The Rite of Resurrection

[Catullus64]

In my games, I typically don't allow players to cast the spells Raise Dead, Reincarnate, Resurrection, or True Resurrection. I don't care for having death be so easily bypassed, even with expensive diamonds. I've always told players that if they wish to raise anybody from the dead (Revivify excepted) it will require an elaborate ritual with rare reagents, such that obtaining the stuff necessary to raise the dead is a quest in its own right.

Well, for the first time in a long time, some PCs are following through on that, seeking to raise a dead PC who got disintegrated. They've successfully quested to obtain the scroll which contains the ritual, translated it, and contracted with a powerful wizard to obtain the reagents. Now, I want the performance of the ritual to be a sort of 'final boss' for this arc of the campaign. Here's how I've planned it, for a party of five 8th-level PCs (not counting the dead guy to be resurrected). Note that all the weapon-using types have at least one magical weapon.


The scroll contains a list of the reagents, instructions on how to perform the ritual, and a transcription of the necessary ritual chant. It's not a scroll in the usual magic item sense, just instructions. Thus, if the consumed reagents can be re-obtained, the ritual can be attempted multiple times if the first attempt fails.

The reagents are as follows:

One specially engraved iron brazier, filled with scented cedar wood.
Various oils, salts, and powders in a dozen small clay jars.
A golden chime and small golden hammer


The ritual must be performed just before dawn, with a waxing crescent moon in the sky. It must be performed at a place of great power. The PCs have found such a suitable place in a ruined temple atop a hill, which overlooks a great forest.

The ritual is formally begun by placing the brazier in the center of the ritual site and lighting it. Next, a complex Sigil of Embodiment must be formed around the brazier using the contents of the various jars. A participant that spends its action and all its movement attempting to form the sigil can attempt a DC 20 Intelligence (Arcana) check. Once two consecutive successes have been scored on such attempts, the sigil is formed and the ritual can proceed.

Next, one participant, who must have the Spellcasting or Pact Magic feature, must perform the Chant of Reconstitution. Doing so takes three actions. While performing the Chant, the cantor cannot move or take any other actions, or else the chant is broken and must be restarted. Furthermore, the cantor must maintain concentration, as if concentrating on a spell.

Once the chant is finished, the substances of the sigil will coalesce into a new body for the one to be resurrected. Once this is done, any ritual participant may use an action to strike the Golden Chime and call out the name of the intended target. If they wish, they can expend a spell slot while doing so, or choose to suffer any number of d8s of necrotic damage as part of this action. This necrotic damage cannot be reduced or ignored in any way. The target, if willing to be resurrected, must then attempt a Charisma check, with a +2 bonus for every level of spell slot expended or +1 per d8 of necrotic damage. The DC for this check is 20 + the target's own Charisma modifier; the more forceful the personality, the more difficult it is to re-assert itself. Upon a success, the soul accepts the new body and the ritual is complete. If they fail this check, the chime cannot be used again until the end of the current round, at which point any ritual participant can strike the chime again and grant another attempt.

There are two factors which make this ritual a difficult business. The first is the limited time. The viable window of dawn in which the ritual can be performed lasts two minutes (20 rounds) total. The ritual fails automatically if it is begun or is not completed within this time window.

The second factor is more perilous. The souls of the dead are jealous, and will resentfully try to interfere to keep the target among their ranks. At the end of the turn during which the brazier is lit, nine Shadows (CR 1/2) and three Specters (CR 1) will appear at various points 100 feet from the brazier, and immediately attack the ritual participants, trying to either slay them or to extinguish the brazier, which they do by attacking it with their melee Drain attacks. The ritual flame for this purpose has AC 10 and 55 Hit Points

Every round, 1d4 additional Shadows appear 100 feet from the Brazier.

Beginning on the third round of the ritual, or as soon as the Sigil of Embodiment is finished, there is a 50% chance that an additional Specter will appear alongside the Shadows.

On the tenth round of the ritual, or when the Chant of Reconstitution is finished, a Wraith (CR 5) will appear 100 feet from the brazier. If this Wraith is reduced to 0 HP, another will appear 100 feet from the brazier at the start of the next round.

All Undead who appear to disrupt the ritual disappear when the ritual concludes, successfully or unsuccessfully.

