Divine Word (1640)
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Divine Word grants a paladin the ability to raise the dead at a base of once per day. Although ineffective with chrisms, this spell makes for a very effective battle resurrection. The paladin and target must be in the same group or the spell will have no effect. Uses per day reset at midnight game time (ET).
The corpse is resurrected in a defensive stance, prone, with 5 seconds of stun and roundtime; the caster will incur 15 seconds of stun and roundtime. The target will initially be returned with full health, spirit, stamina, and mana; the caster will not initially lose any spirit. Although all injuries will remain, actions are not hindered by rank 1 or 2 wounds and neither will they bleed, but rank 3 injuries are not bypassed by this spell. The target will also automatically receive a single cast of all known buff spells, plus up to twenty levels of outside spells that were active at the time of death, somewhat similar to Symbol of Recall.
Because there is only the group-version of Mass Blur (911) and the casting paladin must be a member of the deceased's group to cast Divine Word, paladins can often get a free shot of Blurs when the dead are brought back to life; this often works with Mass Colors (611) as well.
Mana Control Benefit
There is a percentage chance equal to 100% minus the caster's Spiritual Mana Control skill that the resurrection attempt will severely injure the caster, possibly resulting in the caster's death. It is recommended that the caster have 102 skill (24 ranks) in SMC before attempting to raise the dead, although one more rank for a total of 25 ranks will unlock the first tier of multicasting and mana spellup.
Lore Benefit
Training in Spiritual Lore, Religion increases the number of times the paladin is able to raise the dead in a given day; each 20 lore ranks grants an additional raise per day.
Spiritual Lore, Religion ranks 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 Casts per day 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Unlinking
Divine Word will remain active on both the target and caster for ten minutes; its remaining duration is visible via SPELL ACTIVE. At any time, the target and the caster can UNLINK to prematurely end the spell's effects; unlinking is wholly independent between the two characters, and either of them unlinking will have no effect at all upon the other, contrary to the case of how it works with Raise Dead (318). Once Divine Word wears off, so too do its benefits.
The recently deceased will find themselves in a very poor condition more typical of recent resurrection: 25 health, 1 spirit, 1 stamina, and 1 mana. Naturally they will again be hindered by any remaining injuries, and they will bleed normally. If Symbol of Recall was active when the character was raised, it will have it's favor restored.
The caster, on the other hand, will suffer 30 seconds of roundtime, and be required to pay their debt of spirit. The cost is 75% of the target's maximum, which can be determined by APPRAISE on the corpse (before Divine Word is cast). For example, if the corpse has 10 spirit points, the caster would need 8 actual spirit points to complete the resurrection (and survive). Not having enough spirit will result in spirit death.
Explaining Divine Word To The Dead
Many players are not familiar with the mechanics of Divine Word, particularly since it received a substantial overhaul improving its capabilities around August 2014. While linking them to this article is a reasonable option, it can be more pertinent to explain the spell more or less precisely and accurately to them yourself. However, one then risks making an error or omission, and it can be safer to use a script. Regardless of how one explains Divine Word to a prospective target, it is generally a good idea to do so if they are unfamiliar with it.
The following text can be composed into a basic script to ensure fidelity of mechanics, as repeating it frequently may be prone to minor omissions. Although the amount of text is lengthy, in fact it omits some issues particular to field application, where it might reasonably be assumed that the subject is hunting with the paladin and is thus familiar with the spell (or when the time to explain it would be in any case cumbersome). It is available in Lich as ;1640rant, which is in the repository for download.
Because Divine Word has numerous mechanical effects, it is suggested to convey the below information as out of character whispers. It is further suggested to place well-timed pauses between the paragraphs when delivering it, to ensure time for the subject to pick up on the finer points as well as a matter of courtesy to not flood them with too much text instantaneously.
Divine Word is a paladin's resurrection spell. For 15 minutes, you'll have full spirit, stamina, mana, health, and all the spells that were active when you died. Your wounds will not bleed, nor will you be hindered by rank 1 or rank 2 wounds (including your ability to cast spells, etc). However, paladins are not skilled to apply chrisms. These effects will last for the full ten minutes or until *you* UNLINK (no relation with the paladin UNLINKing). You can check the remaining duration for Divine Word under SPELL ACTIVE. The idea is you can eat herbs to heal your wounds or, ideally, go hunt quickly and get fried. Once Divine Word falls, you will go to 1 spirit, 1 mana, 1 stamina, and 25 health. So don't forget to spellup under Divine Word's effects before you lose all your mana! You could also send any available mana to someone else right before Divine Word ends, or use it to cast spells at someone else. (The Order of Voln's Symbol of Recall have it's favor restored if it was used prior to a 1640 raise.)