ZEITGEIST ZEITGEIST - Death Roster

As originally proposed by RangerWickett, here is a place to post accounts of (or links to accounts of) PC deaths during your ZEITGEIST campaigns.

Thought I would propose a basic proforma, but it is open to modification at the suggestion of contributors:

Name of PC:
Name of Campaign/DM:
Name of Adventure:
Chapter/Scene of Death:
Cause of death:
Metagame cause (if applicable):
Brief Recount of events:
How you handled the aftermath:

RIP El Perro

So, to get the ball rolling we have:

PC: El Perro - Human Brutal Soundrel Gunsmith
Campaign: The Continuing Adventure of Korrigan & Co.
Adventure: The Dying Skyseer
Scene of Death: The Creepy Warehouse
Cause of death: Bleak Golem
Metagame cause: Player moved to Berlin. Encounter was heavily weighted to give the player character a dramatic send-off.
Recount: El Perro led a mixed bag of NPCs into the warehouse while the rest of his team were trapped under the weight of falling stone. They tangled with a souped-up level 7 solo golem, which was reduced to 10hp by the end of the encounter.
Aftermath: El Perro (unconsious but not dead) was taken back to Macbannin's Manor by Cillian Creed and there subjected to the same interrogation as Wolfgang von Recklinghausen. He refused to crack and join the Ob, and so the technicians performed a similar procedure on him as on the flayed jaguars. The rest of the party had to face him down at the end of the adventure. His funeral was a lovely moment.
Link: http://www.enworld.org/forum/5776654-post46.html

I must spread some XP around before giving it to you again, but I thought how you handled El Perro was brilliant.

So far I haven't had any deaths. I only dropped one or two PCs in adventure #1, but in adventure #2 they've been dropping left and right. One has been at death's door twice, but made a natural 20 on a death save in the golem encounter. Overall, I'm very happy with the encounter balancing -- I have an undersized party with very little in the way of ranged attacks, so I make some minor tweaks to the encounters to compensate for that. I've been thinking of making a summary post of my changes in my campaign thread for other DMs with smaller parties; I and my players have been very happy with the encounter balance so far. They feel challenged, and have even felt like they were on the verge of TPK at times, and I feel like the enemies aren't pushovers.

Heath Turpin

Name of PC: Heath Turpin, Human Rogue Eschatologist
Name of Campaign/DM: The Second Iteration / Ridingsloth
Name of Adventure: The Dying Skyseer
Chapter/Scene of Death: A Weight of Crumbling Stone
Cause of death: Premature Demolition
Metagame cause (if applicable): N/A
Brief Recount of events: In an attempt to prevent being trapped in the church, Heath bravely set off the demolition early and was promptly vaporized.
How you handled the aftermath: A rousing speech from Stover Delft about the importance of not letting half the squad die in vain.

Here lies Heath,
He lived the way he died:
Without apparent regard for consequences.

Jamroar Bearcharger

Name of PC: Jamroar Bearcharger, Half-Elf Oracle Technologist
Name of Campaign/DM: The Second Iteration / Ridingsloth
Name of Adventure: The Dying Skyseer
Chapter/Scene of Death: A Weight of Crumbling Stone
Cause of death: Excessive Backup
Metagame cause (if applicable): N/A
Brief Recount of events: In an attempt to aid his ill-fated companion Heath Turpin, he bravely stood beside him to the very end.
How you handled the aftermath: A rousing speech from Stover Delft about the importance of not letting half the squad die in vain.

Alas poor Jamroar,
He lived the way he died:
Standing behind his squadmates.

Juriaan Vestergaard

Name of PC: Juriaan Vestergaard, Human Fighter Martial Scientist
Name of Campaign/DM: The Second Iteration / Ridingsloth
Name of Adventure: The Dying Skyseer
Chapter/Scene of Death: A Weight of Crumbling Stone
Cause of death: Ultimately: bad aim
Metagame cause (if applicable): N/A
Brief Recount of events: In an attempt to prevent being trapped in the church, Juriaan opened fire with his pistols on the casks of firedust as they were brought towards the entrance. Sadly, he missed, and Heath backed his play by trying again when the casks were far too close.
How you handled the aftermath: A rousing speech from Stover Delft about the importance of not letting half the squad die in vain.

Juriaan: he will be missed.
He lived the way he died:
Proximate to great events.

Name of PC: Cassi

Name of Campaign/DM: Gears of Revolution/Colmarr

Name of Adventure: The Dying Skyseer

Chapter/Scene of Death: A ring of blood

Cause of death: The Vestige of Death's "Reaper's Scythe" power.

