A Sword Without a Hilt: A Song of Ice and Fire/D&D 3.5 Crossover

[Interregnum]

To be fair, I misunderstood the idea and it was not intended to start mass-resurrecting people.

Still not a fan though.

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Yea, no. I'm not saying we should start mass resurrections. What I'm saying is that we do what literally every government ever does when faced with a persistent request that cannot be regulated away and create a separate department to dump those requests into a paper shredder unless and until there is an incentive to do otherwise. It's not like DP makes us deal with every single angry nobleman and merchant who doesn't like how the courts ruled... anymore, at least. We only really see that stuff when something has gone extraordinarily sideways.

I envision it much more like "Oh shit a backwater providence is in rebellion because of a devil worshipping magistrate, who do we send to deal with this? Wait, never mind, one of the rebel leaders requested that their son be resurrected after he was wrongly sentenced to death. Someone stop by with a diamond after lunch so we can move on."

 

[Sapphon]

In my opinion the Emperor and his Companions should not be the main source of resurrection in principle. We have a temple where Yss sits, not a high priest or even an avatar, but a real god sits there. And he always makes fair deals, always fulfills them, and is also the god of trade. It's just a matter of time before someone comes up with the idea to bring him a mountain of gold and resurrect a dear person, if it hasn't already happened.
On the other hand we rather need to make sure that no one is resurrected who is not necessary, for example, those executed by a court verdict. And there's the big question of property, inheritance, and the legal status of the resurrected. Let such questions not yet stand, but in the future, and very close, they will certainly arise.
And the young warlock's family will be resurrected as soon as they are paid for, or otherwise negotiated with the legitimate gods in our Imperium.

 

[Azel]

Yea, no. I'm not saying we should start mass resurrections. What I'm saying is that we do what literally every government ever does when faced with a persistent request that cannot be regulated away and create a separate department to dump those requests into a paper shredder unless and until there is an incentive to do otherwise. It's not like DP makes us deal with every single angry nobleman and merchant who doesn't like how the courts ruled... anymore, at least. We only really see that stuff when something has gone extraordinarily sideways.

I envision it much more like "Oh shit a backwater providence is in rebellion because of a devil worshipping magistrate, who do we send to deal with this? Wait, never mind, one of the rebel leaders requested that their son be resurrected after he was wrongly sentenced to death. Someone stop by with a diamond after lunch so we can move on."

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There is already a petition and appeals process though. If you object to something, you can appeal it in courts until it ends up on Viserys desk, and if you want to ask the crown for something, you request an audience.

Or you ask someone else, like one of the major temples. Much easier to get an audience there.

 

[mmgaballah]

I don't think wide scale publicly available mass-resurrecting people is even possible in D&D as that requires two things first is access to specific high level spells depending on who your trying to bring back's cause of death which are not exactly plentiful in setting requiring either high level spell casters or scrolls which are not easy to come by as high level casters are both rare tend to have better things to do than constantly rising people and scribing scrolls not to mention they aren't cheap either .

The second thing needed is an especially rare high quality diamond (with increasing quality needed for higher level the spell) regent for castings the spell which are extremely expensive for good reason as those diamonds are most likely of a limited supply with a single diamond mine probably producing a single diamond usable for a raise dead spell for every thousand diamonds mined with the regents needed for the higher level spells being even rarer still , if commercially available resurrection magic is attempted those regents are most likely going to become even rarer and more expensive as more and more of them is used up

also there is a degree of unreliability with resurrection magic as souls could end up lost in the astral sea , climbed in the lower plains or simply not want to come back which will likely discourage some people from trying as the sheer amount of resources needed for an attempt is not to be discounted for an average person

 

[Crake]

I mean, to be honest if you have high levels and can carve your way through the local wildlife, bandits and demonic/daemonic/eldritch incursions criss-crossing their way through the Planes, you could for instance take a little "enthusiastic" walk through the Plane of Earth using a combination of divination, conjuration and transmutation to avoid the worst hazards, and find big old deposits of high quality disamonds. And all you need to do to claim them is kill the CR 22 monster which made a lair among the gemstones there.

