The business of raising the dead

It's a common thing in OSR games (and also mentioned in multiple TSR rulebooks, if I'm not mistaken) to have churches in major towns always having a cleric/priest with the Raise Dead spell, ready to bring back to life adventurers that passed away while "working", for a price obviously. It helps to lower the lethality of old-school games and is also a chance to give story hooks, because if the party doesn't have the money to immediately get the resurrection, the church might ask them to complete a service for them in exchange (immediately or in the future, as in "When we'll need you, we'll call you"). But why not expand on this?

The inspiration for this post comes from a comment on a Reddit post I ran into a while ago. Sadly I didn't save the post, but the idea is that in a world where all of that is true, why would the priests themselves not take more advantage of it?

Think about it: the clerics are supposed to send part of their loot to their church because they need money to survive, so why wouldn't the priests themselves advertise this service as much as possible? They could send some of their followers in taverns (the usual party meet-up spot) or near job boards to tell adventurers that, should one of them meet their end while in a dungeon, they should bring back their body to the temple to make sure they can be revived (maybe even with a discount for first-time customers, if you want them to be a bit more cynical).

But why stop there? The priests (or their followers/advertisers) might even offer some form of "insurance" to adventurers about to explore some place known for being particularly dangerous, or even offer - for a premium, for parties that already have a bit of money - as a special service one of the priests to follow them and stay safe at the base camp, possibly protected by mercenaries, to make sure that if anything bad happens, they can immediately revive the fallen PC; of course, it is in the best interest of the party to make sure the priest comes back safe and sound, because the church not only would refuse to help them in the future, but they most likely also have a roster of adventurers that owes them favors and could be sent after them. That would be a campaign twist!

One more aspect in which this "business" can affect your game world is war: what if one side has access to the services of a church, either because they support their cause/nation or because that side hired them?

Soldiers would attack, die, be raised again and sent back into the fray two, three, countless times (unless you factor in the chance of surviving being raised, present in some OSR games), easily overwhelming their opponents even if they are the weaker army, unless their corpses are taken from the enemy.

And what if both sides have access to a church? The battle would turn into a challenge of who can raise their army faster...and probably get pretty close to the boundaries of Necromancy, some might say. And what would be the effect of this on the psyche of the soldiers? This sounds like it would make for an interesting campaign idea.

Another element to keep in mind to make your game world more interesting, should you decide to add some of this elements to it: what would the reaction of the normal people be, knowing that priests have the ability to bring people back from the dead but only use it for adventurers passing by that have the money for it and not for their fellow countrymen and women? Would they accept it as part of the feudalism that usually reigns supreme in the standard fantasy worlds, or would they protest against it, maybe refusing to give food and shelters to those that have been raised? That's up to you and how you want to characterize your setting.

What do you think? Do you feel inspired to add any of these elements to your game world? Or maybe you already do? If so, please tell me how it works in your world and how the players react to it!

This is all for this week, see you next Sunday for my next post!

May your dice never betray you,

Kirhon