Digital Graveyard

Hello all,

I, being a carnal man, have always had an interest in the details behind the death of RPG characters, both my own and those of my fellow players.

So, I thought it would be interesting to see if others share this same morbid curiosity.

I propose we use this thread as a means of sharing the stories of our dearly departed. Go ahead and include as much detail as you like. Histories, descriptions, stories, blogs, all are encouraged. Any character will do, D&D, d20 Modern, White Wolf, GURPS, etc. Just remember, this thread is for the departed. No living please.

I'll start things off with a couple of short, simple stories.


Grim Oakenshield, Fighter

Here lies Grim Oakenshield who met his maker in the Creator Ridge Mines from Return to Temple of Elemental Evil.

Riding his trusty mount, Grizzly the bear, Grim charges into the unholy Air Temple and engages a foul undead bear skeleton. The fight is fierce and Grim is thrown from his mount. Undaunted, he engages the foul undead abonination toe ot toe. He dodges left. He dodges right. He's sure the beast will fall before his unrelenting attack. High atop the steps of the altar, blood and sweat stinging his eys, fear grips his soul as a large bony claw, the one that will end his life crashes down on his face. Everything spins and goes black.

His companions hear the scream first. Turning their heads, they witness Grim, face torn and disfigured, caught by the leg in the mouth of a huge skeletal bear. Thrashing its vile head, Grim breaks loose, his leg still stuck firmly in the beast's jaws. The dwarfs body cart-wheels high into the air and dissapears as it falls into shadow on the far side of the altar.

The party is shaken, their mighty fighter is struck down! A dark fear fills the hearts of Grim's commrads, will they have what it takes to defeat these crazed evil doers..?


Gokusan, Monk

Here lies Gokusan who met his maker in the Creator Ridge Mines from Return to Temple of Elemental Evil.

The party is attacked while resting. A dwarf, a Barghest, and an Athach press an attack and the party reels to defend itself.

Goku, the name his friends used, swiftly engages the Athach stunning the giant with his rappid fists. The party moves in and destorys the great creature. Springing and leaping, Goku flies past the hulking corpse and attacks the dwarf and barghest. His attention is focused on the wolf-like creature deeming the armored dwarf too slow to be an immediate threat. This is a fatal mistake. Goku never sees the axe coming. With two devistating stokes, the dwarf eviscerates Gokuson spilling his insides to the cave floor. Goku is dead before he hits the ground. (DM's Note: The first attack scored a critical and with both hits the total damage was close to 60 pts putting poor Goku well below negative 10 hit points.)

To the horror of his companions, the Barghest attacks and devours Goku's corpse before their very eyes. With nothing left to mourn and revenge burning in their hearts, the party lunges, pushing the attack on the vile enemy.

These are a couple of simple examples of what I would like to see here.

The floor is now open. All are encouraged to participate, those with a penchant for the quill and those without. Use whatever format you want. Include whatever aid may help in your telling of the story. Pictures are always a good thing too.

Thanks and enjoy.

Here lies Stimpy Vermincrusher

This noble dwarf was one of the few in his clan who knew how to climb trees, and climb them he could.

So it was no surprise that he died, tragicly, at the Old Moathouse near the Temple of Elemental Evil, having dove from the top of a pine at a flying blue dragon. He hit the fell beast with his magical axe, and the blade dug deep into the dragon. Stimpy could have used it as a hold, but his hand slipped from the bloodsmeared handle and he fell to his death on the floorbed below.

Here lies Stimpy's brother, Gimpy.

Like his brother, he sought to adventure. But rather than dive from a tree onto a dragon, Gimpy was simply ripped it twaine by a large and rather unfriendly Were-Grizzly.

May he rest in pieces.

ConnerSB, thanks for your addition to my digital graveyard. I hope poor Stimpy finds peace in the afterlife.

Well, it looks like I might be the only person with this nutty curiosity. Hopefully someone else will share the details of some of their more memorable character deaths.

fenzer said:

Well, it looks like I might be the only person with this nutty curiosity. Hopefully someone else will share the details of some of their more memorable character deaths.

Click to expand...

You called?

Actually I haven't had the opportunity to run too many PCs unto death, but here's a couple.

My first PC - human ranger whose name I forgot:

Whatzisnehm was a ranger before his time, since he was a 2e character but focused primarily on using the bow. He survived goblins, orcs, giants and golems, but one fine day, his party ran into a pair of wyverns as a random encounter. Wyverns dived, PCs attacked, and poor Whatzisnehm got stung. I think it was the first saving throw vs. poison I ever had to make. Naturally, I rolled a 2 (since a 1 would have been too embarassing). I think the DM was way more shocked than me and apologized profusely for killing the character. I didn't see what the fuss was. This death may not count since it wasn't permanent. Whatzisnehm was raised later and was last seen with other members of his eighth level party being jumped by a full-grown shadow dragon. I'm pretty sure that death was permanent.

