I am not aware of any ressurection in any books. Also, other than becoming undead, they can't go around rezzing people in the lore, that is just a game mechanic so you don't have to reroll new characters. People in the lore can't rez anyone at all. If they had ressurection it opens the doors to "why didn't they rez this or that person" and wrecks storylines.

If rezzes really existed in the lore then every battle would be like a BG with the characters respawning and running back in, and there'd be no room for heroes since with rezzes you can't actually risk anything.

so no, no one gets rezzed. Undead can be awakened. So that means someone could probably "rez" Arthas, though he wouldn't be the Lich King anymore.

Battlerez was on cooldown. :(

I believe it has something to do with respect. When a tauren (or druid) dies, they are being sent into the earth mother. It would be disrespectful to raise them from the dead.

Sylvanus and the Forsaken seem to have no qualms. Plus, she wasn't resurrected, she was raised as Undead again. I doubt the Tauren want an Undead Cairne running around. :)

if it helps any, the valkyr sacrifice themselves to revive sylvanas, and partly because they apparently made a pact with her and/or were bound to sylvanas's life anyway. at least, that's what I figure from the in-game text.

Well Cairn died in a challenge to the Death...I am sure that rules alongside honor will prevent anyone from rezzing the one who lost (even if it was by devious means)...also lore doesn't have the same mechanics as the in-game...if everyone could be rezzed or just do a corpse run...lore would get boring real fast...remember that 2 Val'kyr were sacrificed for her to come back

I think people in general should take the in-game death and rez not in a literal way. When you die (because your hp goes to zero), I tend to think that you're running out the will and energy to continue the battle, and pass out. Not die.

So the spells like rez, battle rez etc, they're there to bring you back to your original vigor. So no, druids cannot resurrect Cairne that way.

Here's the thing about the whole "can't be rezzed in lore" or "rezzes in-game are just revivals of passed-out comrades."

http://www.wowhead.com/quest=11638

Pay close attention to the closing text: "Thank you for freeing his spirit from Kaganishu and returning with his remains. [...] And now, I will return him to the living where he belongs."

He's dead. So dead you brought back his "remains". Like his spirit, the ghost, asked you to. And then the shaman rezzed him, or "brought him back to the living."

Now, one can say this is just an in-game thing, but why couldn't they have chosen different words to keep it open to things like reviving those with only a barest breath of life left? Remains, back to the living, his spirit. It's very clear that this shaman rezzed a very dead tauren. And there are a couple of other in game examples, too. Another ntoable one happens when players fight the Lich King in ICC.

I prefer to think that yes, we can ressurect the dead, but the circumstances required to do so must be very specific. Perhaps the dead must want to come back. Their body must be fresh of course, we can't revive Mankirk's wife after she's been rotting in the sun all day. Perhaps some injuries are too grievous for even skilled healers to mend.

Something to think about.

It's also worth noting that Abbendis' journal, which you can either read during the DK starting zone or while questing in Dragonblight makes note of her being killed and rezzed multiple times. And the Horde kill quest for her even has the questgiver asking for her head specifically in the hopes that the Crusade won't be able to resurrect her again.

Come to think of it, the old level 10 Paladin quests that rewarded the Redemption spell, which of course is the Paladin rez spell, specifically noted that you were resurrecting dead people. Indeed, the Blood Elf quest was to rez someone you'd just gotten done killing in a duel to the death.

yunkndatwunk, this is incorrect.

There is a quest in Northrend where you retrieve a taruen's corpse and bring it to his student who cries a little, then promptly casts a resurrect spell on him and he's back to life.

Resurrection does indeed happen in lore.

I really didn't buy that one-hit-kill either. How does a level 21 elite shoot a, what, level 87, level 88 elite, with on the order of a few hundred million health in the head and kill it with one shot?

Also - if Godfrey is capable of delivering single shots doing 9-digit damage, how come I smashed in his face in SFK in my late level 20s?

Now, what would make some sense is if he had distilled down the Worgen curse or something and injected Sylvanas with it. Apparently Worgen can't be raised as Forsaken, so something in the curse is incompatible with being undead - just the type of plague-like weapon that Gilneas needs. Sticking a needle in the back of a level 88 elite faction boss arguing with someone else and not paying attention to her newly-raised 'loyal' soldiers is also something a level 21 elite could do - rather than doing something like a third of a billion damage with one pistol shot.

He could have easily made an excuse for distilling the Worgen curse. He could say we was working on a cure for it. which the Forsaken would love to have (one cure-barrel barrage and Gilneas is defended by weaker, undead-raiseable Humans) and would make complete sense for his character (hated the Worgen curse, and would have wanted to cure at least Greymane). Instead - he one-shots a faction leader and becomes a level 25+ boss. Riiiiight...