Until Death Do Us Part

[Duck One]

Please give some thought to what happens to your PC when it dies. It can be a lot of work for a DM, and plot points may be held up while decisions are made. Giving it some forethought will help all concerned.

Know that when your PC dies, you the player may not be wanting to start all over, and believe me I understand. However you are telling your character’s story and at some point that story needs a conclusion. Falling in battle while serving a grand purpose may be the best ending for the character. There is of course an epilogue to that story, the entering into another realm, being closer to their god and reuniting with ancestors and fallen friends. Perhaps they have been called to an even higher purpose, and have started another chapter. It should be uncommon that a PC would return to the pain and worry of a mortal realm.

As a DM, I weigh same thing with respect to the NPC’s your character interacts with. As a story-telling device in an adventure world, death is a necessary to give meaning and drama to the events. It would take an extraordinarily rare circumstance for me to consider raising a slain NPC from the dead because that would invalidate the meaning of the death, which would alter the accomplishment of the PC’s. Without the threat of death, the risk is reduced, and therefore the adventure is reduced. I don’t want to cheapen the adventure, and therefore I want death to have meaning.

Please consider the following questions and prepare your answers now so you don’t have to when that moment of decision comes:

Knowing the opportunities that exist in the next life, would it make sense for your PC to want to return?

Has your PC earned the stature with any gods to warrant the extraordinary attention from them to grant a resurrection?

As a story teller, have you considered the possible adverse ramifications of a resurrection upon the nature of the plot and the seriousness of the adventure?

While we’re on the subject, please consider what should happen to your fallen PC and their possessions? Where would the body be sent? What kind of arrangements (burial, cremation) would be done, and who would manage that? What would become of the worldly possessions? (I would urge you give at most 1 item to any other PC, and the item should have some kind of sentimental connection with that PC). Have you considered having a conversation about these arrangements with the other PC’s in character (it is a great bonding opportunity)? Have you considered writing a will?

If you work through all this and make some decisions, please send a PM to a DM so those can be recorded in the PC bios we use. It will help us manage it when it happens.

[Ithildur]

Bravo Duck. Good post sir.