Okay, we meet our green skinned priestess when she brings a certain elf back from the dead. Said elf having been able to talk after being reduced to a pile of ashes.

So... why is everyone so afraid of being killed? Okay so there's a chance she'll resurect them as an undead shambling horror... but what's one more of those in the group?

It just seems that they've been taking the whole dying thing a bit seriously considering there are people everywhere who can resurect them... heck they're currently working for an entire temple full of priestesses.

Operating on a RPG type system as LFG seems to be based on, resurrection type magics induce negative levels usually.

So, sure, everyone could get free respawns, but it, A, costs a fair bit to do- and not just in money- and B, it generally makes people less capable. LFG has a nice progression from simple enemies, to harder enemies, to titanic enemies of all sorts- things that were trouble to take on during the beginning of the comic are now considerably less so, because our characters have increased in skill, technique, capacity, and the like.

Constantly resurrecting characters, and they'd never increase in any of those areas, because any increases were rendered moot when Gid stuffed their soul back in their rebuilt body.

Resurrection is a last ditch healing effort for a reason- but its present is no means to charge in crazily.

Also, there's the issue of souls- It was probably easier to resurrect Cale during the first couple panels because Richard, as a warlock, can probably manipulate souls directly. At the very least Cale's was bound to his pile of ash rather then getting sent to whatever afterlife it was supposed to go to- which probably explains why he didn't seem to suffer any capability loss when he was brought back.

But Richard's not around all the time, and he might not be in a benevolent mood either- so Cale dies when nobody's around- he's dead. They might be able to bring him back, but it's rather unlikely that he'll be in any condition to fight or continue his quest. Or, depending on the cosmology, losing capacity might not be a physical problem with the body- but might be mental. He might not even remember anyone, and that'd be the ultimate cheap shot to the party.

We've got one guy in the party who doesn't care about death- Richard. He's already dead, so it's not a big issue. The rest of them do have to worry about it, because as I said above there are myriad difficulties in bringing someone back, and it's not the sort of thing that's done at the drop of a hat.

Similarly, hardly 'everyone' can pull off such a spell. Yes, there are people who can, and there are a fair number of them, but it's just not going to happen. It is takes significantly less of an investment to save someone from dying then it does to resurrect them. This isn't an FPS where everyone gets free respawns, and I wouldn't expect anyone to act like it is.

In short: Dying is bad. Don't die, because there's a significant chance that the local cleric won't be able to bring you back at all.

Plus Benny needs every bit to bring back the body which is why Richard brought Cale in a baggie. Also take into account that the mood of the comic has changed quite a bit since the first couple pages and the rules of healing are subject to change. Benny needed a long time and a summoning circle to bring Cale back, then she brought back whats his face, Rojave, in a few minutes though he may not have been dead entirely when she did.

I'm pretty sure Rojave was good and dead when Benny resurected him, seeing as how he was impaled multiple times and then had his head burned (which could possibly boil the fluids in his head, causing death). It may have taken her a good twenty minutes or even an hour and we may have only seen the parts of the process during which Benny spoke.

Now, while I agree entirely (almost) with the Kerrus's post, I'd just like to point out that Richard may not care completely about death it could still be an issue.
We dont know exactly how the undead work in the LFG universe, so for all we know Richard could be utterly destroyed if the enemy does something right. Be it lopping off his head (which would likely work, since we saw how jumbled he was when Pella hit him with that axe) or destroying his phylactery (assuming he has one like most liches, I like to think his crystal is it).
Hell, Im pretty sure just incinerating Richard would do the job quite nicely.
We do know he can be destroyed, since we saw him take out his other selves in the Plane of Suck, but that may just mean it takes great power. But it can still be done.

So, what does that mean for the group?
We've seen Benny heal Richard's wounds on multiple occasions, but we've not seen her attempt a resurrection. The healing is just a matter of regenerating the cells of tissue, be they dead or alive. Assuming healing is as difficult as Kerrus said (which I agree with), we have absolutely no idea how it would work out with someone like Richard.
You'd probably need to get another lich/warlock/necromancer to try their hand at it, and even then it's even more unlikely for it to work properly on the undead than it is if done to a previously living person. We'd probably end up with a shambling zombie slave created from Richard's body rather than Richard's soul tied to it in any way.

And we know that the group is royally screwed if Richard is taken out. Yeah, they did fine for a while when he was banished, but once they needed to do some real work (getting back the Captain) they couldn't function properly.

So...add this to Kerrus's post and the whole 'Dying is bad. Don't die...' thing is made even more important to remember.

Edit:
That was probably the longest post Ive ever bothered to type.

On the topic of resurrection, there must be certain circumstances not yet explained that have to do with the ceremony or 'spell'. Here are some of my ideas.

It could be possible that there is a limit on the amount of times someone's soul can be reattached to their body. Perhaps the soul rots with each resurrection?

Or maybe a time limit on how long your soul and body can be seperated before resurrection becomes nearly impossible. These are just ideas.

Regarding Richard and death, I think that it has been made quite clear that there are more things Richard needs to be careful about. Permanent Banishment, Power Drains and Troll Shamans to name a few. Let's not forget his weakened 'sleeping' state, which for some reason hasn't been seen since they opened the portal.

That's all I've got.

Ooh quick edit - Apparently before the comic started Benny hadn't healed for years, so her inability to heal effectively because of being out of practice could play a part.

And of course nobody's brought up the possibility that death and resurrection just really really hurt. Extreme agonizing pain is a pretty good motivator.

Plus referencing the plethora of magic legends, myths, and fantasy beliefs, Any magic drains the user. Even in LFG, Richard was out for days after a full display of power.

So we have to think on the ramifications of how much healing Benny and the priestesses can perform before being exhausted.