...what do you mean this is not a practical option for people??

Maybe they should... not be not an Archmage? 🤷‍♂️

 

[Interregnum]

There is already a petition and appeals process though. If you object to something, you can appeal it in courts until it ends up on Viserys desk, and if you want to ask the crown for something, you request an audience.

Or you ask someone else, like one of the major temples. Much easier to get an audience there.

Click to shrink...

In which case people are already begging for resurrections and are getting pissed when they get denied out of hand. Functionally, all I am suggesting is that we make a minor amendment to how petitions are structured. If someone is petitioning the Crown for a resurrection as part of the appeal, their pleading gets dumped in a different bin than the rest. Then, in the future, we can avoid concerns about whether granting a one-off resurrection because it would be a highly convenient solution a problem that isn't going away otherwise would suddenly "set a bad precedent." The precedent has already been set: the writ of resurrection goes in its assigned box and we grant it if we fell like it. Which we won't unless the person being resurrected or their family is important and/or helpful.

And, out-of-character, every "should we resurrect this character?" debate can be pushed off until the end of a turn, or longer. Honestly I think that is the biggest benefit because it places a chunk of IRL time between the in-universe event and the vote. In effect, it would ensure that we'd only ever grant resurrections if they were directly relevant to the upcoming turn plan.

 

[BronzeTongue]

In my opinion the Emperor and his Companions should not be the main source of resurrection in principle. We have a temple where Yss sits, not a high priest or even an avatar, but a real god sits there. And he always makes fair deals, always fulfills them, and is also the god of trade. It's just a matter of time before someone comes up with the idea to bring him a mountain of gold and resurrect a dear person, if it hasn't already happened.
On the other hand we rather need to make sure that no one is resurrected who is not necessary, for example, those executed by a court verdict. And there's the big question of property, inheritance, and the legal status of the resurrected. Let such questions not yet stand, but in the future, and very close, they will certainly arise.
And the young warlock's family will be resurrected as soon as they are paid for, or otherwise negotiated with the legitimate gods in our Imperium.

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Point on the other sources, but as a minor aside Yss isn't directly in residence any more. When he moved passed divine rank 0 he by necessity had to move the seat of his power to his newly revitalized divine realm. That temple still has a ludicrously active avatar in it though, so for the sake of haggling for level 5 spells there isn't much of a difference.

edit:
@Interregnum once is a miracle, twice is amazing, three times is unremarkable, and a department of mortal vivification is an irritant stopping you from getting on with your life.

Making an entity for it changes the nature of the requests from something special to something expected enough to have a public office that anyone can wander in to. I think presenting it that way when it already requires special attention to do in the first place creates an expectation we can't fill no matter what other context we put around it.

 

[Duesal]

I mean, to be honest if you have high levels and can carve your way through the local wildlife, bandits and demonic/daemonic/eldritch incursions criss-crossing their way through the Planes, you could for instance take a little "enthusiastic" walk through the Plane of Earth using a combination of divination, conjuration and transmutation to avoid the worst hazards, and find big old deposits of high quality disamonds. And all you need to do to claim them is kill the CR 22 monster which made a lair among the gemstones there.

...what do you mean this is not a practical option for people??

Maybe they should... not be not an Archmage? 🤷‍♂️

Click to shrink...

We can also buy diamond dust and fabricate it into a resurrection quality diamond of equal value. It's not like Lya or Viserys don't have the skill to pull it off. Hell, they could do it en mass and have hundreds of diamonds ready to go.

 

[Crake]

We can also buy diamond dust and fabricate it into a resurrection quality diamond of equal value. It's not like Lya or Viserys don't have the skill to pull it off. Hell, they could do it en mass and have hundreds of diamonds ready to go.

