Ars Moriendi, The Art of Dying Well.

[FreeXenon]

Deathspiral and Krusk

We entered this cavern in our DM's homebrew and first 3E campaign. Our group was about 7 or 8th level or so. (FYI - our DM is a B**S***d and most of our campaigns end in a TPK - but it is a heck of a ride!!!) There was treasure in the center of a small pond/lake and a black dragon playing hide-and-go-breathe on our party while throwing in some claw-claw-bites for variety. We were having a heck of a time battling it while it was using these hit-and-fly-back-into-the-lake tactics. Our sorcerer had wandered a little too close to the lake to cast a spell and out from the lake launched the black dragon snatching him up and then dove back into the water. (The sorcer was not at all happy about this - no strength, no ranks in swim, and no melee ability). Our daring half-orc barbarian (creatively named Krusk) dove in after him, with great axe in tow. He met the black dragon and dislodged the sorcerer. When the dragon went to fly out of the lake Krusk latched on and would not let go. Krusk made strength check after strength check to hold on to the flying dragon - all the while laying some perpetual smack down on it.

Krusk rode that thing like a bucking bronco an eventually laid the dragon in to a death spiral. It collided with a cavern wall and slide/fell to the ground. Prior to the fall Krusk had barely survived destroying the dragon, but the fall killed him.

My character Turgin StoneCrier (Dwarf - Fighter/Cleric working towards Dwarven Defender) wrote a account of Krusk's brave deed and I posted it to our message board. Krusk's player said it brought a tear to his eye. I think something about "A death any dwarf would have been proud to die." caught him. This is the first time I was inspired to do something like this.

 

[The Other Librarian]

Ars Moriendae, duh.

Actually moriendi here is functioning as a gerund, which has only neuter singular forms (genative, dative, accusative and ablative). Artia moriendi = the arts of dying.

Here endeth the lesson

/pedantic mode

 

[The Other Librarian]

Course you could just say Ars Mortium, the art of deaths.

No more, I promise.

 

[Klaus]

Back in a Masque of the Red Death play-by-post over at the WotC boards, I played my own great-grand-uncle, the pirate Jean Lafitte, who was cursed by the Red Death to live eternally. The Red Death had swallowed Lafitte's daughter, a child named Blanche. And periodically tried to corrupt Lafitte by attracting him and several innocents whose lives were touched by the Red Death to a haunted mansion.

After much shenanigans during that one night, we managed to escape the mansion just when the sun was about to rise, only to have the Red Death manifest itself as a red mist after us. As the others escaped, I let the Red Death swallow and start to pore into my character.

Red Death: Yield to meeee...
Lafitte: Grant me my deepest desire and I'm yours...
Red Death:...

Then the Red Death restored Blanche, still a child, and I told her to run after Mr. Briefcase, a friend who was watching from afar, and from whose I had taken a pistol with a single orichalchum (mystical atlantean alloy) bullet.

Red Death: Now yield to meee... (started entering my lungs).
Lafitte: *kof, kof* I told you, I wanted my _deepest_ desire... (put gun to temple)
Red Death: -- Wha--
Lafitte: Redemption.

BANG!

The whole campaign can be read here: http://www.gryphonhill.com/campaigns/motrd/index.htm

 

[diaglo]

3 and a half editions,...

say what??????

there are many, many, many more editions than that.

the best one i can remember from dayes of yore... involved a fireball and a tunnel of ice in G2 Glacier Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl. a truly heroic death by the magic-user in the party. sealed his fate so to speak..

the real death came later from suffocation... but ...oh well.

 

[Henry]

Blackmoria, a winner is you.

Klaus, that's awesome. And dramatic. It's dramatically awesome!

More recently, while on a tropical island, I charged a Fighter that I knew was somewhere around three times my skill (level), because I knew that he was responsible for previously marooning us at sea. I dealt a rather nasty blow, but he still cut me down in three mighty strokes. However, it was enough time for others to get involved, and a lot of hit and run tactics resulted in the fighter becoming almost mortally wounded.

He chased the rest of the group to the water's edge of the island, only to meet the ONE player character who stayed on the boat, flinging catapult stones at him. The player rolled, and got a lucky shot.

The fighter, out of breath, lunges out of the tree cover near water's edge, expecting to kill the weaklings who challenged him. He sees a shadow, looks up...

WHAM!

Fascinating adventure.

 

[Carpe DM]

And the flowers are still standing

I almost always gamemaster, so I have to say it gave me great pleasure to die for the first time as a player in, well, perhaps a decade weekend before last.

I trust I did it well, I'm out of practice.

The party was about half an inch from TPW. The Yuan-Ti we'd been fighting were ready for us, and had put about half the party down; the other half (the casters) were out of spells and facing a very melee-capable opponent who had previously dropped both frontline tanks.

The cleric distracted the baddie, while the wizard flew over to the various bleeding party members, and decided who to get back up. I made a calculated decision: "Get the other guy up."

And, indeed, that turned out to be tactically sound. When I bled out, (we didn't know I was at -9 at the time), my Ring of Vengeance went off, and lit that Yuan-Ti up like Christmas in Kentucky.

Of course -- the other part of "dying well" is to make it clear to the DM that you have enjoyed the pathos of the experience. Dying is *fun*, it's a hugely important moment, with lots of development opportunities. But a lot of DMs are always worried about how people will take it.

Remember: any session you die in, remember to thank the DM for his effort in putting the game together, and let him know that you don't consider a piece of paper more important that your shared game.

best,

Carpe

 

[Cthulhu's Librarian]

Back in 86 or 87, I was playing in a tournament game. Four members of the party had been killed, leaving the thief (me), the wizard, and the barbarian. We were chased into the last cavern in the dungeon complex, and in front of us was a chasm, and on the other side was an aboleth. The barbarian immediately jumped across the chasm, came within range of the aboleth, failed his save, and was enslaved. The Aboleth commanded him to attack the two of us remaining, so he jumped back across the chasm and cut down the wizard with one swing of his axe. I climbed down into the chasm to get out of harms way. The aboleth commanded him to follow me, so he did-by diving into the chasm, missing me completely. I climbed out of the chasm, and not knowing what to do as I couldn't fight an aboleth singlehandedly, I began going through the wizards pack as the aboleth's slaves were pounding on the door to the cavern. I pulled out his spell book, and remembered that a thief of a my level had a small percentage chance to cast a spell from a scroll or spellbook. Opening the spellbook, I found the Fireball page, crawled as close as I could to the aboleth without getting in range of his enslavement powers, and attempted to cast the spell, missing by 1 percentage point! The DM ruled that since it was so close, I managed to get the spell off, but not where i wanted it to be. BOOM! It went off, centered right on me. End of adventure. End of tournament.

 

[tarchon]

Actually moriendi here is functioning as a gerund, which has only neuter singular forms (genative, dative, accusative and ablative). Artia moriendi = the arts of dying.

Here endeth the lesson

You have neutered the arts!

I've never yet seen a post containing "Here endeth the lesson" that was actually correct: ARTES moriendi!

In Frank Herbert terms, I suppose this would be practiced by the Bene Obierit.

 

[The Other Librarian]

You have neutered the arts!

I've never yet seen a post containing "Here endeth the lesson" that was actually correct: ARTES moriendi!

In Frank Herbert terms, I suppose this would be practiced by the Bene Obierit.

Pride goes before a fall I guess!

For some reason I thoughts Ars was neuter. Better brush up on that third declension!

Anyway, this is a family forum, we need to throw a few fig leaves around!