Dying in roleplay, not the end?

Greetings and Salutations.

The discussion I am opening is one related to a characters death, and this not being the final step in a characters story line. WoW is a high fantasy game in which many different ways of 'coming back' or 'getting a second chance' are available, I will try to outline a few as best as possible.

Number one.

The Holy Light and resurrection has rarely been used IC in WoW, but to think of a canon source and a player source, I'd have to think of these two:

A) The Scarlet Crusade in the monastery, where High Inquisitor Whitemane is essentially the reason the Scarlet Crusade survived for so long, due to her ressurecting abilities. This is seen in the boss fight inside the Cathedral where she brings back her Champion.

B) Aarian, whom was also brought back through a large ceremony. While I don't know the exact details of said ceremony, I know that it had many Light users and was done on a large scale, which for me would suggest that should people want to host a resurrection using the Holy Light in-game, then it must require a huge concentrated effort of Light users, a hobo dying on the street would probably not have the 'connections' to do such.

However, the bringing back to life via the light poses a problem for me: If it's as easy as that, then the worry of people dying would be far less, yet it is not. My personal interpretation of this would mean that the bringing of people back to life via the Light is rare, exceptional and not something that occurs on a day-to-day basis to be considered as a 'permanent' problem to the struggles within the Kingdom of Stormwind. This can also be said for Quel'Thalas where the population is extremely low.

I can't off the top of my head think of any direct negatives to being brought back by the Holy Light and I would imagine that resurrection via this method is the 'safest' out of the three options that will be shown.

Number two

Necromancy, a common well seen method of 'surviving' has frequently been used by elements that are considered evil/enemies of both factions. Seeing as Necromancy was essentially brought to the Eastern Kingdom's by the Scourge, the stigma it has around it IC is very strong, meaning that it's a form of magic and a form of survival that would be extremely frowned upon.

But it is a viable option. Necromancy however, unlike the Holy Light has many down sides, if you're not a death knight and you essentially return, you are pretty much a Forsaken IC, (especially if you wish to remain around your respective city) and expect to be to be treated as such.

Necromancy as a topic of study is also heavily restricted in where it is taught, outright being banned in some locations for the previous damage it has had, therefore those who possess it are likely to already be 'shady' or morally questionable characters, i.e the stigma that was explained before.

Necromancy is mostly and frequently used by the Scourge and that is who it is associated with, therefore the examples I will use will be related to that:

A) It's hard to pick a 'decent' source for canon necromancy, but I suppose one we are familiar with is the Death Knight of Acherus, part of the army that the Lich King created to wash over the Eastern Plaguelands and consume both Scarlet Crusade & Argent Dawn. Death Knights to this day are seen with suspicion and hate, for the most part they are roleplayed to deserve such things so it's not a surprise that they are difficult to redeem. Example: Acherus DK, player example, Clydas.

B) Death Knights however are a different specimen from Necromancy, these are powerful undead champions brought back by the Lich King, this does not mean that all results of Necromancy will also that, powerful undead champions. Necromancers for example, whom eventually simply turn undead from the exceptional use of death magic, tend to be physically fragile and require summoned minions such as skeletons or zombies to aid them in combat, physical weakness seeming to be a trait of many casters. This is to keep in mind that should you be raised back via Necromancy, it is likely that you will not receive a runeblade and therefore only gain a few additional 'strengths' IC, as well as weaknesses. Example: Helcular, apprentice of Kel'Thuzad, player example, Alieus.

When considering OOCly Necromancy or being brought back as a path for your character, be aware of the negatives that accompany as such, this would mean your distinct weakness to the Holy Light as well as a huge social IC stigma of being undead and related to the magic that was responsible for the largest genocide on Azeroth.

Number three:

This is my favorite one and the one least used, and it is related to the Burning Legion. As the lore makes us aware, the Twisting Nether is a huge, expansive magic wasteland that is in theory littered with demons of different size, power and influence. Which essentially leads me to this point:

I don't believe it is out of the question for your character to be given a second chance in return for service to a demon, or in fact multiple demons It is not overly absurd to roleplay the transaction of your soul for a 'second chance' and should instead be encouraged to characters that are vengeful or vindictive and seeking to come back and cause some havoc, what better way than having Demon Lord X offer you a second chance in return for some of his agenda to be fulfilled?

