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View Full Version : [4e] The Raven Queen, Shadar-Kai, and Raise Dead



Krade
2008-09-30, 04:01 PM
I've come across a bit of a dilemna while I was considering putting together a campaign. I rather like the whole flavor of the Shadar-Kai and at least one of the players I would have would probably like to be one. I want to be able to allow any non-evil race from the MM that had PC race info in the back (Doppelganger, Githzerai, Gnome, Minotaur, Shadar-Kai, Longtooth and Razorclaw Shifters, and Warforged) provided that they can come up with a good enough reason why they would be in the party and want to contribute to it's goals.

The problem with the Shadar-Kai is that they believe very strongly in The Raven Queen's teachings, which include punishing those who try to cast off thier mortality. I'm not sure if that means they would have a problem with other people being brought back to life. I know they probably wouldn't want to be risen themselves due to thier strong belief that death should not be feared since it is the natural end for all living beings.

So the main problem here is that while I want to allow them as PCs, I don't want there to be a party-breaking argument over whether or not they should raise the fighter.

Flickerdart
2008-09-30, 04:05 PM
Remember, for every Always Evil race there's a million Chaotic Good PCs trying to throw off that stigma. Same can go for these fellows.

NecroRebel
2008-09-30, 04:10 PM
You could have a "rogue" Shadar-Kai in your party; one that follows a god other than the Raven Queen, or perhaps even one that is actively traitorous.

You could also reflavor the Shadar-Kai or Raven Queen such that they do not have the troublesome bits.

Or, you could have the Shadar-Kai be the party Wizard, have no party Cleric, and thus have the Wizard be the only member with Raise Dead, and then have the worshipper of the Raven Queen ask the goddess's expressed permission to take the soul back into the world. This is probably the best option if you stay within standard fluff.

Krade
2008-09-30, 04:12 PM
Remember, for every Always Evil race there's a million Chaotic Good PCs trying to throw off that stigma. Same can go for these fellows.

The problem with that is that there is no Chaotic Good anymore. The Raven Queen and the Shadar-Kai are both listed as unaligned (though the description of Shadar-Kai in the MM would definitely make them Chaotic Neutral in 3.5 terms). They are unaligned in that they believe themselves above such moral ambiguity as right and wrong. The only thing that matters is that all things die eventually, and if they don't, they are either gods or undead and must be destroyed immediately.

Eorran
2008-09-30, 04:20 PM
More simply, the shadar-kai could be a "liberal" follower of the Raven Queen - perhaps only undeath or permanent immortality is considered unholy, while raise dead is seen as less than ideal, but acceptable since the person is still part of the life and death cycle. (As in, they'll still die eventually, and one day they won't come back).

If you're going to have Shadar-Kai as a PC race, there should be varying levels of devotion to the Raven Queen - they can't all be either fanatics or heretics (well they can, but it makes it harder for the character to be part of a non-Shadar-Kai party.) Plus, you could add a bit of campaign world flavor by way of conflicting groups of Shadar-Kai who disagree on these sorts of things.

erikun
2008-09-30, 04:22 PM
Funny, I was mentally putting the Raven Queen/Shadar-Kai into LN territory. Huh.

Anyways, I'm currently running a Shadar-Kai, and he doesn't have a problem with it. The way he sees it, if the Raven Queen didn't want the character raised, then she'd prevent the ritual from happening. As the character is obviously back, then the Raven Queen must have "postponed" their final demise. Of course, this means the character's life is on load from the Raven Queen, so they really should be behaving themselves.

He wouldn't use a Raise Dead ritual himself, though. Good thing he's the warlord of the party, then. :smallwink:


I was also thinking of making up some stuff about the new 4e Shadar-Kai. One aspect would be a Raven Queen cult, where initiation involved getting killed and raised again. If the character can't be raised, then it's clear that the Raven Queen doesn't approve of them enough to be in the cult.

I really should write that sometime.

quillbreaker
2008-09-30, 04:41 PM
The problem with the Shadar-Kai is that they believe very strongly in The Raven Queen's teachings, which include punishing those who try to cast off thier mortality. I'm not sure if that means they would have a problem with other people being brought back to life. I know they probably wouldn't want to be risen themselves due to thier strong belief that death should not be feared since it is the natural end for all living beings.

When I think of "Casting off mortality", I think of age limits, not Raise Dead. Liches and Vampires need Raise Dead a lot less than mortals, but somehow I think they tick off the Raven Queen more.

Krade
2008-09-30, 04:42 PM
Funny, I was mentally putting the Raven Queen/Shadar-Kai into LN territory. Huh.
Since it seems to be that ambiguous, perhaps it would be better to say they are TN?


