Life, Death, & Resurrection
In the realm of Stellarium, if you walk into a church and point to a chest wound on your friend, hand the attending Priest a couple of hundred of dollars, and say "fix it", you are not going to receive much in the way of help (except maybe directions to the nearest hospital).
No matter how much credits you throw at the vassals of the Sovereign Host, the fact of the matter is that most priests are experts in history, religious sermons and sense of motives. Individuals that are capable of casting divine magic are rare, and even if you do find one, nearly none of them are in the habit of selling "miracles".
Even for mundane medical care, people do not turn to their local spiritual leaders. Instead, they head to the nearest House Glittergem medical care facility, whose attendees are only so happy to be able to provide them with quality medical care at a fair price.
When immediate trauma requires more potent, magical healing, House Glittergem is likewise the number one destination for adventurers and the wealthy. Their monopoly is based off the Dragonmark of Healing, which makes them the preeminent magical caretakers of the sick and wounded across Paradenia.
Resurrection effects the economy as well because, well, diamonds. Eborra was known to mine the most diamonds and other materials. To help regulate use of necromantic spells, the Clergy has a close eye on those who would dare try to attempt at resurrection.
Tales and History
History and folk tales speak of vain attempts to challenge the fate of departed loved ones, only for vengeful spirits to appear and teach those attempting to cheat death the hubris of their ways, often costing them their life. Other tales of warning, spoken in hushed whispers to nobles grieving over the lost of their last heir, involve frightful stories of loved ones being brought back to life with the wrong soul, letting a stranger hijack the body. While bringing the dead back to life may sound like a traditionally religious service, most religions in Paradenia do not condone the practice. Vassals of the Sovereign Host believe that when a person dies, their souls are brought to Dolurrh, The Realm of the Dead, and from there, their soul may be absorbed into the realm or be brought into the realm of one of the Sovereigns to be at peace for eternity. Vassals do not believe pulling a soul back from the cleansing process in Dolurrh is healthy for an individual's soul, and point to things like the negative level from Raise Dead as evidence of spiritual harm (and they would explain resurrection magic that doesn't impose negative levels as just being more powerful and therefore more subtle about it). Followers of the Silver Flame believe that righteous and just souls join the Flame in death, whether they worship the Silver Flame or not, strengthening its light against the darkness of the world. They are loathe to deprive the Flame of a worthy soul. And if you are not worthy, why would they perform a miracle on you, to potentially allow you to spread further darkness and evil in the world? Even morally bankrupt cultists of the Dark Six would hesitate to challenge the Queen of Death's claim of ownership on all the souls of the dead. But, there is one notable religious group that seems to make a practice of raising the dead when they are able, the Seekers of the Blood of Vol. However, when rumors persist of resurrection magic sometimes bringing back the deceased wrong, or with guests, no common man on the street or noble in their castle is going to trust members of a "cult" that venerate the undead.The Concerns of Resurrections
That being said, returning life to the dead isn’t a reliable service in Stellarium. There are very few who are capable of casting the necessary spells from clerics to druids. But just because a spell can be cast doesn’t mean that it should be cast... or that it will work if it does. The first and simplest limitation is time. The longer a spirit remains in Dolurrh, the more it falls under its sway. Any spell that returns life to the dead requires the spirit to want to return. Once the shade becomes a husk, it can no longer make that decision, and thus can’t be raised or reincarnated. Most religions maintain that this happens because the true soul has moved on to a higher level of existence; who wants to be pulled back from a union with the Sovereigns? So you only have about a week or two—depending on the strength of the target’s will—to pull them back. But even before that time, a spirit might choose not to return. What do they have to live for? Is it worth fighting the lulling ennui of Dolurrh? The second limitation is risk. Even if a spell is successful, the clergy remains rightly concerned about whether that person is supposed to come back, or if it’s their time to die—for if it’s the latter, a marut may appear to challenge any resurrection. This is extraordinarily rare, but in part, that’s because healers perform an augury ritual beforehand. Before attempting resurrection, applicants must pay priests a minimum 1,500 gold credits for the Augury (in addition to the travel expenses for the summoned heir, if necessary). Should the Augury reveal the use of the Altar will result in "woe" or "weal and woe", it is strict policy to deny the attempt at resurrection with no refund given for the either service. There is always a risk the resurrection could go poorly, perhaps calling back other spirits in addition to—or instead of—the person being brought back to life. The final limitation is the direct intervention of a higher power. The Queen of the Dead might crystallize a shade and prevent it from being restored, or catch a spirit that’s about to be restored and set a price on its passage. How long does the beneficiary have to settle their account? A day, a year, a lifetime? It’s also said that the Keeper can snatch souls before they can pass through Dolurrh. The Keeper itself may or may not be there, but it’s certainly a powerful entity! The flip side of direct intervention is that the Queen of the Dead (or another powerful entity) might offer to return a shade to life—for a price. This is a way to bring a low-level character back to life, despite their friends being unable to afford resurrection. If all else fails, there’s one way you can always bring someone to life: go to Dolurrh, find their shade, and drag it back out to the Material Plane. It’s simple—all you need to do is to locate a single soul in the endless Catacombs (perhaps with the help of a native guide, records in the Vault of Memories, or powerful divination magic), evade Dolurrh’s many guardians, and return to Stellarium with the soul in tow. If you succeed, the victim receives a new body, just as if you’d cast true resurrection; and while Dolurrh’s defenders will try to stop you from leaving, they won’t interfere once you return to Stellarium. It’s theoretically possible to restore a husk in this way as well, though the resurrected husk generally won’t regain its lost memories, even though it might learn new skills. This is why the Queen of the Dead (and perhaps the Keeper) preserves certain shades from decay—so that they might one day be restored, even after thousands of years.How does this affect our heroes?
So… what might a powerful being demand in exchange for helping a mortal spirit return to the world? To me, the critical thing is to make this an interesting decision that drives the story forward. It could be a life for a life, require you to kill someone who escaped death, or complete a specific job for it. Maybe it wants a particular magic item(s), or you to create a movement or even build a monument for it. For the heroes of Stellarium, death is typically only a setback unless true disaster has struck. Being mechanically dead doesn’t have to mean actually dead. If a character dies, in most cases the player gets to choose if the character stays dead, or if the character returns to the game with some kind of loss. Perhaps it’s a new flaw, injury, or trauma worked out in conjunction with the DM. The “worse” the death or higher level the character at death, the more of a loss it should be. The character will typically return no sooner than the end of the current “scene.” In some cases the death may be so traumatic that there is no return without extraordinary magic.
Type
Metaphysical, Supernatural
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