Repeated resurrection comes with a cost: the bond between body and soul becomes tenuous, weakening each time resurrection takes place. When frayed enough, the threads connecting the two may break at the most unexpected moment.
Death is the ultimate consequence, so one must proceed with caution when adding a resurrection mechanic into their world. Having fallout and high costs associated with resurrection will help keep it from getting out of control, on top of adding potential new stakes and tension to the narrative. Adding conditions that make resurrection impossible will also help with this.
In the case of this prompt, we’re looking at a consequence that comes with using resurrection. (And obviously, feel free to combine this with things like the trauma that would likely result from dying in the first place, mental, physical, and spiritual. Consequences make things much more interesting.)
Death severs the connections between body and soul. Resurrection restores those connections along with the physical body, but the mending is less than perfect. Every successive resurrection results in weaker connections, and these are slow to heal if at all. Eventually they become so frail that the slightest disturbance will cause them to break.
Abusing the resurrection mechanic runs the risk of flinging the resurrected character into a fate worse than death. They may have been able to return to life, but what happens if they slip out of their body and something else occupies it? They would be trapped in a state where they can no longer influence the world, only able to watch as whatever took their body for a ride does as it pleases. Alive in one sense, yet less than a ghost in another.
An unanchored soul can be reunited with their body under certain conditions, but the connections between the two remain weak. The soul breaking free is always a dangerous situation to deal with. Even beyond the possibility of body theft, it’s easier to steal and contain a soul with no connections.
Cognitive and physical effects can also be associated with this. Dissociation would be an obvious one to use, with the frightening possibility that this could lead to the soul disconnecting without the character realizing until it’s too late. Loss of feeling or other senses could be another. Even beyond the risk of the soul coming loose, there are long-lasting symptoms that need to be dealt with and managed alongside whatever goals the character and their allies may have.
In all, even though resurrection is possible death will still have consequences that last throughout the rest of the story. And at the end of the day, death is still inevitable because after a certain point it will no longer be possible to restore the connections between body and soul.
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