I believe Raise Dead has a limit of the person being dead for at most 1 day per caster level, while Resurrect is longer (1 year? 10 years? somebody help me out). Roy was gone a long time.
From the SRD for Raise Dead:
I think missing all your flesh and organs would count as “not whole” for the purposes of this spell.
The OOTS universe is remarkably inconsistent about death. The Oracle arranged to have a couple of clerics stop by and raise him after he predicted that Belkar would kill him. So death is a minor inconvenience in OOTS-verse unless it’s convenient to the author that it isn’t. Tarquin’s lizard buddy is pissed at Nale because he killed his family. But he’s a high-level cleric and could easily raise them. Tarquin hasn’t brought back his wife. And these aren’t low-level schmoes for whom a diamond is prohibitively expensive.
It’s even a joke in the prequel novel – you see Roy’s father’s tombstone (I think) with a bunch of “died” dates on it.
Bottom line – V should feel terrible and she probably owes the Draketooth clan a metric boatload of diamonds, but it’s not like she’s done anything permanent, like, I dunno, tracking mud over their favorite carpet.
Er, no, it was cast at a dragon that was no longer acting in any manner – V had already killed her (ending the threat to hir family) and reanimated her head for the sole purpose of inflicting gratuitous torment.
The Oracle is a direct and apparently unique servant to a deity, so he gets special consideration from the priesthood. Also, he’s apparently filthy rich.
He’s a high-level cleric of a god of death. He may not be allowed to raise anyone.
I don’t know Tarquin’s reason, but given the number of times he’s been married, he might just think it’s cheaper and easier to find another woman to marry. He doesn’t seem terribly grief-stricken. If he does want her back (and she wants to return), he can spring for a Resurrection as easily as Raise Dead; under those circumstances, it might actually make tactical sense to leave her dead until he finds out who or what killed her and ensures that it won’t happen again.
Apparently it’s much more difficult to raise children from the dead. On the one hand, there’s a loss of levels involved and children are so low-level they don’t have enough of a buffer to overcome this. Second, being raised from the dead is a voluntary thing - the subject has to agree to come back from their afterlife. With adults, duty and obligation is usually enough cause to draw them back. But children don’t feel the same sense of responsibility - they’re happy playing with a bunch of new toys up in heaven and they don’t want to stop just because somebody’s calling for them to come back.
As for Tarquin - he probably could have brought Penelope back from the dead. But he doesn’t seem to be that kind of sentimental person. Instead he probably decided he might as well keep his gp’s and find a new wife.
In fairness to the strip, it’s just accurately reflecting how these magics are used in the game. In my campaign, I’ve ruled that spells like Raise Dead (and the more powerful versions) almost never work. 99% of people who die don’t want to leave whichever afterlife they find themselves in, because they’ve gone to whatever plane most perfectly represents their idea of how the world should work. When someone casts a Raise spell on them, they refuse to leave their ideal afterlife. Only people with important, unfulfilled tasks or overwhelming need will allow themselves to be raised. Which, conveniently, includes most PCs, because PCs tend to get killed while trying to save the world, or some such thing, and thus have a powerful incentive to return.
Just wanted to say thanks for all the resurrection/raising discussion responding (even obliquely) to my question in post #3858 above.
True. Now I’m wondering if V will include that bit in hir explanation. Of course, we don’t know, yet, if V will come clean or not.
I’m thinking not. She hasn’t come clean about any detail of her trip to the dark side. Admitting to Familicide would necessitate telling the entire tale, talking about the Three Fiends, etc. Lots for her to brood on before spilling her guts.
My guess is there isn’t going to be much time to brood, that we’ll head off into an action scene almost right away.
I have a special rez rule in some of my LARP scripts that none of the players have run into yet. There’s a mid-level spell in our system that can bring you back if you’ve been dead for less than five minutes, and I haven’t messed with that, but beyond that window, it requires Raise Dead, which is a max-level cleric spell.
The extra twist in my piece of the setting is that Raise Dead doesn’t actually resurrect the character. It triggers a personal interview with Death, who will review your petition, consult with the character’s shade, and decide whether or not to restore the dead character to life. He’s been known to get…testy…with people who waste his time with frivolous requests.
I’m gonna bet the long odds and predict that V spills her guts immediately in the next comic.
(also, I really hope she/he doesn’t come out of this too badly. He/she’s my favorite character :()
Vaarsuvius might be about the blurt out the truth right now in this moment of shock.
But that’s part of the reason I think there’s about to be a fight or some other action scene. This will prevent Vaarsuvius from confessing until the action is resolved and by them the initial shock will have passed. And Vaarsuvius will then decide it’s best to conceal what happened.
V is striving to reform her attitude, as evidenced by her improved relationship with her familiar. Fessing up to her misdeeds would be another step on that path.
And V does have some mitigating circumstances, having been soul-bound to 3 epic Evil souls at the time may have influenced her choice to use the Familicide in the first place.
While I am sure V would find it comforting to believe that, we know that the 3 epic Evil souls had no more effect on hir behavior than the cheerleaders do on the final score.
OK, can somebody lay out for me the “at least 9” factions vying for a win here? i don’t feel up to rereading the whole thread to find out what the answer is. We know of: OotS, Linear Guild, Xykon, Red Cloak, Tarquin, the 3 Fiends, and who else? Girard’s original group, of course. And…?
I would add the gods and the Snarl itself to that list.
Edit: And possibly the Dark One will prove to have much different motives to what Recloak thinks, making another faction
Agreed, but is the Snarl actually a faction, or just a force?
The Azure City paladins are arguably a separate group with an interest in the outcome, or at least the oath means they’re involved.