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Message: <blockquote data-quote="steeldragons" data-source="post: 5742266" data-attributes="member: 92511">This is true. I was thinking either a "short/immediate" term premonition. Easy enough for me, as DM, if I know a character is low on HP and the next blow might take them down. The other option was to have it be completely non-specific. Possibly some time (even days) ahead of any actual danger. Like a vision simply that the some servant of death is hanging out nearby a particular PC...but no sense of the why or how. The RBDM in me loves the idea of generating that sense of paranoia for the PC and/or the knowledge/desire for the resurrected PC to be "on guard"/looking for that heroic moment to save the potentially "doomed" character. I like the concept, but I'm not sure about putting "role-playing demand", if you will, on the player...it kind of goes against the character's personality.This is something to think about...I could see making this work...unbeknownst to the PCs.Doesn't really keep with the world's cosmology. But I like the idea. Besides, he was quite the "would-be hero/do-gooder" to begin with.I like this a LOT. But again, the PC did not actually reach his "final resting place." If, by chance, the next PC to be raised does make it to his or her "greener pastures" then I would definitely incorporate this.Spot on. THis is already in play. The PC had in his background a desire to reclaim his family's ancestral "wrongly lost" barony. We had not even begun to go down that story path, but with his return, this is taking center stage in the PCs mind. Not a "geas" per se...but definitely a pull and urgency that was lackign before their death.It's a little late for this. But I would/will certainly use as a possibility in future raisings.This I like as well. But, again, wouldn't want to take the character away from the player if he didn't desire it...but it warrants thought and might be possible/agreeable to the player...Certainly a great motivation for NOT getting killed again. But, again, the cosmology/PCs time in the afterlife/underworld was not really fully achieved.This, I believe, I am definitely using. I haven't had cause to just yet. But I'm inlcined to go with the latter...that certain undead can tell he has been to death and returned (mostly) "intact" whereas they are twisted shells of their former selves. Things like ghouls and wights and wraiths, I'm thinking, would want to rip the PC apart for that juicy "spark of life" they have been denied. Definitely worth incorporating...I'm not sure how/where this might come into play...but I like it and had been thinking something along these lines.Well, yes, ok. I should have explained. In the settign of Orea, as I said, there is the goddess of death, Desri. She serves as the weaver of fate, the judgement of souls, prophecy. her symbol is a squiggly rune that is shaped like a "Y".When a mortal dies in Orea, they go to "the Grey Lands", the "underworld" of Orea and the goddess' extraplanar domain. They travel down a fog filled river in a skiv for a time. The banks of the river, when one catches a glance through the ever-present fog and clouds, shows desolate shadow filled countryside to one side (the plane of Shadow or Shadowfell depending on your system). The other side of the river, essentially, abuts the Ethereal plane in most places. Those unclaimed or rejected spirits, spectres, ghosts, etc. exist there. No creature from either side is able to enter or cross the river of the dead.Eventually, the river forks. The isle in the center is where the death goddess sits in eternal judgement of all of the souls floating down the river. This is where the person/soul deposits their coins (Orean custom involves the burial of some form of treasure with the body to pay this some say "tribute", some say "bribe" to the death goddess.).Desri then looks at a soul's life and weighs their fate and deems which fork of the river the soul is to continue upon. One fork that leads to the "lower/wicked/evil planes" and one to the "higher/good planes." Through the use of certain ritual and magic, the priests of the death goddess are able to "slow" a soul's passage down the river (only the highest/most powerful priests are able to arrest the soul's travel entirely...which is generally viewed as quite wicked to that order except for the most exceptional persons/souls).So, the PC was basically kept/held at the Isle of Judgement. Unable to continue down either fork and unable to leave the river/skiv to get to either bank. Once a soul has been judged and passes down either fork of the river, returning them to Life is...significantly more difficult (i.e. Raise Dead won't do), if not impossible. His "Fate", according to the death goddess, was incomplete...thus he was permitted to return.I suppose in game terms, the river is like a tributary or branch of the Astral plane, that draws the souls of Orea down it/gives them a means to reach the outer planes. The death goddess is the real "gateway" to one's eternal afterlife.</blockquote>

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