However, if there is a chance that they can link their power circa WOT Aes Sedai, they could probably perform a lot more healing before burning out.

Cale doesn't seem any weaker to me.

She did have far more time to prepare a resurrection spell there though, in battle it would have to be done faster to be effective or useful

And, as mentioned before if you had bothered to read it (seems you didnt), Cale's soul was still connected to his ashes somehow. Makes a difference.

......and you dont have to post the images, geeze. x-x Links do far better.

That's because Cale wasn't the one expending his energy to be revived. o_O

And a resurrection only takes a fraction of the power out of the Cleric/healer. But if she had to resurrect Pella, Krunch, Cale, Sooba, Ray'D and others (especially a giant) How long do you think she would last?

That's like lifting weights. Yes Arnold Schwarzenegger my be able to lift 400lbs+ a few times, but how many times do you think he can do it in a day until his body gives out?

One also must take into account the fact that the nature of the comic has changed. Before it was a light-hearted play on World of Warcraft stuff, now its evolved into a serious storyline and world of its own. Naturally things such as spells are going to be different now.

Plus Cale was revived from a pile of ashes, while Rojave was just a maimed, but largely intact, corpse.

It also might be that Richard in his pureawesometivity did want Cale to perma-die so used some kind of special spell that kept Cales's soul intact but destroyed his body. Thereby allow him to come back to kill and torture latter.

Being fiction, whatever is necessary for the plot to move forward is what she (and everyone else) be capable of. No more, no less.
What they're capable of seems to change regularly. How many times has Richard appeared to be omnipotent, only to get his ass kicked a few pages later in order to move the story along?

Of course, that doesn't mean this discussion isn't interesting...

I'm sure the beginning encounter was just a comedic thingy, buuuut getting down to it, how many piles of elf ash do you see that can still speak? There must have been some extra magic involved via Richard's doing that made ressurection easier.

More of a reincarnation of his previous form than a ressurection, even!

I agree with that first time being a special case. Since Cale was aware and able to respond to what was said around him, it would seem like that was more of a very extreme and complicated healing.

As for when Benny possibly resurrected her wannabe fiance, I'm leaning towards that being a healing. He did have flesh wounds, and the burn wounds, that would have killed him, but maybe not immediately. If she moved really fast it is possible that she could have healed him before he managed to die. She was like a foot away from him when Pella, Cale, and Richard give him the death-blows so she was at hand.

Am I the only one here who thinks we're looking in way too deeply into this.What with having to update LICD daily and LFG bi-weekly, I doubt that they g ive much thought the simple explanation is that b ack then, it was much more lighthearted and only used cale's condition for comedic effect.

great, the bots have found our bot-free utopia......

It was only a matter of time, damn things are like roaches. Always adapting.
Just means we need a better pesticide.

On Topic:
Her abilities are up to Sohmer and Lar, really.
So, theories aside, meh.

And I have one more reason to avoid death despite having an oddly attractive greenskinned girl to rez you that none of you seem to be taking in to account.... It effing HURTS!!!

That is true, but another reason would be possible incapacitation for a time, sickness, etc.

I mean in other game, books, whatever, that is fantasy based, when you get ressurected, it incurrs some sort of negative penalty. So for arguements sake, I'm willing to say that Benny's powers are also somewhat limited to her physical condition, kinda like richard (remember after a full display of power, he was out cold for how long?).

I think personally that Richard has been holding back a lot of his power. He was, with little or no effort, able to turn an entire room full of guys into skeletons that tore their own skins off. He destroys entire villages for pleasure, and was killing off legion soldiers by the dozen (you saw that bag of ears right? lol)

His being captured by the Battle Mages may have been an issue of counter-magics or he simply wanted to save them for a later date. Half of what he's done so far in the comic has been out of boredom, and it's only been recently that we've started to really see his character developed (like during the demon trial, in which he singlehandedly destroyed the court room and killed every demon with the exception of hctiB... he didn't even look winded)

As for Gid's power of resurrection... She had all of Cale to resurrect neatly gathered in the bag compliments of Richard, whereas there's nothing left but bones at the battle site.

Orrrrr.... im gonna go out on a limb here; its a decently light-hearted comic book, that is willing to have a tiny bit of discrepencies about charecter ability or power, i think it is more enjoybale if you don't overanalyze to much, but hey, i though about this for a tiny bit to.

But out of all of the theories i like DonutGaurds theories on Richard

and i kinda like the idea that it is 1. Painful 2. Not always possible (lacking all components) 3. Negative sideffects 4. Long time to perform. 5. Time limits

I still think light-hearted comic is better idea.... well i suppose you could point to the dark turn it just took as a counter-argument but hey...

I'd just like to say: Your username made me LOL.

Thank you, it came to me in a dream; Richard was killing blind orphans in it.

Most likely it is a matter of how much is left of the person. It took her some time to prepair for Cales resurection, and all of his ashes were there. Rojave probably got rezzed so quickly simply because most of him was there.

Yeah I've thought about that too. And though Gid is awesome, let us all remember. This is a mystical comic. It doesn't have to explain everything to you.

Its a special kind of FWOOSH spell !!

nothing more to discuss


Richard was bored, why would he just let his new toy go to waste so fast! it was all planned.

for some odd reason, I don't think richard plans anything.



ever.

Druids complain about the Rebirth cooldown-
Gid's ressurection has a ~150 page cooldown.

Also, as to why she can't ressurect the northern alliance, I would bet all my chips on mage-fire.

I love this comic in so many ways, most of which are probably illegal in at least 5 US states.

That is a very interesting theory. And if we tied it to the possibility that you can only be resurected a limited amount of time after you die, than this gets very restrictive indeed. I think you should take a look at the timeline and see if you can't get a number of days on that cooldown.

also, thats just wrong.