Being Brought back to life

[Quadhund/Greenhouse]

Just had a question regarding raise dead. It says in the Player's manual that your soul can refuse to come back. Does this link mean that you have some knowledge of what is happening on the other plane? do you know who is trying to raise you? And can your soul refuse to be raised by a resurection or true resurection spell?

[Eons of Recluse]

As far as I know the soul can refuse to be raised. I think the soul knows who is going to raise him/her but nothing else than that.

[Munroe]

Yeah, thinking you can refuse based on who is doing the Raising but not necessarily circumstances of the Raising.

I like the various conditions of the different spells.
Raise Dead works 1 day per cleric's level after the target died. Resurrection and True Resurrection work 10 years per cleric's level after the target died.

Raise Dead requires intact body, Resurrection requires a bodypart that was part of the body at time of death, and True Resurrection at least requires a name or title.

None of them can bring back someone who died of old age.

Resurrection can bring back someone who has been undead and subsequently been destroyed as undead (requires bodypart). Resurrection won't work for vampires (among others) because in order to destroy them, the whole body is utterly destroyed. Only True Resurrection can bring back someone who has previously been a vampire.

There are other differences too but these are the ones I remember off the top of my head.

[soulfien]

refusing to come back means joining the afterlife.

Once you refuse, there's no turning back unless your God/Goddess decides.

Basically, you die and you leave your body to go to the Fugue Plane. Someone casts ressurection and your soul feels the "pull" back to your old battered body.

This is what you say yes or no to. You have no more knowledge of what's happening on the Prime Material than the living standing over your body know what's happening on the Fugue.

Once you make the decision to either join your Deity's side or go back to the land of the living, it can't be undone.

[Eons of Recluse]

Fugue Plane? Mean Material Plane right?

[Quadhund/Greenhouse]

So once you go to your deity, you cannot be raised, not even with a true resurrection spell?

If that's the case, sorry for wasting everyone's time with the search. But at least Hrothgar is happy in the shadows.

[Eons of Recluse]

Actually he can be raised. Even faithless people who have become a part of the Wall of the Faithless that protects Kelemvor's realm can be resurrected so don't lose your hope yet ;D

[Munroe]

What Soulfien said makes sense except for the descriptions of the spells vs. the description of the Fugue.

When you are on the Fugue Plane you wait from 1 day to up to a tenday for a representative of your deity to claim you. No other deities may claim a soul as theirs and the soul automatically knows to follow the representative of its deity. A soul may choose to make a deal with the Baatezu to become a minor devil (lemur) instead of going to their deity. In the case of evil gods going to the Nine Hells actually sounds better sometimes. There's upward mobility in the Hells. Tanar'ri sometimes break into the Fugue and steal souls to bolster their ranks as well. Kelemvor combats these Tanar'ri with the aid of the Baatezu as part of their arrangement. Souls that are judged False are held in the City of the Dead for punishment for betraying their gods. Souls that are Faithless become part of the Wall of the Faithless where their personality slowly disolves as they become more a part of the wall. Sometimes Tanar'ri steal souls directly out of the wall itself.

Ok, now I provided way too much information to get to my point: Souls wait for their deity's representatives for 1d10 days, variable by deity. Resurrection and True Resurrection work for 10 years per caster level. (And even Raise Dead is 1 day per caster level.) With any of these it would seem they could pull someone away from their deity. (Though I would say someone who has become a lemur is stuck in the Nine Hells.)

The question is, would someone accept the pull to leave their deity? That would probably depend on the person and their sense of responsibility to the living, as well, possibly, as how the idea was viewed by their deity. If they felt they would lose favour then they probably wouldn't go. If they felt they would just be back in their deity's realm after death again then they might go ahead. Ilmaterites, as an example, might be inclined to return to help the living, who suffer. That would be keeping with Ilmater's dogma. A paladin of Torm might feel it was his duty to return because a Raise Dead is a summons. A cleric of any god might find it pertinant to accept a Raise because their work on the Prime Material as a living being was more valuable to their god than the work they were doing in the Afterlife. Worshippers serve their gods in the Afterlife, so can they better serve alive or dead? That would really depend on the character and their god. Probably not too many Cyricists leave their god to return to life to serve him. Actually, many probably choose to become Baatezu instead because their prospects in Cyric's realm aren't so good. After all, he's crazy.

After hearing Soulfien's view I would say I'm inclined to think it is more probable that the soul doesn't know who is trying to Raise them. They might know which god's Power is being used, but then again, how do they know? I don't agree that one rejected Raise attempt means the person is permanently dead though. I'd need references before I'd concede that point. It may just be that they're busy doing their god's work at that point and someone should attempt a Raise later. In D&D the casting of a Raise spell has a rather high material component cost which isn't on FRC, so a soul may miss its chance if it declines one Raise and no one may be able to afford to attempt to Raise it again. Nobody likes to throw gold at a lost cause (except perhaps an Ilmaterite :-P).

[Quadhund/Greenhouse]

I do tend to agree munroe. I have discussed this with a few people that if you were to go before your god, would you ever want to leave that existance? I mean, the god represents what kind of life you wish to lead, so his realm would be a paradise for you, so who would want to leave, right? And I tend to agree that you wouldn't know who was calling you back.

