Death, the Afterlife, and Raising the Dead

Raising the Dead

All spells capable of returning a living organism to life reconnect the spirit (if the creature was sentient) to the body and The Giver returns the little bit of life essence needed to return an organism to life. Essentially, the spell provides the magical energy necessary for The Giver to tap the life essence at a time when he normally wouldn't be able to do so. If the creature being raised wasn't sentient, such as a plant, the spell automatically succeeds. But, in order to reconnect a spirit to its body and return it to life, someone capable of performing the raise dead ritual must petition the deity that currently has the spirit of the departed in its care. Unfortunately, only a worshiper of the deity in question can make such a petition. Once such a petition has been made, the deity can allow the spirit to return to its body, it can refuse, or it can add additional requirements that must be met before it will allow the spirit to reconnect with its body. In the later case, once any additional requirements have been agreed upon and met, the deity is beholden to return the spirit to its body. A spirit can refuse to return to its body; the individual performing the raise dead ritual will instantly know that this is the case, and no material components will be expended.

What Happens When One Dies

Upon dying, the life essence of any living thing is collected by The Taker, while the spirit of a sentient creature will linger in the area of its dead body for about a day. It is during this time that most beings realize what has happened to them. As long as the raise dead ritual is started during this time, a worshiper of any deity is capable of performing the ritual and raising the individual from the dead because the spirit is not in the care of a deity. After this time, The Psychopomp comes to gather up the soul and take it to Crystal Keep. This normally takes about 3 days, and during this time only a cleric of The Psychopomp is capable of returning the spirit to its body. After this, the spirit is left in Crystal Keep, under the care of The Destined. The spirit remains here for 10 days, and during this time, only a cleric of The Destined is capable of reconnecting spirit to body. Generally, both The Psychopomp and The Destined will allow any spirits in their care to be reconnected to their bodies. At the end of 10 days, The Destined renders her judgement and the spirit is immediately transported to its final home, which is usually the home plane of its patron deity in life if it followed the deity's rules and teachings. If it didn't, the spirit is typically sent to Abital, where it is now in the domain of The Lord of Pain and the demons and devils that worship him. There are rare occasions where the spirit of a deceased individual ends up in the care of some other deity. The circumstances behind such occasions are usually quite bizaar. At this time, trying to get someone raised from the dead gets trickier, as one must find a worshiper of the person's patron deity or a worshiper of The Lord of Pain, depending on where the spirit ended up, and finding that out isn't always an easy proposition. The Lord of Pain is rarely willing to return a spirit to its body without some form of extra payment, usually in the form of some unsavory task. The willingness or unwillingness of other deities is different for each.

The above is all assuming everything is normal. It's when things are abnormal that you get spirits wandering the world, becoming ghosts or some other form of undead, or maybe just haunting the place they died or some other place of importance in life. Typically, when The Psychopomp fails to gather up a soul, that soul either wandered away from its body and couldn't be found, or it simply refused to go with The Psychopomp, choosing to remain on the Material Plane.

The Afterlife

Who can say what the afterlife is really like, after one's spirit has reached its final home? The only thing that can be safely assumed is that it all depends on where one's spirit ended up.