Your service also does not have to be voluntary, the Scarlet Crusade yet again springs to mind in this, roleplaying possession would be some extremely interesting development for both your character and you as a roleplayer, it's a whole new layer of 'interesting' in my books at least.

Examples are a little more difficult to come up with and most tend to be characters you'd recognize, (this does not mean that you can't become a slave to the Legion):

A) Gul'Dan, the original necromancer, was in servitude to the Burning Legion for great power, as you can see however, he ended up dead due to his insatiable thirst for power.

B) Saidan Dathrohan, a possessed Grand Crusader of the Scarlet Crusade (anybody can be possessed if a Champion of the Light is?). He is only revealed to be such by the heroes / Argent Crusade that ventures into Stratholme. His entire strategy of manipulating the Scarlet Crusade against the Scourge (whom he was one of the three dreadlords to lose control over) is revealed.

C) Sophyra the cultist lady. I'm sure those roleplaying on DB for the past year or so are familiar with the character Sophyra, from my knowledge, Sophyra was also in servitude to a demon.

Negative aspects of being brought back via the Legion may include being insane, though not always. This is completely up to you, but from my own personal recommendation, have some sort of 'negative' to every 'positive' in selling your soul. You gain some sort of power? At the same time acquire some sort of weakness, it will only add to your own roleplay.

Conclusively on the whole post, death, in my opinion is only another character building aspect and should be treated as such. Thanks for reading, hopefully if bringing a character back via one of these methods is explained to be something more viable and less frowned upon, we'd see some characters re-used in fresh methods that would only give them more depth. Retconning is something I am personally 100% against and find stupid, considering you can just create an interesting plot line and involve a method of resurrection in your roleplay instead. With that said, it's a delicate matter to consider bringing a character back, I've seen it done wrong, oh so very wrong.

I would like to point out that the worst way of doing this is knowing full well OOC that you can come back so the behavior of your character is far more needlessly aggressive/violent, the whole point of something like this is to be fueled completely by IC.

A good example would be a Chapter of Anethion abbot dying, so the Cult of the Damned could nick his corpse and reanimate him as a big "Fuck you" to the Chapter, and of course while OOC consent is required, it is the IC motives and IC reasoning that should be the foundation for any form of resurrection in any scenario!

Some questions for discussion:

1) Would you agree with the general assessment laid out above?

If not, which parts do you disagree with and why?

2) Have you ever brought back a character using one of these methods (or a different one?) if so, how and who?

3) If you have never considered participating in bringing a character back via one of these methods, would you do so now?

Well it's always important to have a good reason to come back, if it can be made into a great plot of course instead of just thrown in the gutter after a while.

For number one seems interesting, but in the end being brought back even by the light can't be without consiquences. I like the idea like in GoT, well it's hard to compare the Lord of Light and WoW Holy Light.. But it would be interesting, being brought back in any matter makes you lose a part of yourself.

And yeah rare, it doesn't always work for sure as Light can't be controled that easily to just mass ress a ton of people, or like a beheaded person.. Yeah that surely won't work.

Necromancy on the other hand is easier to bring back things... That or grab diffrent body parts and make a abomination or something.

Personally i find these all just fine, but overall they as stated need to be done right. I have seen a few be killed for no real good reason, then necromancy -> Undead and still didn't really work out great.

It can be surely made into a great storyline or Rp as i've seen to. Though it's not a easy thing to pull off. And sometimes you just want to have death be the end.

1) I agree with the assessment, along with two additional notes:

First off, necromancy itself doesn't have to result in undeath. We have two examples of necromancy resurrecting people back to proper life. The first being the DK spell Raise Ally, and the second being the resurrection of Olakin.