If any feature that turns Undead is used, it will also have the effect of turning the soul of the target, causing the ritual to fail. The PC who has such a feature has been warned of this fact.

Coming back from the dead is an ordeal, as is the final shock of completing the ritual. The resurrected creature must make a DC 30 Constitution saving throw. For every 5 by which the saving throw is failed, the resurrected creature suffers 1 level of exhaustion, up to a maximum of 5. All ritual participants must make a DC 15 Constitution saving throw or suffer 1 level of exhaustion.

Does this seem both dramatic and fun? Any clarifications or rulings requested? Any way you'd modify this, either in substance or in numbers tweaks?

[sithlordnergal]

That seems fine, especially if you want returning from the dead to be an ordeal. One small question, have you changed the Wild Magic Table at all? Personally, I would allow Wild Magic Sorcerers to keep the chance to be reincarnated on their Wild Magic Table since:

A) I just love the chaos...I've gone from a male Tiefling to a female half-orc, its hilarious.

B) It feels right. You have this long and complicated ritual to access this powerful magic...but every once in a blue moon the guy accessing the weave directly will accidentally hit the wrong/right chord and suddenly gets to be Reincarnated for 1 minute. Can't be replicated, totally random, but it fits.

[nweismuller]

If I'm reading this right, there's no reason to make the Charisma check a Charisma check at all (because the DC is increased by the same amount as the ability mod on the roll). It's effectively just a DC 20 flat check with bonuses from spell slots or necrotic damage. (And, since it's a basic charisma check, doesn't sound like proficiency mod would be incorporated.)

[Catullus64]

If I'm reading this right, there's no reason to make the Charisma check a Charisma check at all (because the DC is increased by the same amount as the ability mod on the roll). It's effectively just a DC 20 flat check with bonuses from spell slots or necrotic damage. (And, since it's a basic charisma check, doesn't sound like proficiency mod would be incorporated.)

You're mostly right. Strictly speaking, if the dead person were a 2nd Level Bard, a 7th-Level Fey Wanderer Ranger, or had some feature that interacted specifically with Charisma checks it would matter, but none of those are the case here. It's really a narrative point, that it's a person's personality and ego re-asserting itself, that makes me call it a Charisma check. The mechanical goal was indeed that the difficulty would be the same regardless of the dead PC's ability scores. The player in question will just hear "make a Charisma check with X bonus", and that'll be that.

sithlordnergal, your point is moot in my case, as there's no Wild Magic Sorcerer anywhere in the picture. If there were, I'd be fine with leaving that intact, since it's such a once-in-a-blue-moon interaction.

[Sigreid]

I kind of like this. It's very Conan The Barbarian movie.

[Unoriginal]

I'm all for bombastic rituals and dangerous magicks, but the whole "a bunch of undead get summoned gradually at some distance" seems particularly unfun to me.

Especially due to how the creatures in question can be a breeze for PCs of the level you said if they're prepared, or a nightmare and half if not.

Instead, to keep the "the souls of the dead are jealous ones" and the danger aspect, I would have the PC who is being brought back have their own afterlife encounter, like having to cross a field to get into the Gate of Life while an or several opponents try to beat them to it, and if the opponent manages to go through the Gate they appear directly above the corpse.

Alternatively, could also have something where once the PC is back, an outsider of the relevant afterlife they were in shows up and challenge the PCs, with the formerly dead having to come back with the outsider unless the group can succeed the challenge (said challenge depending on the specific outsider, a Demon could ask for a brawl or a bribe, a Modron could ask for a formal debate on whether or not the mortal should have a second chance or not, a Slaadi could ask for whatever their chaotic minds think on the spot, etc).

Basically, getting the dead PC involved in their own resurrection, rather than having the PCs playing whack-a-ghost with undead poppimg around them.

[Catullus64]

I'm all for bombastic rituals and dangerous magicks, but the whole "a bunch of undead get summoned gradually at some distance" seems particularly unfun to me.

Especially due to how the creatures in question can be a breeze for PCs of the level you said if they're prepared, or a nightmare and half if not.

Instead, to keep the "the souls of the dead are jealous ones" and the danger aspect, I would have the PC who is being brought back have their own afterlife encounter, like having to cross a field to get into the Gate of Life while an or several opponents try to beat them to it, and if the opponent manages to go through the Gate they appear directly above the corpse.

