Death's Door (3.5e Location)

 

Death's Door
In places of great death and destruction and in ancient graveyards seeped in layers and layers of the dead the membrane between here and the afterlife thin. Ethereal fogs and strange terrifying creatures slip through the shadows and haunt the living who visit these places. Most presume them cursed, often correctly, but in certain places one can call passing psychopomps into the material plane to bargain with the release of a soul and the return of a body to life. It can be a "cheap" way of raising the dead, especially for those who do not have access to higher level magic spells, but its also possibly dangerous.

Lore
Death doors are created in places saturated with the dead, typically ancient graveyards or old battlefields where some of the soldiers were buried where they perished. Because of the sheer amount of dead souls escaping their bodies and moving into the afterlife, the barrier between worlds is weaker here. In fact with a DC 40 Spot check one can make out the hazy outline of ethereal creatures and structures, though they do not typically interact with each other. This applies the other way as well, and the place becomes a hunting ground for ethereal dangers seeking prey.

Description
A telltale sign of a death's door manifesting is the appearance of a large tombstone or mausoleum who is assigned to no corpse and is empty or exposed with a coffin or tomb contained within. It seems always dark and musty, and a thin mist seems to constantly seep gently from the earth itself around it. It is from here the ritual to summon a psychopomp begins and the means of reviving occurs.

Prerequisite
There is no pre-requisite other than the requirements of any rituals to be made, sufficient material components, and the body to be restored to life.

Location Activation
The dead body is placed in the coffin and closed, and atop the coffin a prayer or ritual specific to each death's door is performed, as simple as speaking a name backwards three times to as complex as the sacrifice of a goat under a full moon. Typically they come in the form of cryptic magical chants and prayers to ancient beings, to which one person acts as the summoner. All forms use a 100 gp in material components as part of it. At the end of the 10 minute ritual deep ethereal mists blow in and a random ethereal psychopomp rises out of the fog (sometimes with class levels to match CR and give an appropriate challenge).

When the psychopomp appears it will invoke a challenge for the party to overcome. The alignment of the psychopomp determines the difficulty in negotiations. For each degree the summoner's alignment differs from the psychopomp the difficulty of tasks increase by +1 CR. For example a LG creature calls a LE psychopomp and the CR is +2 higher than listed. If he summons a CE psychopomp the CR is +4. There is no increase for LG psychopomps.

The challenge which the psychopomp invokes is random, and can be from the chart below or custom made.

The CR of the challenge should be adjusted to the ECL of the party, further augmented by the psychopomp's alignment, mood, and motives. They are loathe to let souls simply be free. Whatever the challenge (except for the 8th result), the challenge should be able to be performed within the magical location and be able to be performed within 24 hours. For example many may choose to play a game of chess, or it might demand the trading of one life for another.

If an agreement is reached and the challenge is completed (with exception to the 8th result, which merely needs the geas applied), the psychopomp leaves and the body within the coffin is raised from the dead.

Recharge
Once used it takes 1 week for the location to recharge, and a creature revived by this method may not be revived by a death's door again for the period of a year and a day.

Special Ability
The dead creature placed in the coffin is subject to a raise dead effect, ignoring the usual material component costs.

Duration
Instantaneous.

Ability Value
100 gp. The true cost is in the challenge presented, and the fact only corpses can truly "benefit".