Brief Recount of events:
Cassi spent the early potion of the battle atop Cauldron Hill laying into the Cackling Crawler. When it was killed by her sergeant, Erik, she turned her attention to the serpent-maned lion. She kept it from mauling her companions for 3 rounds, all the while being harrassed by a vestige that appeared and disappeared at will. She ignored it, focusing on targets that the rest of the party could affect. She paid the ultimate price when the vestige manifested for the last time and its scythe impaled her down the neck of her plate armour.

(Mechanically, Cassi went from 9 to -21 hp in one attack, killing her instantly.)

How you handled the aftermath:
In the aftermath of the combat, Nevard moved to check Cassi and looked around sadly when he realised she was dead. He offered his apologies to RT3, then suggested they should leave as soon as possible.

Name of PC: Vesper, human scout (built to be like Batman)
Name of Campaign/DM: OnlineDM's Zeitgeist campaign
Name of Adventure: The Island at the Axis of the World
Chapter/Scene of Death: Act Three: The Trio
Cause of death: Attack from 20th-level Asrabey Varal
Metagame cause (if applicable): Excessive bravery
Brief Recount of events: Vesper had used the Golden Icon of Avilona to jump across Ghillie Dhu's maze and then climbed up the observatory tower while the rest of the party was dealing with Ghillie Dhu. He snuck in through the roof door using the key and waited and listened as Asrabey talked to Evelyn and Nathan. He readied an action to attack whenever he was noticed by Asrabey. Our bard, Corduroy, danced a jig of joy when he finally succeeded in climbing onto the roof, which triggered Asrabey to look around, which triggered Vesper's charge. Two rounds later, as the rest of the party rushed into the room, Asrabey finished Vesper off with his sword and shield. On the bright side, he had been cursed by our witch's daily power at that point, which dealt Asrabey damage if he attacked a PC; his downing of Vesper was his last act ever.
How you handled the aftermath: The party mourned Vesper's loss, and his player is working on a new character for Adventure Two. The more interesting question is how I'll handle Asrabey's death and the subsequent theft of his cool sword and cloak by the PCs...

Name of PC: Kalviath, Changeling Sorcerer VM
Name of Campaign/DM:The Gearheart Saga (named for a great book)
Name of Adventure:Island at the Axis of the World
Chapter/Scene of Death: Chapter 1, Docker's Revolt
Cause of death: A brutal fcused assault by the Docker Veteran Thames Grimesly.
Metagame cause (if applicable): Poor teamwork from the PCs combined with the DM not paying attention to PC health.
Brief Recount of events: The fight started on the bridge. The PCs had brought the longshoremen with them and were standing directly next to them. When combat started, The Veteran and Grimesly attacked and then the longshoremen turned around and caught the players off guard. In the second round of combat, Grimely used his flying clothesline attack on 3 PCs and actually killed the changeling outright.
How you handled the aftermath: The round after Kalviath the red shirt bit it, an npc joined the fight, Kiera Dailie (Lvl 1 Skirmishing Worlord Yerasol Vet with a carbine) to aid the players. They have only 1 leader so the extra healing helped a lot. The npc was designed as a backup in case a player didn't show.

After the conclusion of chapter 1, one of the players got very mouthy with Delft so he gave the character latrine duty. The played kept at it and so did delft, giving the PCs a short bodyguard assignment to guide and protect Terrano Ni'eathal, a Tiefling noble I slapped together who is a known gambler and lecherous glutton. He took the PCs to "The Pit", an underground fighting arena in Flint, where the PCs encountered Griely and his pals again. Grimesly alerted the announcer that he wanted a grudge match, singaling out the PCs. The PCs, even after being told not to kill their oppoenets, were out for blood and revenge for their fallen comrade...killing every opponent. The PCs were given a penalty round for breaking a rule and forced to fight an imprisoned beholder Gauth. Kalviath's player had created a new character that uses a carbine as a ranger. He managed to crit the beholder, allowing the team to bloody a lvl 5 elite in 1 round. At the end of the round, Kiera Dailie showed up again with a small army of low ranking RHC personnel to shut down the operation and send the PCs back to Delft to meet the Minister of Outsiders and get their briefing.

They're loose cannons! I should have their badge! Unfortunately, the lucky bastards were personally requested by a VIP, but they'd better watch their asses if they don't want to end up in a floating prison!