I've personally used that method twice IC so far. To keep it balanced and in line with the grittiness of necromancy though, I treat it as something that has to be done more or less immediately, within a few hours or a day at the most, before the soul has truly departed from the body. After that, necromantic resurrection will result in undeath no matter what. Additionally, it has to utilize stolen life energy from the living (Raise Ally requires runic power, obtained from causing pain and suffering), likely stealing a few years from their lifespan, along with leaving the resurrected individual somewhat corrupted by shadow energy.

There's also the case of soulstones. They've been seen both in use by necromancers and warlocks, so likely there are both necromantic and fel methods. These "trap" the soul before it can depart, and then infuse life energy into the body to revive it. Very morally fun methods, as you have to capture and destroy a soul to save yours.

2) Yes, like I said above. Drustai as a necromancer has taken part in many resurrections, both of herself and of others. To list...

- Herself, risen as a death knight of Acherus by necromancers of the Scourge.

- Zailynia, who took a bullet to the brain. Mundane methods couldn't fix an injury like that, so Drustai fed on life energy from the nearby Valten in order to fuel a necromantic resurrection spell to trap the soul and mend the body. The body was still warm.

- Jarric, who had the back of his skull crushed in. Again, mundane methods couldn't fix it, so Drustai fed on life energy from Skarain in order to fuel a similar necromantic resurrection spell. The body was still warm.

- Herself, after being slain by the Kirin Tor. Drustai maintains a soulstone due to her paranoia, and so she self-resurrected shortly after. She was greatly weakened by it, however (I keep a DnD-style character sheet for her, and knocked off a level after the resurrection).

- Herself, again, after being slain by the combined forces of the Disciples of Light, Chapter of Holy Anethion, Stormwind Regiment, Kirin Tor, etc. Though she again had a soulstone, she was shackled with magic-dampening bindings and brought to the magic-warded Regiment CC. She remained dead for several hours, before the Regiment and Kirin Tor decided to let her revive. They removed all the wards, allowing her soulstone to activate... and then put her back under the wards halfway through the process. >.> Left her only partly recovered and so she remained a dessicated corpse in the cells for several weeks, and had to do the rest manually after escaping. As before, it left her greatly weakened (knocked off another level from my sheet).

- Thelos. This occurred months after Thelos' death, and therefore there was no way he could be truly resurrected. As such, Drustai rose him into undeath despite his wishes. She stole his corpse and brought it to her lab, and then she and Skarain raised him through a complicated ritual. Included in the ritual were commands for Thelos to serve her, and to not kill himself. Drustai bound his soul to a soulstone, anchoring it, though she keeps the soulstone in her lab. Thelos himself was given a runeblade, but it's not a soulblade. It's just a runebladed mace, in order to make it look like he's an Acherus death knight when he actually isn't.

Due to the amount of resurrections Drustai has personally been through, her soul is pretty fucked up. Part of the reason she's withdrawn from the world. Each one she has is going to leave her in worse and worse condition until she no longer can. This is assuming people let her. Most who have hunted her should know by now that she has 'two lives' and so if you want to kill her, you need to destroy her soulstone or kill her twice in succession before she can make a new one. But yeah... she's probably only got another two or three left in her, after that even a soulstone won't help as her soul will be too shattered. Even paranoid necromancers, using extensive anti-death preparations, will eventually succumb.

I agree with the above and Drustais additions

In the past I had a death knight brought back with necromancy. If not mistaken do correct me, for this happened long ago. This process with simple words requires the death knights soul if its in the blade or an item or whatever. . Shadow magic was used to perform the necromancy by dumping large amounts of it in the body of my fallen DK. The reason from comming back after a few days was totally ic. Others wanted to bring her back so it was done so. Toon was Lilith Dawn my 1st out of many Dks ive had..

I'm too lazy to read everything you folks said. I have personally never resurrected, because I find it to be a bit overused at times. However I still agree that its acceptable, but not resurrecting too many times, once or twice is fine imo.

Also doesnt necromancy just make them into mindless minions? Atleast at the level non-lore characters can do?

Vangrel Lansire wrote:2) Have you ever brought back a character using one of these methods (or a different one?) if so, how and who?