Anyways, I'm currently running a Shadar-Kai, and he doesn't have a problem with it. The way he sees it, if the Raven Queen didn't want the character raised, then she'd prevent the ritual from happening. As the character is obviously back, then the Raven Queen must have "postponed" their final demise. Of course, this means the character's life is on load from the Raven Queen, so they really should be behaving themselves.
This seems to make sense. The ritual description does say that gods have that power. Though upon further reflection, if the Raven Queen had a problem with Raise Dead, she would probably end up spending all of her time preventing people from being raised. And raising the dead doesn't remove their mortality either, they will die someday and not be able to come back. But after all that, what would they feel about the Demi-God epic destiny. That's the only one that actually involves real immortality at the end. Would that be an exception since it's becoming a divine being?


I was also thinking of making up some stuff about the new 4e Shadar-Kai. One aspect would be a Raven Queen cult, where initiation involved getting killed and raised again. If the character can't be raised, then it's clear that the Raven Queen doesn't approve of them enough to be in the cult.

I really should write that sometime.
That seems like it would be pretty cool, but I don't see any reason why it should be limited to the Shadar-Kai. They aren't the only ones who worship her, after all.

erikun
2008-09-30, 04:50 PM
This seems to make sense. The ritual description does say that gods have that power. Though upon further reflection, if the Raven Queen had a problem with Raise Dead, she would probably end up spending all of her time preventing people from being raised. And raising the dead doesn't remove their mortality either, they will die someday and not be able to come back. But after all that, what would they feel about the Demi-God epic destiny. That's the only one that actually involves real immortality at the end. Would that be an exception since it's becoming a divine being?
True, and if he received a (believable) message from the Raven Queen to take care of a Raise Dead-abuser, he'd probably make it a point to do so reliably.

He does walk around with a "if you die in a fight with me, it's your own fault" attitude. I'm not quite sure how he'd take getting raised himself, though...

I don't think the epic destinies are quite the same as eternal undead-ness. After all, the Shadar-Kai aren't running around, trying to kill off the other dieties simply because they're still alive. Some may take issues with particular characters and their unusually-long livespans (with any epic destiny), but I don't think any Shadar-Kai church advocates hunting down lv.20+ characters as routine.



That seems like it would be pretty cool, but I don't see any reason why it should be limited to the Shadar-Kai. They aren't the only ones who worship her, after all.
It isn't, and if another race wants to go through initiation, they're welcome to it. However, they're expected to act like the Shadar-Kai (fear no death, slay enemies, follow the word of the Raven Queen) while part of the cult. Plus, considering that most cults would be on the Shadowfelt, it makes sense that most members would be Shadar-Kai themselves.

Mewtarthio
2008-09-30, 05:33 PM
I don't think the epic destinies are quite the same as eternal undead-ness. After all, the Shadar-Kai aren't running around, trying to kill off the other dieties simply because they're still alive. Some may take issues with particular characters and their unusually-long livespans (with any epic destiny), but I don't think any Shadar-Kai church advocates hunting down lv.20+ characters as routine.

Plus, y'know, epic-level characters have a nasty tendancy to kill you horribly if you try to protest their lifespans.

Krade
2008-09-30, 05:53 PM
Y'know, this whole thing keeps reminding me the Imperial Sardaukar from Dune...

Sardaukar
Shadar-Kai

Rather similar sounding to me...

Randel
2008-09-30, 11:49 PM
For some reason I really like the shadar-kai. not so much from their flavor but though my own alternate interpretation of what they are.

First off their shadow jaunt thing reminds me alot of the Nobodies from Kingdom Hearts II and their living in a land of undeath kind of reinforces that for me.

Anyway, I sort of imagine the shadar-kai as the decendents of humans who got banished to the shadowfell which is full of undead and stuff. The shadar-kai themselves have no souls (since the corrupting nature of the shadowfell makes growing souls impossible) but when slain they leave a ghostly version of themselves that probably floats off to some distant part of the shadowfell and wanders aimlessly. Stuck in a loop of what they did in life but unable to interact with anything aside from attacking peoples minds or stealing their life energy. These ghosts are alot of trouble, but for shadar-kai thay act kind of like souls... to return a shadar-kai to life you find their ghost and subdue it, then use the Raise Dead ritual to return their ghost to their body and return them to life.

However, the souls of mortals in the material plane also create ghostly things when they travel through the shadowfell on their way to their ultimate destination. Those souls shed off ghostly parts that turn into various undead. Essentially, the shadowfell is littered with millions of cast off undead or death-elemental garbage that does nothing but cause trouble. They are actually the result of part of the soul trying to hang onto the material world and escape the great beyond of Death. Ghosts in the material plane had stong desire to stay and are formed there. 90% of the rest of people who die leave ghost things in the shadowfell, those who have no regrets or fears of death don't try to stay and leave not ghosts behind. They can't be raised back for similar reasons.


