See morality "Does Paladin Fall" thread yesterday, with over 9000 replies

I'm one of those people who are on the fence about that nature v nurture debate but I'm a romantic and I like to think that people can change based on those random interactions or with the encounter of an important person.

I peed in your mother's genetic soup.

Your confusing the Forgotten Realms with Minnesota. In real life death is scary and unknown and "bad" and we flee from it, God may or may not exist, and everything is Freedom(trm.)

In the FR setting, though, the Gods are close and visibly active and the lands of the dead are literal locations you can visit, and for a small donation you can speak directly with those who have done the earthly duty they were born into and have since passed on.

Your grandfather may have been a potato farmer his whole life, but after his time arrived (he 'just had indigestion' and 'wanted a nap') he passed on to the Storehouse of Chauntea, spending his "adjustment days" in the feasthall getting to try orange juice for the first time and gorging on the little sweet carrots that he hadn't tasted since he was a child, before he left the village of his birth. Surely you wouldn't take that away from him, not when the Harris boy needs the work? I know your sister certainly wants him around more often, I've seen the way they look at each other every time he comes over to "pick up a bit of the slack, just for now."

(Grandpa's going to be just fine, user. Chauntea made it clear that he's free to feast as long as he wants, that no one 'has' to help with the spiritual side of the years crops, and it's best to just relax until his strength comes back. She even pretends not to notice he's sneaking second helpings trying to ready himself quicker. Potatoes have to go in early, after all.)

Ressurection can be done, if it meant for a higher purpose.
If you really need a co op buddy to kill the Church of Whatever, it might be fine. But thats why you ask your God for the ressurection spell, not another in the Pantheon

I consider resurrection to be the new Indulgences. The Church's Clerics are the only one's who can cast it, and as such, use it as the ultimate insurance.

Say you are one of the late king's three sons about to battle for the throne, if you pay the church for absolvment and follow their will, they promise resurrection should you fail in the upcoming battles or should you be assassinated. If you claim the throne and continue to obey the Church, they will extend your life.

The Church will also resurrect their mightiest paladins and clerics should they die unjustly.

... this. I gave it some thought, and in a setting with a pantheon it is weirdly ok for the gods to play favorites. "this hero works to make me more popular and undo my foes, I should keep them around" seems perfectly reasonable when you allow your deities to have selfish mortal qualities. I'd like to imagine there might even be one that has kept one person alive for thousnds of years just because they are so friggin good at this job. Like, they go on regular suicidal missions just to be resurrected over and over. Obsessive yandere cleric when?

Resurrection is extremely limited and extremely rare.

The people with the power are the ones who decide who gets revived.

Technically Ressurection type magic should all fall into the Chaotic label by default. Death is a part of the natural order, using magic to bring someone back goes against the very rules of life itself, thus Lawful people should abhor the use of it.

Now whether its use should cause the fall of a Paladin depends on the Deity they serve, Chaos or Evil gods should see the use of ressurection to either cause problems, e.g. res a dead king to mess with lines of succession. And evil should be using it to bring back long dead tyranta and warlords to cause Destruction.

While Good should be using it to revive people taken in war, the people caught in the crossfire.

However if you have a death god the use of such magic should cause a fall as it sure tly opposses them.

Twist, incredibly skilled hero, keeps taking more insane questa because they want a warriors death. However the gods keep ressurectinf him becauae they are selfish and dont want to lose such a useful peon. So hes bitter about the gods.

I like this topic. Thanks for the threat OP.
I will be addressing questions and concerns in order that I find them.
But first we need to address the issue of the setting. In a JRPG you can just go to the corner drugstore and pick up a dozen Phoenix feathers and resurrect all day.
Let's assume a Forgotten Realms sort of setting if for no other reason than because my personal setting is Loosely based off Forgotten Realms.
>how do you decide who gets to be resurrected?
Just like who gets a clean and safe abortion, it is largely dependent on availability of the resources.
In most cases it's rather expensive to resurrect someone, but I can see no issue with a community banding together to raise funds to resurrect a local farm boy who accidentally drowned or something.
>EVERYONE has equal rights, right?
It's always been a case of The Haves and the Have-Nots. Always will be.
But the deciding factor will always be who among the living has them means and will to affect the resurrection.
People might been together together pennies and bring back Tiny Tim, but nobody is bringing back rich, old Ebenezer.

