ZEITGEIST ZEITGEIST - Death Roster

Death of a Vampire

Name of PC: Malkie Vienne, Halfling Vampire Docker
Name of Campaign/DM: Old Dorks Zeitgeist / roadtoad
Name of Adventure: Island at the Axis of the World
Chapter/Scene of Death:Act Two, Hold the Lighthouse ("For the Wargamers" variant)
Cause of death: A Rebel Investigator Deluded the party Runepriest into attacking Malkie with radiant damage.
Metagame cause (if applicable): Player impatience
Brief Recount of events: The party of four had worked their way into the lighthouse fairly easily and just had to hold out for three waves. During the first wave, Durakh-al, a Goliath Runepriest Skyseer, had activated a Rune of Endless Fire, causing his halberd to do fire and radiant damage for the rest of the encounter. Since the Golden Icon of Urim had made Durakh-al immune to the attacks of the Rebel Patrolmen, and so he didn't need to recover any hit points, I told his player that he could keep the Rune going for the next wave.

The party had the advantage of terrain and cover. All they had to do was keep picking off rebel fighters from behind the barricaded chokepoint near the lighthouse stairs, but Malkie got impatient. Invoking the power of the Golden Icon of Avilona, she flew out over a horde of Patrolmen, killing about half a dozen with a burst of some kind. She then turned invisible and landed in the middle of about fifteen enemies.

One Patrolman noticed her and shot her with his crossbow, and the rest followed. Even at a -5 to hit, a dozen shots can be dangerous. Down to about 5 hit points, Malkie used Docker's Jank to swap positions with the party monk, Cazara, who had been standing right next to Durakh-al, behind the barricade. Malkie hit the last remaining Rebel Investigator with an attack that put the investigator at 1 hit point and tried to slide her over the ledge above the ramp to kill her with falling damage, but the Investigator caught herself on the edge.

The investigator acted next and deluded Durakh-al, convincing him that at any moment Malkie might betray him to the horde of rebels, like she had done to Cazara. Durakh-al hacked at Malkie with his halberd. Thanks to the Rune of Endless Fire (which I had charitably allowed to last for an extra encounter), the attack did extra radiant and fire damage. Vampires are vulnerable to radiant damage. The combined bonuses incinerated Malkie in one fell swoop.

How you handled the aftermath: After the group managed to hold the lighthouse, Cazara scooped up the ashes of Malkie and kept them with her. Months later (a few weeks before starting Dying Skyseer), a Mysterious Stranger gave her instructions to meet Another Mysterious Stranger, who held the secret to reconstituting Malkie's ashes into something resembling a living creature again.

I docked Malkie the price of a Raise Dead ritual from her next requisition allowance (due to pay lost while being dead). When she returned to work, no one really talked about what had happened. It would be rude.

Rumdoom

Forgot all about this thread! A very belated entry, which doesn't really count:

Name of PC: Rumdoom Kagan
Name of Campaign/DM: The Continuing Adventure of Korrigan & Co.
Name of Adventure: Digging for Lies
Chapter/Scene of Death: Snatchers in the Night (Modified)
Cause of death: Single-handedly taking out a Kraken
Metagame cause (if applicable): Player was leaving for a long while as his wife was about to give birth.
Brief Recount of events: We set this whole thing up beforehand. I added a very high level monster to the encounter, and Rumdoom used a benny (a houserule mechanic) to sacrifice himself in pursuit of the 'good ending' demanded by his belief in the Heid Eschatol.
How you handled the aftermath: The rest of the group were completely convinced by our performance and very sorry to see Rumdoom go, as he was a campaign favourite. Fortunately for them (and him) Rumdoom was rescued by the Deep Ones (who had sent the kraken to take out Sijhen). The Deep Ones are also specific to our campaign, and probably come from or through Mavisha, I dunno. Anyway, Rumdoom has just returned to the party some four months later, as readers of our campaign journal will already know.

Name of PC: Agent Smith, figther
Name of Campaign/DM: Zeitgeist at Spain
Name of Adventure: The Dying Skyseer
Chapter/Scene of Death: thread four: arson night
Cause of death: Burn to dead by the two dragon born brothers after attacking them alone.
Metagame cause (if applicable):
Brief Recount of events: While the party was a top of Cauldron hill they got the vision of the arson operation who was happening at dawn. Instead of waiting for the morning to come agent Smith run down the mountain picked a horse an went solo against the arsonist while the rest of group was going a foot since Mc Bannin carriage was broken (a lie told by the mayor of course) When he arrived he tried to capture the cloaked figures only to find himself burned. Agent Smith body was taken away and appeared as a Witch oil infused zombie at the Witch oil reservoir scene.

Now for a real death

Name of PC: Karl Krauss (alias 'the Grumbler')
Name of Campaign/DM: The Continuing Adventures of Korrigan & Co.
Name of Adventure: Digging for Lies
Chapter/Scene of Death: Sijhen at the Threshold
Cause of death: The Thing from Beyond
Metagame cause (if applicable): Our first genuine death!
Brief Recount of events: Bad luck, and a nasty area effect power.
How you handled the aftermath: Krauss had only been introduced during the previous buffer adventure. We had 6 players already, but a long-term member returned unexpectedly from overseas, and we couldn't refuse him a place at our table. We put a lot of work into his backstory and the player played him to a tee. I was so disappointed to see him go that I offered him a couple of outs despite our 'no resurrection before paragon tier' houserule. But the player is a purist and rolled with the punches. (And now can't find a character he likes...)

I didn't know this thread existed! It's pretty cool reading about all these stories. I don't, unfortunately (fortunately?), have any to report yet, but I've been pretty intentional about not pulling any punches with my group, so I expect one of them to do something dumb enough to get them killed soon...

Thanks for sharing, everyone!