So the whole 'you must accept death as a natural course' is basically fueled by how much freaking trouble it is for folks in the shadowfell when peoples souls try leaving shards of themselves behind that turn into undead monsters.

Using Raise Dead, isn't a real problem in itself, but it only means that when you die again you might leave another ghost behind. So if the raven queen uses her power to return you to life, she often requests that you seek out the ghost left behind by your death and destroy it before it can cause more damage.

She's more likely to return people to life if they are dedicated to wiping out undead or better yet getting others to accept the inevitability of death... she doesn't care about how hypocritical or ironic that idea is... she just wants all those stupid undead taken care of!

Krade
2008-10-01, 01:02 AM
Just to be sure here: You made all that up? Cause I never saw anything like that in the books and it doesn't really make a whole lot of sense to me.

FoE
2008-10-01, 01:20 AM
The way to get around this is to consider the shadar-kai's reason for being in the party. If he's an outcast, then it's not a problem, since he doesn't care about the teachings of his culture anyway.

But what if he's involved in the party at the command of the Raven Queen in order to complete some special mission (ie. stop Orcus from trying to replace death with undeath)? Then achieving that goal is more important than raising a stink every time someone casts the Raise Dead ritual. Maybe he grumbles a bit, maybe he says it's an "abomination," but otherwise he lets it slide for the good of the mission.

skywalker
2008-10-01, 01:48 AM
Since it seems to be that ambiguous, perhaps it would be better to say they are TN?

Death is most definitely true neutral.

Drakefall
2008-10-01, 07:20 AM
Death is most definitely true neutral.

Personally I've always thought Kelemvor with his Lawful Neutral alignment was by far the best representative of death.

When you think about it, death is really about unbiased order. It's something that must, or at least should happen and is thus Lawful Neutral. You know the whole "souls must go where they must go" thing.

The Raven Queen does strike me as quite a bit "bitchier" than Kelemvor so ,maybe true neutral does fit her better. Though I haven't actually read anything official on the Raven Queen, this is just based on stuff I've heard. Although I don't see her followers getting up in arms against raise dead since it's more a temporary thing rather than an attempt to escape death, especially if the one being resurrected is, directly or indirectly, involved with the slaying of undead and such like most adventurers are whether they like it or not.

Randel's Shadar-Kai are soulless thing makes me think of a Shadar-kai "rebel" in search of a soul.. somewhat generic character concept but it would be fun to play as long as you keep low on the melancholy.

Tengu_temp
2008-10-01, 07:28 AM
The problem with that is that there is no Chaotic Good anymore.

Ah c'mon, just because the alignment doesn't exist does not mean there are no people with such approach to life.

Anyway, I agree with this:

When I think of "Casting off mortality", I think of age limits, not Raise Dead. Liches and Vampires need Raise Dead a lot less than mortals, but somehow I think they tick off the Raven Queen more.

Randel
2008-10-01, 02:08 PM
Just to be sure here: You made all that up? Cause I never saw anything like that in the books and it doesn't really make a whole lot of sense to me.

Yes, I made that up. I make everything up. I barely have the attention span necessary to look through the whole flavor of a published race and if conflict comes between how players want to play the game and how I flavor my races I'm more or less willing to re-write the history of multiple civilizations to keep things fun.

Oh, and to kind of clean up my above idea:

Whenever anyone dies, their soul travels through the shadowfell before going to their ultimate destination. Depending on how much they want to stay alive despite being dead then they leave a sort of imprint behind. If they have some really intesnse desire to remain, then that imprint becomes a ghost in the material world. If its more average then it creates some undead monster in the shadowfell. If they actually do accept their death then they pass on with no problems.

The raven queen hates the undead that result from this and wants people to accept the inevitability of death so less undead are formed from this. However, if someone requests her help to raise someone from the dead then she may grant that if they agree to destroy the undead ghost that resulted from the raised persons previous death. Or some other compromise.

Basically, she doesn't hate it when people come back from the dead, she hates the undead that are created when dead souls struggle to remain in the land of the living. If she does help return you to life, then expect her to give you a quest to destroy the ghost you created when you died, or just to hunt down and slay a bunch of undead as a side-quest.



I'll admit that my reinterpretation of shadar-kai as soulless creatures that require you to hunt down their ghost and capture it in order to raise them from the dead is kind of off-topic. But it kind of appeals to me in a way... its like if you have to bring a loved one to life you have to search for their 'soul' and lay its anguish to rest before they can be raised again or something.

Feel free to ignore anything that I say that doesn't make sense.