As I once told someone, i think Hrothgar and Mask are sharing tea and crumpets and probably will be forever.

[Munroe]

I mean, the god represents what kind of life you wish to lead, so his realm would be a paradise for you, so who would want to leave, right?

Well lets take Bane for instance. Why would you want to leave? You're a tyrant who finally dies and goes to Bane. Except in his world you serve him, he owns you part and parcel. The AfterLife is a life of service. You sit there thinking "If only I'd signed up with the Baatezu instead." Somebody tries to resurrect you. "Ha! A way out!" You get resurrected. You don't remember being dead. "Praise Bane!" Too bad for you, maybe the Baatezu will be more convincing next time around?

As for Mask, he's not exactly mister wonderful, actually he's kind of dumb. He helped Cyric get a good deal of his portfolio while he was the sword Godsbane, then he lost part of his own portfolio (intrigue) to Cyric because he made his schemes too complex and they didn't work out. Kezef the Chaos Hound hunted Mask but he got a magical sword Houndsbane that put it off his trail. If he ever loses Houndsbane Kezef will resume his pursuit. (In Norse mythology Fenrir/Fenris the son of Loki bit off Tyr's hand in frustration at being bound in magical chains. In Forgotten Realms cosmology is was Kezef that bit off Tyr's hand as he was bound in magical chains. While Fenris is in chains until Ragnarok, Kezef managed to get loose.) Cyric went mad reading the book the Cyrinishad and Mask has read it too. So being in Mask's realm might not be that great. Gods in Forgotten Realms aren't infallible and their realms aren't paradises for their Faithful, their realms are their realms and they're designed more to their benefit than that of souls coming to them. Souls coming to them are in their service.

Sure, a soul might want to escape from an evil deity's realm but what about good souls? I already mentioned Torm and the soul's sense of duty to respond to the summons and the Ilmaterite's calling to lend aid. To be honest, I am not sure how being dead could be more useful to the god than being alive. Anyway, going back to the living is always a temporary change of venue from the perspective of the dead.

[soulfien]

Being tortured by continually getting killed and ressurected would be great cause to resist the raise

[Sarah]

(sara)

what happens if your don't have a soul in the first place?

[DM Richard (Retired)]

In that case you are just a golem and you go directly to the Abandoned Isle to work in the mines.

[soulfien]

well, if your soul has been taken away - or a portion of it in the case of the Vampire Lord's victims, then you wouldn't proceed into the afterlife.

You'd awaken an undead and you'd be under the Vampire Lord's control possibly.

But raising might not be possible until the Vampire Lord was defeated.

This is why Glewien declared she was perma-dead when Visitant killed her and tried ressurecting her afterwards.

[C'tair]

while reading the 'Complete Devine' supplement book, i stumbled over a few answers to questions that were asked here. the following are paragraphs from this book.

Activities in the afterlife (pg. 129+)

Become one with the plane:

The vast majority of souls in the afterlife silently experiences their final destination, whether it's a place of great beauty such as Elysium or a place of mad cruelty such as the Abyss. As time passes, they become more like the plane, taking on it's qualities and caring less about their time among the living. At some point they cease to have an independent existence and become one with the fabric of the plane itself. Essentially, souls eventually become abstract quanta of the good, evil, law, chaos or neutrality they lived with when alive.

This process is why every rich individual in the D&D world doesn't come back from the dead repeatedly. Whether they are good or evil, most souls find resonance in the afterlife - they have a sense that they are where they're supposed to be. Only souls with strong force of personality and unfinished business among the living (which includes many adventuring PCs) respond to the call of a raise dead or resurrection spell.

Respond to Resurrection Magic:

Some souls don't linger for long in the afterlife, and their final destination turns out not to be so final after all. When someone among the living casts a reincarnation, raise dead, resurrection or true resurrection spell, the contacted soul knows the name, alignment and patron deity (if any) of the character attempting to revive it. But the soul doesn't know - and can't find out - the circumstances of it's return to life. The soul might be coming back in the midst of a great battle, or the caster might be a dupe of the deceased creature's enemies, for example. The soul has a general sense of how long it's been dead, but doesn't keep exact track of time.

The soul also has a sense of which spell is bringing it back to life; it can tell how painfull the return into a living body will be. It can differentiate between resurrection magic that causes constitution or level loss and magic that doesn't.

the last subsection continues a bit further, but since different rules apply on FRC, i didn't bother to quote it here.

[Munroe]

Some souls don't linger for long in the afterlife, and their final destination turns out not to be so final after all. When someone among the living casts a reincarnation, raise dead, resurrection or true resurrection spell, the contacted soul knows the name, alignment and patron deity (if any) of the character attempting to revive it. But the soul doesn't know - and can't find out - the circumstances of it's return to life. The soul might be coming back in the midst of a great battle, or the caster might be a dupe of the deceased creature's enemies, for example. The soul has a general sense of how long it's been dead, but doesn't keep exact track of time.

That's cool. So a soul might decline a Raise Dead spell in hopes of getting Resurrected. Raise Dead has to hurt like crazy--you have 1 hp. Seriously.

[Quadhund/Greenhouse]

If someone tries to raise you and you refuse, is there a will saving throw that must be rolled?

[soulfien]

nope. Think of it as the living opening a door for you. It's up to you to walk through it.