Alternatively, could also have something where once the PC is back, an outsider of the relevant afterlife they were in shows up and challenge the PCs, with the formerly dead having to come back with the outsider unless the group can succeed the challenge (said challenge depending on the specific outsider, a Demon could ask for a brawl or a bribe, a Modron could ask for a formal debate on whether or not the mortal should have a second chance or not, a Slaadi could ask for whatever their chaotic minds think on the spot, etc).

Basically, getting the dead PC involved in their own resurrection, rather than having the PCs playing whack-a-ghost with undead poppimg around them.

While I'm pretty happy with my overall framework, getting the dead PC more directly involved isn't a bad idea. The relevant player can probably handle two PCs at once; maybe I'll come up with some 'ghost actions' they can take to influence the course of the fight, or allow them to attack the various undead in limited ways. The Gate of Life idea is pretty neat too.

As for the fight/ritual itself, is there a way you would suggest changing it while keeping the same basic framework? I chose 100 feet distance so that even if the undead Dash into the fight (top speed of these creatures is the Wraith at 60 feet, followed by Specter at 50 and Shadow at 40), the PCs will usually have a round after they appear in order to react. It's also meant to space them out so that they can't be AoE bombed as soon as they appear.

If it matters, the living party members are a Wildfire Druid, a Swashbuckler Rogue, a Cavalier Fighter, a Devotion Paladin, and an Illusionist Wizard.

[Unoriginal]

As for the fight/ritual itself, is there a way you would suggest changing it while keeping the same basic framework? I chose 100 feet distance so that even if the undead Dash into the fight (top speed of these creatures is the Wraith at 60 feet, followed by Specter at 50 and Shadow at 40), the PCs will usually have a round after they appear in order to react. It's also meant to space them out so that they can't be AoE bombed as soon as they appear.

I would suggest changing the foe selection, their target/goal, and/or where they pop up.

For the foe selection, for example, Shadows are notoriously swingy opponents, but five lvl 8 Shadows should have no problem utterly destroying them before they can do anything if they're prepared for that fight. I'd recommend going for quality over quantity here. And narratively I think it makes sense if that kind of rituals call forth great heroes and villains among the dead, rather than faceless mooks. Like when Odysseus went to Hell and made a ritual to ask the dead seer Tyresias how to get home.

For the target/goal, I think it would work better if rather than trying to simply kill the PCs or inflict 55 damages on an easy-to-hit ritual implement, they were trying to hijack the ritual so that *they* get resurrected instead, taking over the PC's body. In other world, I think it would be more interesting if they would start doing their own ritual mirroring the PCs' and it would be up to the PCs to disrupt them.

And for the pop-up location, I think them showing up at the center of the ritual/right above the corpse is rather important. AoEs aren't that much of a problem if it's made clear trying to explode the ghostly apparition with an AoE is going to damage the corpse too, which is no good.

That's just my take, I admit it, but yeah, having the enemies show up far away and just attempt to kill us would seem like a frustrating endeavor that diminishes the grand nature of the ritual, if I were one of the players.

[Corran]

What if the ritual transported (must use location that has some kind of connection to the given afterlife) the pc's to whatever afterlife the dead pc ended up? Then they have a limited amount of time to bring their friend back with them, hopefully before they are automatically ejected (at which point the memories of time spent in the afterlife could even be eeased). Make it partly a quest against time.

As to what challenges they will face, well, that could very well depend on the nature of that afterlife. A chaotic afterlife would most likely include lots of fighting, while a more lawful one could feature a substancial amount of beaurocracy and negotiations. A good afterlife may pose challenges that will test the morality of the pc's seeking to get their friend back, while a more evil one might present some very tough deals instead (or tricks, such as having to leave one behind for every one you take with you, or something like that).

Use the afterlife to showcase something from the dead pc as well. One extreme is to try and make it a hard IC choice for the pc to leave (eg assuming a rewarding afterlife; play into either the character's background or into the campaign's past here). Or in the case of a punishing afterlife which the dead pc would want to escape from, showcase what in the dead pc's history earned them this fate (eg by making their current situation reflect on their bad deeds). Ie, give the dead pc some spotlight too.