In my setting, another very big factor is whether or not the dead person wants to be Resurrected. Most resurrections won't work on the unwilling. There are magics that can bring back the unwilling, but that is some very dark necromancy that is considered extremely evil.

>Our GOD has decided that resurrection is a perversion of nature no matter how noble.
This is actually the philosophy of the God and religion of death in my setting. To them, once a person is solidly dead, any form of bringing them back is blasphemy.
(The God of Death ending up being more of a god of murdering the fuck out of all Undead.)
But that boundary between life and death works both ways. The priests of death would take great action to prevent a resurrection, but as soon as the dead returns to life as a truly resurrected person, not an undead abomination, then they are among the living and killing them would be a blasphemy as well.
It ends up being a bit like crossing over the border just out of Death's jurisdiction.
Old and wise priests of death know that religious orders that cast true Resurrection are not nearly as evil as undead and there's always more on dead to destroy.
Young and foolish Priests of death are more likely to cause trouble with other religions.

>Your confusing the Forgotten Realms with Minnesota.
You'd be surprised how often that happens.

>Ressurection can be done, if it meant for a higher purpose.
I disagree with this. In my settings, there are three Christian analogous religions. The one most likely to do resurrections is the one centered around people following their true path. If they feel a person's path has been interrupted by death, typically through accidents or murder or such, they will be more than willing to resurrect them.
They are less likely to do it for a warrior who died in battle as death in battle is a natural end to a Warriors Path, but they could be convinced the individual's path had been ended too soon.
The other two religions are centered around light and life; one is simply more regimented and dogmatic than the other, so each has the nuances of when they would or would not resurrect a person.

Here's a better question. In a world where afterlives are confirmed to exist, to the point where you can pop back and forth basically whenever, who the fuck cares about dying or resurrection? Unless an adventurer NEEDS to come back to save the world, why would you ever bring someone back?

"Oh no! Little Timmy got run over by a cart and now hes in a utopia of unending bliss! But don't worry, we'll use this diamond powder to drag him back to his old life so he can experience sadness and loss again!"

That's only cos of all the elves we get around here.

Remember the days when you could smite an orc without anyone batting an eye? When did this job get so complicated?

Timmy has chores to do, dammit!

Heh

>everyone has equal rights
In what fantasy setting?

Seriously, I don't know what it is about the Mississippi that draws 'em, but its like moths to a fucking flame.

Reckon it's the fish.

Only player characters and other silly fucks can resurrect.
PCs because their souls are outside of the realm (the players at the table are their souls), the BBEG or other very important and powerful fucks because the GM wants them to.

Any NPC really likes/is drawn to the Planescape afterlife, doing whatever it is in their alignment and forgetting everything they were in life, and being un-resurrect able.

What did I just read @_@

>he doesn't have a level 18 cleric and a diamond mine in each and every village
dropped

I have meat in my teeth.

Its exactly the same as providing expensive health care IRL. Nothing really to discuss.

Death certainy is natural, but AFAIK ressurection wont ressurect people that died of natural causes - only those who died unnatural death (violence, accidents,...).

Ressurection an evil person fighting in Blood War in its after life might make much more sense, though.

I have teeth in my meat.

Crunchy.

If there is an objectively proven afterlife (as there is in most generic D&D settings) and this afterlife is better for most people than their lives were (smaller subset of the first category, but still a lot) then resurrecting the average person is in fact immoral, as it is forcing them from a superior state of existence to an inferior one.

Relatedly, murder and genocide can never be wrong in such a setting because either the 'victims' are evil (and thus deserve it, orc babies etc.) or they are good and go to one of the good afterlives (and thus their deaths actually substantially improve their quality of life).

Discuss.

Murder and genocide is still wrong because it would be grand theft, even if they do get a greater life in the heavens.

Killing a child would be the worst crime of all. You rob him of his life and the life he had yet to live. You rob his mother of her child that she had born and raised. You rob his father of an heir, perhaps the continuation of his bloodline. You rob his siblings of their brother. You rob his friends, associates, and caretakers of experiences they will never have.

>diamonds are valuable
There's a de Beers like cartel in your fantasy world? Seems like that's the sort of evil organisation player characters should be fighting against.