RPGMemes

I started reading Jhereg by Steven Brust, and it takes resurrection magic into account with the world building. Part of assassination involves hiding the body until the resurrection window passes. IIRC, the legal penalties for murder are also much less severe if you just kill someone, rather than make sure they're permanently dead.

There are also "Morganti" weapons. They're pretty much the Black Blade from Elric, so they eat souls. So not only do they make resurrection impossible, but the victim is extra dead, not even existing in an afterlife. As a result, using one is a high crime, punishable by death... by Morganti blade.

Death row is just instant execution, and the date you would be killed is now the last day you could be revived with common means.

In the Forgotten Realms, the Kingdom of Cormyr has strict penalties against resurrecting monarchs. The penalty is death for the resurrector, and castration + exile for the former king. And the famed War Wizards of Cormyr absolutely have the capability to enforce that law.

I'm not certain (and don't have either my notes or the novel those notes were taken from to hand), but IIRC a resurrection of someone formerly in the line of succession puts them at the end of the line, even if they were as high up as the king's eldest son prior to death.

This naturally creates an issue if the prince dies and is resurrected while a long way from the capital, and returns to the kingdom to find the king has also died while he was gone. Who died first is going to matter greatly, but might be rather difficult to determine.

These are great world building ideas. Thanks!

You forgot revival being included in the sentence, possibly multiple times over.

Fun fact: that's exactly how much it cost for a single day of the OJ Simpson defense.

Going with the cost of living equivalent, it's only about $15,000, which I think still does the job of pricing out the poor

But in that case, they'd probably fine you so that they get that money instead of just letting those diamonds be destroyed.

Also, Zealot Barbarians can be Revivified for free. They'd probably want to close that loophole.

But reincarnation is canon in D&D so that would require hunting down that soul and repeatedly executing them for all eternity.

Sure thing. You will do so in that cage over there. To the guards: He already had his last meal.

That actually worked once, for a Jester named Triboulet who did things like slap the King's bottom and spread gossip. He chose his execution method as a joke and the King actually laughed, so he was exiled.

In earlier editions, Ghosts rapidly aged anyone they touched by draining their life force. Just saying.

"big ass tiddies, your honor"

"Not that merciful. Guards, off with his head!"

tbf, the rest of the party is probably awaiting sentencing

Using our world as a template, it probably would be illegal to revive a convict, but itd be an open secret that a few well placed bribes and a bit of influence is all it'd take to bend the rules

death without parole

🤣

That only works if they can't be brought back with resurrection spells.

I like this. It's Faust, but make it fun. Keeps things moving

And their complete mistrust of the justice system.

Vive la revolution anyone?

There's this constant tension with D&D where it wants to be medieval and it wants to have easily-reproducible magic. Follow the magic through to its logical conclusion and you get essentially modern technology with a mystical/medieval aesthetic, ignore it and you get big blatant plot holes.

Yes, although you could use Gentle Repose can look like a post death ritual and give you a ten day window.

That'd be if he sentenced himself to death to appease himself for everyone else breaking the rules he wrote, then re-vivified himself.

The ol' single deity circlejerk.