they're not rare, De Beers manually controls the market price by limiting the amount of diamonds on the market.

[u/valsagan]

[u/Randomd0g]

Fighter (with his dying breath) : "Please... revivify me..."

Cleric: Yes of course! ...Shit. I'm out of diamonds.

Wizard: No worries I got one

Cleric: BY THE POWER OF THE LIGHT, I SACRIFICE THIS DIAMOND TO GIVE BREATH T... What the fuck it's not working. Wizard are you sure this is a diamond???

Wizard: Of course it's a diamond! I made it myself!

Cleric: You.... MADE it??? DO YOU NOT THINK THAT THE DIETY WHO POWERS MY SPELLS CAN TELL THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A REAL DIAMOND AND A DIY PROJECT?? YOU ABSOLUTE IDIOT, THE FIGHTER IS DEAD NOW BECAUSE OF YOU

Wizard: ME? YOU'RE THE CLERIC WHO DIDN'T PACK ENOUGH DIAMONDS!

Fighter: (splutters and coughs as he comes back to life)

Cleric: WHAT? BUT HOW?

Rogue: (throwing away an empty healing potion bottle) Um.. yeah you guys were bickering so I just...

[u/Gnomin_Supreme → u/Randomd0g]

The diamond would be real. A diamond is just Carbon atoms it a specific molecular structure.

[u/Duhblobby → u/Gnomin_Supreme]

Why do you assume the real world physical composition is the only factor, rather than the necessity of it being a sacrifice being part of the casting of the divine spell that can return the dead to life but only at a cost?

[u/Gnomin_Supreme → u/Duhblobby]

Are we sure that's 100% the reason these Spells need diamonds? Could just some representation of purity, or some metaphysical property for channeling Soul Energy back into the Material Plane.

[u/Licho5 → u/Gnomin_Supreme]

Would make more sense that 'cost of a sacrifice', since the cost doesn't increase proportionally to the caster's wealth.

[u/Hammurabi87 → u/Licho5]

Or to the rarity and value of diamonds in the setting, for that matter.

[u/TheWizardOfFoz → u/Hammurabi87]

This is wrong. The spell requires diamonds worth a specific amount (1000 gold in the case of resurrection). The value of diamonds within the setting is the main deciding factor. Not the diamonds themselves.

[u/[deleted] → u/Licho5]

For a setting with such a rule set to be even remotely internally consistent, this would need to be the case. As the value of a diamond is entirely arbitrary, and depends on their perceived economic value within a social structure at any given time.

I.e. Why would you still require the same quantity of diamonds to revive someone, if you were forced to purchase them at exorbitant costs due to their regional scarcity?

I'd argue it has nothing at all to do with the perceived value of a diamond(or lack thereof), and has more to do with the metaphysical properties of a diamond that allow it to act as a soul transmuting reagent of sorts. It may even be the case that there is nothing special at all about a diamond, and that it is the zeitgeist belief that a diamond is required, which gives it such a property.

[u/Zeebuoy → u/Gnomin_Supreme]

technically since its X gp of diamonds I saw a funny scenario where the merchant just,

ups the price of an extremely small amount of diamonds to get the same effect.

[u/Culsandar → u/Zeebuoy]

Cleric "I cast raise dead on the fighter!"

Their deity "you bought that diamond on sale! It isn't worth enough!"

[u/TheWizardOfFoz → u/Zeebuoy]

I’m assuming it’s market value. An individual transaction to game the system wouldn’t count.

I’d assume the market value in a D&D world would be maintained and managed by the church itself.

[u/Zeebuoy → u/TheWizardOfFoz]

probably though the scenario was a comedic skit.

[u/Q_221 → u/Gnomin_Supreme]

Yes, this is certainly what diamonds on a world with no magic are. But D&D is not a world that runs on materialism.

For example, people are just arrangements of a number of different elements in a nonmagical world. But in D&D people have souls, which are extremely crucial to their continued existence as people: if the soul can't or won't return to a body, there's nothing you can do physically that will turn that body back into a person.

There's no reason there couldn't be a similar thing going on with other objects: a diamond created in the ground may have a certain spark of the world's creation in it, a spark that can't be replicated no matter how you arrange carbon atoms.

So it's just down to what makes a better story.

[u/[deleted] → u/Gnomin_Supreme]

You do know that you're arguing about molecular structure of diamonds in a universe where Newton's laws are not in effect?

[u/Gnomin_Supreme → u/[deleted]]

They are though, the laws of physics still exist in the DnD universe, and Magic breaks them.

[u/Hammurabi87 → u/Gnomin_Supreme]

They mostly exist. From what I've read of the Spelljammer setting, things get quite weird once you start to move away from the ground...

[u/Gnomin_Supreme → u/Hammurabi87]

Fair enough, it's basically the physics of Super Mario Galaxy.

[u/PM_Me_HairyArmpits → u/Randomd0g]

DIETY

Mishakal, have you lost weight?