Yes. You brought my extremely holier-then-thou paladin back from the dead.

That was an interesting ride. Her first reaction was rage, then sorrow, and many attempts to end herself. She wished to burn by holy fire, but found herself unable to conjure it. Oh noes! Eventually a death knight find her and through an elaborate mind-rending ritual, Sunburns identity as a holy woman was subdued, and replaced by a new identity accepting of her new fate.

In the end though it turned out to be too... Convoluted, and I hardly ever play her anymore. Looking back I'd rather just have seen her dead; Her story has been told, I've moved on to new interesting characters. And when they inevitably meet their end, I'll move on again.



Then there's Jahzeem. That's a more complex situation. Much like Drustai, that troll will do anything it takes to escape death. Being a troll, that means trick your gods.

Here's how it went down:
1) Find a buddy. Let him die. Right after his death, make use of his weakened state to prepare a soul anchor for your own soul, then resuscitate the friend.
2) Teach said buddy a complex funeral rite in case you die. Claim it to be of religious significance to you. You're a troll! Of course it's weird and cruel!
3) Wait.
4) Die.
5) your soul defaults to it's anchored location; the body of before-mentioned friend. Spirits come to claim it for the afterlife; find nothing in your body because it is no longer there.
6) Friend performs your funeral rites. Surprise! It re-animates your corpse as a zombie.
7) Have the zombie-remnants of yourself collect the souls you need to buy your life back from your crazy death gods.
8) Collect your soul from your buddy.
9) Face your gods. Offer them the souls.
10) Offer them a body to work from. preferably a child. Preferably your own child.
11) Enjoy your brand new body.

Buren wrote:I'm too lazy to read everything you folks said. I have personally never resurrected, because I find it to be a bit overused at times. However I still agree that its acceptable, but not resurrecting too many times, once or twice is fine imo.

With how little I've seen it used on DB in the 7 years I've been playing on this server, I'd say it's actually underused. It might feel overused in the case of a few major cultists, but the majority of characters who die stay dead in my experience.

Also doesnt necromancy just make them into mindless minions? Atleast at the level non-lore characters can do?

Poorly skilled necromancers just make mindless minions. But skilled necromancers can raise sapient undead as well.

Bob's only ever been badly hurt ICly..but I did make use of the nether thing you spoke of a few years back when there was trouble with a slight demonicly posessed bastard demon using dressed in a Bob suit

I completely forgot about druidism and shamanism.

Fuck.

I won't even tell you how Bob brought his mentor back from his supposed death...
Though it would seem to me that a lot of ressurections one sees would be the result of hasty rage quitting due to OOC ppl being asses.

I have over a hundered ways to kill off bob so that he cannot come back .Each one a result of such Assholery form the "community"
Never went through with them as I had tonnes of reason to stay

Pretty much the way Drustai has put it forward is the way that's optimum, plenty of roleplay and the like.

I liked this as well:

Spoiler:

Personally, I've been trying to get an opportunity to serve the Legion but thus far none has arrived, though will be leveling an Orc soon so, who knows. A soul is not worth much when faced with the offer of great power.

I was around for two of Drustais deaths and imminent resurrections and for Jahzeem being raised into undeath after those freaky troll rituals... Both were daaaamn awesome.
Personally however i have stayed away from having my characters resurrected in any way. (other than a extremely short appearance of zombie Ezlbag seconds after his death.. just so Drustai could splash him with holy-water)
Its been offered but until now i have often just felt very content with the ways my characters have died and seen no need to bring them back in any form.
Honestly.. as long as it makes some interesting and awesome rp, resurrect all the way!

How have the IC ressurections that have been roleplayed out effected the targets?

The ingame ressurections never seem to change the ressurected, but going to whatever is after death (maybe hell or you are ripped away from paradise) is something that I would say does change your character.

I think resurrection is a pretty cool tool and fair play to those that want to use it.

I personally never have, just because I enjoy the finality and atmosphere that death creates.

