To All the Phantom-Nations of the Dead (GLAUGUST, M&M)

In accordance with the festival of Glaugust, Purplecthulu has revealed a prompt: "Resurrection Magic". Which, tbh, I kinda covered in my last post, but whatever. I can afford to spill ink on the subject.

Death, the Realms of the Dead, and Leaving Them

Per the Mazes and Minotaurs rulebook:

Characters who are reduced to zero Hit or less must roll D20 and add their Physical Vigor modifier.

If the result is less than 10, the character is dead.

If the result is 10 or more, the character does not die but is immediately incapacitated and will die if he suffers 1 more Hit of damage (coup de grâce).

If the result is 20 or more, the character will still die if he takes 1 more Hit… but until then, he can still continue to fight, showing heroic (or desperate) resistance as he hovers on the brink of Death! Once the fight is over, however, he will immediately fall unconscious and become incapacitated.

There are some ways to use Magic to bring characters back from the dead, provided they haven't been dead for very long: The Napeaea's Kiss of Life, and the Mithraic Priest's Divine Resurrection. The reason that these have a time limit is that they serve to snatch you from the hands of whatever psychopomp came to collect (typically, Thanatos or Hermes, or more rarely Hecate or some Fury). The further the psyschopomp gets, the more difficult it is to accomplish. However, if they aren't Fated to die, the psychopomp will never come for them at all, and there is no time limit.

Once the soul passes the river Styx (which takes about 10 minutes), it is in the possession of the tight-fisted and melancholy Hades. There are but few ways to call them back once this happens. Before this time, the intervention of an olympian god can free the soul and return them to their body. After this, even the gods can do nothing, since the dead are Hades' rightful inheritance.

A few exceptions here: Asclepias, god of healing, and his daughter Panacea, can snatch even the soul of a rotting corpse from Hades' domain (Don't ask him to do it more than once, it got him in real trouble before); Psychopomps like Hermes or Hecate can forestall collecting if you can convince them, or even retrieve the dead from Hades, but not for very long, a week at the most (Thanatos could, theoretically, also do this, but that guy likes his job too much); and Chronos can always do some shenanigans, that old coot. Especially notable persons (level 6, or luck 21, or did something super cool, or maybe was just hot) might also be just taken up by Zeus to be a god instead of dying (but that is basically character death anyways).

But, suppose you want to resurrect someone "on your own power", so to speak, who has been dead a long time. How might you do it?

Calling up Shades

Anyone can try to call up a shade. Sorcerers and Lyrists are especially good at it, due to their affinities with the mortal heart. All that is needed to do so is to know their name. Also, for ever dungeon level they descend, they get a +1 to their minor intervention roll, due to being closer to the cthonic land. Unfortunately, shades can't really do anything. Total irrelevance to mortal affairs is one of the rules of the underworld. They can't even speak, they just hang around looking mopey and translucent.

To act upon the world, shades need blood, fresh from a living creature. The total lifeblood of a chicken spilled on the ground is basically the minimum requirement. Medium beasts count as 2 chickens, large beasts count as 3. For each such "point" of sacrifice, the shade temporarily (about an hour) regains one of the following abilities, in order:

1. The ability to speak. They can tell you, in tones of melancholic boredom, about their life or anything they know about, and can also warn you of your Fate.
2. Their hungers. Any desire which runs strong enough to become a bodily need is included here: love for a lover or child, revenge on a hated foe, want for glory... If they have no such driving passions, then they want food, warmth, and more blood. In this state, they may curse and bless, plaguing someone with 1d6 days of sickness and nightmares (no benefit from sleep and rest, and they may die), or blessing someone with 1d6 days of health and pleasant dreams (double benefit from sleep and rest).
3. Their emotions. Most of their personality returns with this, and they can restrain themselves from unleashing their hungers on whomever they come across.
   Unlike living mortals, shades who are once more in possession of their personality can grant aspects of themselves to others. The mortal they give themselves to can either temporarily replace their score in the shade's highest attribute with the shade's score, or receive a +1 to that attribute permanently; That mortal will also receive some of the shade's personality traits and quirks, either temporarily or permanently according to the effect, and others may recognize the mortal as being "just like" the shade (which may improve or ruin relations).
4. Their reason. With this, the personality that the shade had in life is totally restored. They can act with their full faculties and restrain their desires (to the extent that they could in life). They also regain their reason for living, and can make plans for tha future and convince others to follow them. They can also use the magic they knew in life.

So, how can you use a person's shade to bring them back to life? No amount of blood will give them a body, but any amount of blood will make them fit to inhabit a body. For a shade to inhabit a body, that body needs 3 things: it must have a humanoid form (not too large or small), a system to contain and impel blood, and it cannot have been inhabited by another human soul.

The shade's own body could work, provided its in good condition. An Iron Warrior could work, with some modifications, or some magical artifice in clay, but these require ancient secrets to accomplish. Another human body could not work, since the body is too hostile to a foreign soul. With such a body, the duration of the effects of blood is extended to a full day. After each day, the shade loses one ability from the above in reverse order.

Human blood is terribly effective for shades: Half the hits of a human counts as 2 chickens. However, after its use, the shade will crave it unstoppably. Using your own blood for a shade will almost certainly cause them to haunt you forever, and a shade in a body with a taste for human blood is, for all purposes, an Empousa (or Empousos, I guess, if they're a guy). Also, while calling up a shade and giving them blood is perfectly kosher, purposefully putting them in a body is an act of hubris and the practitioner loses 1d6 Luck.

Calling on Hades

Hades does not answer interventions, major or minor. He's busy, you see, and showing up for every pitiful mortal who calls on him is an affront to his dignity. No, you don't call up Hades, you call on him. If you want anything, you'll have to make an in-person appointment. The most he'll do is send a Lampad or Thanatos to open the front door for you.

Getting into the underworld is not particularly difficult. Obviously its more difficult to get there alive, but Hades doesn't have any qualms with you being there. But retrieving a soul from the Underworld is a more audacious task. It cannot be done by stealth or trickery: It needs the consent of Hades.

Hades is, principally, bored. Titanically bored. He wants to be entertained. He has, however, seen and heard the petty dramas of the whole crawling mass of humanity. It's going to take something really moving to get him to consider your request. By the way, he's already heard the greatest song in the world, so you're going to have to try something else. I suggest puppets.

If Hades is convinced by your request, he'll set you one final task, a requirement to take them out of the underworld. This will generally be some flavor of impossible. More commonly, it won't be possible to you, for some reason of ideals or temperment. If you fail, the soul you went to rescue is lost forever. Nice try, though.

If you fail to convince Hades in general, he'll kick you out of the underworld, and you'll lose 1d6 luck points for wasting his time. Make sure you give him sufficient offerings for the rest of your life so you don't end up in Tartarus with all the other annoying people trying to cheat death.

If you succeed, however, the shade you rescued is brought entirely back to life. They get a new physical body, in their prime, with no strings attached. They're free to live out the rest of their mortal life, and maybe eventually ascend to godhood. Everyone involved will also gain 2000 Glory or Wisdom for the experience. Either way, they're sure to be famed forever.

All methods of true Resurrection (i.e. not the psychopomp-snatching of normal magic or the shade-calling of a minor intervention) come with this caveat: It only works once. Hades does not let anyone escape forever, and he tends to get angry with people who try.