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I like how we started talking about availability of resurrection, and just got less and less reasonable about it over time.

 

[Duesal]

I like how we started talking about availability of resurrection, and just got less and less reasonable about it over time.

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Eh, it's pretty much just be Important enough to justify us bothering with the effort. The availability of diamonds itself isn't a problem. At the end of the day we can just poke the Shaitan. Gone are the days when we have to go from house to house to buy old family heirlooms.

 

[Interregnum]

edit:
@Interregnum once is a miracle, twice is amazing, three times is unremarkable, and a department of mortal vivification is an irritant stopping you from getting on with your life.

Making an entity for it changes the nature of the requests from something special to something expected enough to have a public office that anyone can wander in to. I think presenting it that way when it already requires special attention to do in the first place creates an expectation we can't fill no matter what other context we put around it.

Click to shrink...

The thread's longstanding paranoia about even mentioning resurrecting in-character is something I strongly disagree about. The Imperial government has usurped so many functions that affect the lives of its citizens that I do not think being literal about it would be more than a flash in the pan. Moreover, I consider our addressing this something of an inevitability. At least in theory, we are in a race against the clock to advance the Imperial Deity project before information about the Broken Spheres reaches the general populace, though the deadline is highly uncertain. To say nothing of the eventual threat of the Void. I think we're be better off gradually introducing Imperial citizens to the idea that not even their soul is beyond regulation, and maybe that isn't such a bad thing. Being a bit more open about the existence of resurrection spells is part of that. Especially now that we're getting Imperial spellcasters drawing power directly from the Imperium/Viserys.

The absolute best way to normalize this stuff is to make it so mundane that that there is a public office that anyone can wander into.

 

[Goldfish]

We have never made any effort to hide the possibility of Resurrection magic. There are too many gods and too many people with basic Knowledge (Religion) for that to be practical. Multiple temples exist in various cities throughout the Imperium where someone could visit and petition to have someone Resurrected, assuming they have the necessary wealth to afford the service. What we don't do is advertise that we can and will do so for those we consider worthy.

Providing that service ourselves, especially subsidizing it, isn't just hassle we don't need, it opens a door that we can't close afterward. We Resurrect who we want to, and on our dime, and that's the long and short of it. Otherwise, everyone is going to want to be Resurrected and they're going to get pissed when they're denied. Or when their little Johnny or Susan isn't considered worthy of being restored to life.

Even if Resurrection quality diamonds can be found endlessly, or formed wholesale from diamond dust (which I doubt would work for metaphysical reasons), they are still worth more than 99.99% of all people living on the planet will earn in their entire productive lives. That might not be fair, but that's the tyranny of wealth and magic in a D&D/Pathfinder setting.

People are just going to have to settle for having their quality of life dramatically improved, their food and water made safe, their healthcare provided for free or at a hefty discount, their education provided for free, etc. And if they want to Resurrect someone, or have themselves Resurrected, they better see about earning a lot of money.

 

[Duesal]

The thread's longstanding paranoia about even mentioning resurrecting in-character is something I strongly disagree about. The Imperial government has usurped so many functions that affect the lives of its citizens that I do not think being literal about it would be more than a flash in the pan. Moreover, I consider our addressing this something of an inevitability. At least in theory, we are in a race against the clock to advance the Imperial Deity project before information about the Broken Spheres reaches the general populace, though the deadline is highly uncertain. To say nothing of the eventual threat of the Void. I think we're be better off gradually introducing Imperial citizens to the idea that not even their soul is beyond regulation, and maybe that isn't such a bad thing thing. Being a bit more open about the existence of resurrection spells is part of that. Especially now that we're getting Imperial spellcasters drawing power directly from the Imperium/Viserys.

The absolute best way to normalize this stuff is to make it so mundane that that there is a public office that anyone can wander into.

Click to shrink...