I havent seen to many res's done ic on DB since I have been here. It is all fin in lore, we have seen so many that it cannot be denied. I woud like to think paladins wouldnt pick who gets res'd on the grounds of contacts and possition. I would hope Paladins would treat hobos as anyone else.

It is something of a paradox tho. Will be interestd to see how the thread develops.

Kristeas Sunbinder wrote:How have the IC ressurections that have been roleplayed out effected the targets?

The ingame ressurections never seem to change the ressurected, but going to whatever is after death (maybe hell or you are ripped away from paradise) is something that I would say does change your character.

For Jahzeem it was mostly a change to how his environment saw him. He got a new body and went back to his old perverted and cheery self, but people around him had a hard time coping with it, especially paladins, druids and shamans. They didn't quite approve of his methods.

In the period I played him as a zombie he was a shell of his former self, feeling only anger and the persistent drive to find the kills he needed for the resurrection of his true self.

Scuzy is even worse, there's a whole new personality that replaced the old one. The new version of her is aware of the "old" Sunburn, still present somewhere in the deep and dark recesses of her mind. The thing that drives her now is to bring as much sorrow to Sunburns soul as she can; she feeds off of it.


So in my RP at least, returning from the dead in any way has had a profound impact on the character both times.

I don't mind resurrections, when they are done to fuel interesting rp plots as those mentioned in this thread. That's awesome.

Does feel quite 'meh' when it's those magical sudden returns due to someone regretting that they killed off their char in a spur-of-the-moment thing. But yeah, I feel like I already said all this in another thread somewhere.

Vangrel Lansire wrote:I completely forgot about druidism and shamanism.

Fuck.

... derp. I didn't notice their absence either until seeing this post. Lol. I tend to lump them into Light resurrections, but yeah they're pretty unique in their own way. Ankhs in particular, as a form of "good" soulstone.

Also, reincarnation into other bodies. That's something really interesting for RP even if it's almost never utilized (only one I know who sort of utilized it was Sophyra, who reincarnated into a gnome body).

I think resurrections should be avoided for post players. Seeing as we're not the grand heros bringing someone back would be extremely taxing on the user, and if indeed going to happen should have negative effects on the cater and the target.

In the case of soulstones I think are fair, however they should bring about more negative side effects. For one bringing the soul back to the body could damage, or even lost fragments in the transaction, thus the target might not be the same of who they once were. Like was said knocking of a level, making the toon weaker and less potent each time they do it. I also feel that it can't be done over and over, and a cool down effect is needed. For me I deal with a two month cool down with the soulstone of my toon, just to prevent him coming back again and again. Even if he was killed every two months, eventfully the soul fragments would lessen and weaken untill his soul more or less shatters, leaving him an insane being. That's my own view on the soulstone, just to make it more fair in the role play situation,

John Silverweave wrote:Seeing as we're not the grand heros

My characters are. As Blizzard intended

While I respect the player's choice to kill off their characters, I however find it ridiculous to consider that option if there's the slightest chance of regret.

We've seen it before on a countless number of occassions, people who were quitting, transferring or otherwise. Kills off their characters, ponders a few weeks/months after about things, decides to check again if things were so bad and realize they were not, but cannot manage to start a "new" career. Ressing a character from an IC death RP'ed out with others is just lame in my opinion. IF I were to kill off Cid and later on regret it, I would make him into a DK (which is unlikely, since I despise that class) to "justify" his return. But I wouldn't suddenly let him walk among the living and drink an ale as if his death meant nothing to him nor everyone else.

That is why I respect Gogol, among others, quite a bit. He hasn't revived his old politician, he sticks to the stories that has been told and that came to an end. Anything else would be lol-RP and god-moding, I say.

I have no regrets about any of my characters deaths.

Reincarnation is something I'd love to try though.I wonder what would I come back as?Would it be another Worgen or nature affiliated race...perhaps Tauren or Elf...hmmmm

Kyrby wrote:Reincarnation is something I'd love to try though.I wonder what would I come back as?Would it be another Worgen or nature affiliated race...perhaps Tauren or Elf...hmmmm

A bunny!

bunny bob ...alliteration is a scary thing