The unluckiest bladesinger in the world:

Amaril was a modified elven bladesinger who always had the worst luck. Girdle of masculinity/femininity - check. Criticalled twice by a bullette - check. Left hand severed by a bad guy (no, it wasn't Vader) - check. Shipwrecked and stranded on a desert island - check. So it's safe to say Amaril wasn't in the best of moods.

At the time of his demise he was still female, one-handed and had been kicked by a couple of the horses he tried to rescue during the aforementioned shipwreck. On the island, after some increasingly worsening adventures, he and his party were in the process of fighting some strange lizardmen who had a bunch of special abilities, including being able to conjure up darkness at will. The DM was quite evidently using them to shepherd the PCs in a particular direction, and the only way to escape that was through an exit which was too narrow for more than one PC to go through at a time. Amaril lost his temper and asked the rest to flee through the tunnel while he bought them some time. He was promptly engulfed by a globe of darkness and attacked by four lizardmen.

Unfortunately for the DM, he'd decided to hand Amaril a sword of sharpness a level ago. I asked the DM what I'd have to roll to hit, since Amaril was unable to see in the darkness and if it was still possible to cut off arms and legs as the sword usually could. He flippantly said that a 17 would hit and a 19 would sever an appendage. Four rolls of 19, 20, 20 and 19 later, a few lizardmen pieces came rolling out of the darkness. Followed by Amaril, charging the remaining score or so of lizardmen. By the time they took him down, he'd singlehandedly killed half a dozen and given his companions time to get away. It was a good day to die.

Excellent Shilsen, very nice obituaries indeed. Thank you for laying these heros to rest in my humble little grave yard.

There are plenty of plots left people. Come and share your stories.

Here lies Barry Jones, Dedicated Adventurer

Barry grew up in downtown Chicago. He was always an ambitious boy and liked his peas and carrots. He joined the military just out of High School just like his brother before him. He was a valient soldier and fought well in Desert Storm. He was honorably discharged from his duties and returned back home to Chicago to join the Chicago SWAT.

Things took a turn for the worst after he joined the SWAT force. He was with his SWAT team responding to a hostage situation within an old gothic church when a fog enveloped the whole inside of the church. The SWAT crew wandered around aimlessly for 5-10 minutes. When the fog finally cleared they were presented rough hewn cavern. Barry soon realized he was not in Kansas anymore. (This is where fenzer the DM took Barry from the D20 modern rules to DnD 3.5e and the Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil) Since Barry was the scout for the crew, he moved out into the darkness with only the clothes on his back and his H&KMP5. Barry first heard about the attack over his Commset. He rushed back. From out of the stonework Trolls of unthinkable stench attacked the party. Muzzle flash and bullets whizzed everywhere. Barry hid in the shadows unsure when to attack. He froze and would not help. The mistake of not helping always plagued Barry. He dreampt of the screams of his dying comrads as Gargoyles and Trolls tore and ripped their flesh. In the end the score was MONSTERS 6, SWAT Team 0. Barry wandered in a comatosed state and was eventually captured by a bastard of a monster called D'gran in one of the Crater Ridge Mines Bridge Complexes. He was tortured relentlessly for days.

He was soon discovered by a crew of adventurers hell bent on ridding the Crater Ridge Mines of it's foulness. When interviewed, the adventurers Joust, Rasta and Grim stated that they always remembered Barry as the quite and shy type. He always took one for the team. He spent the last 2 months of his life fighting nasty critters in the Crater Ridge Mines. He even got to travel the countryside on holiday and visit the City of Verbobonc to converse with the locals. Barry's first experience with death was when he was killed by the same beast that slew poor Gokuson (see the initial post above by Fenzer). Barry was resurrected and continued to take the fight to the foe's.

Barry died from a mortal wound a second time at the hands of an assassin whom which the party of adventurers had decided to take on as extra help earlier in the previous day. The party did not know that this extra hand was not an assassin. This extra help ended up slaying poor Barry at the entrance to the Earth Temple as a large battle was taking place between Trogs and the party.

All Barry wanted was to return to Chicago and have a slice of Deepdish Pizza.

Sux for Barry. I don't like it when I get stuck with needles either.

Thanks James for posting Barry's obituary. It needed to be told.

The idea to bring Barry to the Temple came from Charles Ryan. As part of his beta testing he brought a SWAT team to the temple to fight D'Gran. I liked the idea so much, I copied it. The rules worked well together.

Here lies Druid (I forget his name, he wasn't around very long and the other two just called him Druid anyways).

His companions told him it was folly to trust the massive, green demon with four powerful arms chained to the walls of the defeated wizard's dungeon. However, the trusting soul that he is, he freed it of its bonds (after the other two players emphasized that they were long gone).

Thanks Asmor. I'm sure Druid is resting comfortably in a bed of dried leaves and moss. May he rest in pease.