We've explicitly confirmed on MirrorVision that resurrection is possible, but we were also upfront that it costs a lot and you'd have to justify why you're important enough for a resurrection.

Are you a PC who can stand up to monsters? Are you an Imperial Mage? Are you a powerful Outsider in service of the Imperium? Are you a governor of some kind keeping a region together? Some people are more important than other people. That's just a fact of life. Even if the diamonds are as common as dirt, the spell slots are a limited resource. There's a reason we strictly instructed Dany that she wasn't allowed to spam all her spell slots on regenerating dicks for the Unsullied no matter how sorry she felt for them.

 

[Crake]

they better see about earning a lot of money.

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Which is just advantageous to us... earning that kinda money necessitates the kind of entrepreneurship we can tax!

Or it means they power leveled, and after they've leveled up enough to earn that kinda wealth, they'll need to do something with themselves afterwards. Preferably something in our interest! If not, if they remain a citizen, the taxes we'll get from when they inject piles of cash into the magic item market will flow back into our treasury.

Win-win for us, huh? Don't even gotta do a thing.

 

[Crake]

There's a reason we strictly instructed Dany that she wasn't allowed to spam all her spell slots on regenerating dicks for the Unsullied no matter how sorry she felt for them.

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Though even then, according to DP, we have enough high level mages doing healing pro-bono that this was largely handled, even without spell-slot spamming. Vee at the least apparently spends her free time fixing medical issues the regular healers can't handle. So there's a lot of immigrants to SD who were missing hands or limbs. Some of the ones missing a hand were likely former thiefs.

Which could lead to interesting situations where one realizes they don't have to steal anymore, since there's plenty of job markets, subsidized apprenticeships, state positions (join the Legion! / learn Engineering / fly through the skies!), potential to learn magic (not much talent? No problem! Learn rituals / use your meager abilities commercially!) etc. And also the bread doles for new immigrants.

I for one am all for eradicating unemployment!

 

[Daredevil_Dave]

How about give her the same deal as Joran?

She's a warlock of either one of the Furies or Viserys. She's bound to have some job in the future.

 

[DragonParadox]

We can also buy diamond dust and fabricate it into a resurrection quality diamond of equal value. It's not like Lya or Viserys don't have the skill to pull it off. Hell, they could do it en mass and have hundreds of diamonds ready to go.

Click to shrink...

You guys cannot fabricate high quality diamonds, no one can. The metaphysical weight of them is from being rare precious which must be caught out in the depths of the earth and carefully carved with the tools and art of the craftsman. Snapping your fingers at diamond dust will not do it.

Also in economic terms being able to make high quality gems will break things so fabricate cannot even actually do that, it can only magically name something you could do with tools only faster and more efficiently.

 

[Crake]

You guys cannot fabricate high quality diamonds, no one can. The metaphysical weight of them is from being rare precious which must be caught out in the depths of the earth and carefully carved with the tools and art of the craftsman. Snapping your fingers at diamond dust will not do it.

Also in economic terms being able to make high quality gems will break things so fabricate cannot even actually do that, it can only magically name something you could do with tools only faster and more efficiently.

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So are you saying that using pressure to create artificial diamonds won't do either, if it doesn't have the weight of years behind it?

Even though you'd have craftsmen working over it? (could they be used as lower quality reagents?)

Man I have so many questions about how innovation and manipulating natural forces could workaround the metaphysical requirements associated with reagents, and how the universe is able to actually indentify the difference between a diamond made in laboratory conditions and one found in natural deposits.

 

[DragonParadox]

So are you saying that using pressure to create artificial diamonds won't do either, if it doesn't have the weight of years behind it?

Even though you'd have craftsmen working over it? (could they be used as lower quality reagents?)

Man I have so many questions about how innovation and manipulating natural forces could workaround the metaphysical requirements associated with reagents, and how the universe is able to actually indentify the difference between a diamond made in laboratory conditions and one found in natural deposits.

