tied to your social status or even character level, so it could be that the old king had no vitae, but that farm boy over there has loads because he’s a PC, or PC in waiting.

[Azothath]

there's the Isekai solution where you get reborn into a mundane world with present day technology but people have a divided political outlook... or a magical world where you have overpowered abilities/powers or as a mahō shōjo... maybe pickup a pink gorilla girlfriend...

[Mysterious Stranger]

The reason that not everybody can be returned may be because most souls do not want to return. The person that died might be in a better place or have grown beyond the concerns of their previous life. If souls reincarnate the soul could be in a life that is better than the one, they left.

Let us say you were old and in poor health when you died, and most of your loved ones were already dead. You move on to the next life and are young and have a loving family that you are raising. Suddenly you are given the opportunity to go back to the first life. Would your really want to give up what you currently have? Or maybe you were a king that fought constant wars and now that you are dead you are in heaven with no burdens and are experiencing eternal bliss. Why would you give up paradise to return to a world that demanded so much from you?

[RJGrady]

I think it's actually more challenging from a world-building perspective that Golarion governments actually know right away when a ruler or heir is dead. Historically, that news had to travel by boat.

As far as raise dead, there is no reason to assume it works reliably for NPCs. Resurrection is much more powerful, a 7th level spell that costs 10,000 per go. And some little prince or princess with Con 10 can only be resurrected maybe a half dozen times before they can't be resurrected anymore at all.

A world in which resurrection is a regular expectation is also one in which disintegration is used to tidy up regime changes. Or just burn their body in a pyre and let the ashes scatter.