Click to shrink...

False diamonds could not be used as resurrection reagents, but they might make good illusion reagents since they are 'false' in some regard.

The difference is one of sentient intent. If you want to violate the natural order and bring someone back from the dead, you have to sacrifice a rare and precious thing of nature which has been shaped by craft and skill. Sacrificing something that just looks like a rare and precious thing of nature will get you the same effect as trying to feed an empty body that has never been alive or animate into the flesh forge

 

[Crake]

False diamonds could not be used as resurrection reagents, but they might make good illusion reagents since they are 'false' in some regard.

The difference is one of sentient intent. If you want to violate the natural order and bring someone back from the dead, you have to sacrifice a rare and precious thing of nature which has been shaped by craft and skill. Sacrificing something that just looks like a rare and precious thing of nature will get you the same effect as trying to feed an empty body that has never been alive or animate into the flesh forge

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So they might be useful for making cosmetics, toys and party games.

You realize that's actually a pretty good market... the average person is not going to have a need for most of the things you can read about in the Magic Item Compendium and similar SRD books, but magical makeup, party favors and similar things would be desirable to the average person.

 

[DragonParadox]

So they might be useful for making cosmetics, toys and party games.

You realize that's actually a pretty good market... the average person is not going to have a need for most of the things you can read about in the Magic Item Compendium and similar SRD books, but magical makeup, party favors and similar things would be desirable to the average person.

Click to shrink...

Sure, the thing is reagents for illusion spells are generally cheaper.

 

[T_of_A]

A high level Binder can raise 960 people in 8 hours, if someone is bringing the corpses in fast enough, without needing material components. People might refuse because their souls would know they're being called back by a Pseudonatural creature, but apart from that there's no reason not to set up some sort of dead-raising scheme for people our ops kill by accident.

Unfortunately we've never found a Binder IC, so we're absolutely nowhere near achieving this. We don't even know if Vestiges are a part of DP's cosmology. The Binder opponent I made a year or two ago never got used, so... Maybe this is impossible in this setting?

 

[DragonParadox]

A high level Binder can raise 960 people in 8 hours, if someone is bringing the corpses in fast enough, without needing material components. People might refuse because their souls would know they're being called back by a Pseudonatural creature, but apart from that there's no reason not to set up some sort of dead-raising scheme for people our ops kill by accident.

Unfortunately we've never found a Binder IC, so we're absolutely nowhere near achieving this. We don't even know if Vestiges are a part of DP's cosmology. The Binder opponent I made a year or two ago never got used, so... Maybe this is impossible in this setting?

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Binders are still in worldbuilding limbo. I have not found reason to introduce them yet, but I may in the future. That said if I do I can't just port over the canon vestiges.

 

[T_of_A]

Binders are still in worldbuilding limbo. I have not found reason to introduce them yet, but I may in the future. That said if I do I can't just port over the canon vestiges.

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Going through a list of possible vestiges:

• Naberius and Buer are basically nonentities outside of their Vestiges description, so they could be ported it. That could make Binders useful as social-fu/spy characters who provide infinite HP healing once they hit level 5, making it worth the effort for the Scholarium to train them. Become a Binder, work for the houses of healing!
• Zceryll, the most fun vestige and the only reason I play Binders, is unfortunately deeply connected to the Far Realm. I bet you that she'll be reworked to involve the Deep Ones or something, possibly making her inconvenient to use (while you're bound to her the Deep Ones can access your senses) or even unavailable for PCs.
• Tenebrous, another strong vestige, is an emanation of a God who doesn't exist in this cosmology. I'm betting that he'll be reworked to be linked to the Bloodstone Emperor to go with his themes of shadow mysteries + undeath, again potentially making him unavailable or difficult to use. On the other hand, a good Tenebrous build can also provide infinite healing + squads of undead, so they make for good minions.

 

[DragonParadox]

Update in beta.