Character Funerals

[SonOfLilith]

I was reading a thread and someone mentioned burring character sheets in the ground. Maybe it doesn't have to be dramatic, but does anyone have a kind of "ritural" for character deaths. Also, on the "in-game" side of it, does anyone burry the dead in your game?

 

[Psychotic Jim]

Not too long ago we had two player characters die in the middle of an adventure. We had two other characters take care of the remains in a sad and abrupt funeral while the rest of the party went on ahead to the adventure. One of the dead characters was cremated while the other was buried.

 

[Xarlen]

Not too long ago we had two players die in the middle of an adventure.

The Players died?

 

[Psychotic Jim]

I neant player characters. No Blackleaf-people in my game .

 

[fba827]

No out of game rituals here..

In game, we have the fellow PCs bury their dead unless opportunity is not available (the dead died in the belly of a dragon or they were in a real hurry to leave so as not to meet the same fate) ;-)

 

[Dr Midnight]

I tend to get overly dramatic with character funerals in my games.

Exhibit A:

Across town, standing in the autumn drizzle, the party, Gorgoldand, and a good number of Bree and Kryn's friends and family were standing about in the local cemetary. Their husks were given back to the earth as a high cleric of Ehlonna talked on about nature taking back what it has given. Tenchi and Dartan didn't really listen. They missed their friend.
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and, later in the campaign...
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The group somberly headed to the local cemetary. A local clergyman was waiting, alongside many of Poddleton's townsfolk. The entire Roughfoot clan was there, including Boulap, Melipp, Lebee, Sharvis, and of course Pappy. The clergyman performed his services, and Pappy stepped forward to say a few last words over his son.

"My boy Dekker. Seems not a half a year ago he was still runnin' around this town, here, with his little stick-sword, causin' all sortsa ruckus. Pokin' the local baker in the rear, 'slaying' tree stumps, skinnin' his knee just before laughing and skinnin' the other one. Now, his adventurin' lifestyle's taken him to an early end. I'd be a fool liar if I said I didn't feel heartsick and broken over his loss, but in truth, he wanted this. He lived for adventure. He never belonged to a life pushing a plow like his ol' Pappy, no more'n a bird belongs to the branch. He always told me that the end of his choosing would be to die defending his friends, with a sword in hand. He did just that. Probably saved the whole lot of 'em. He died doin' what he loved, and surely has joined Bree in the next world. That is why I will celebrate his life tonight. My boy did good. My boy did real good."

Pappy stepped back. Dekker was lowered into the earth and buried beside Bree. The weeping mourners left the cemetary. Only Fludo the faithful riding dog stayed behind, and remained there all day. That night he gave a howl to the dim Suns'ebb moon above.



By sharp contrast, a pretty lax funeral:

After some mourning, they brought him outside, a ways from the Temple. There, Angelique said some words over his body, and he was cremated. It didn't seem right at all- to die here, before a common enemy. He had things to do. He had an arch-enemy to slay. He had vengeance to wreak. Mallick's mind burned with the seed of an idea. He kept it to himself. Dartan watched the fires, and said "I just realized all my childhood friends are either dead or incapacitated."

Yessir, I like to slop it on thick like a fat man at a gravy bar when it comes to in-game drama. I... whoa. Fat man at a gravy bar. I've gotta use that one at least once daily from now on.

 

[Phowett]

When my four-year-long character died, who I had such a swell time playing, I threw his character sheet in my fireplace as the other players' characters cremated my character in-game. I was sad... until my DM let me play as a Gnoll character.

 

[LcKedovan]

Burials

I was just talking in another post about one of the things our old Call of Cthulhu group used to do. We had this huge wooden fibreboard piece that we used as our gaming table on a trunk (we called it "The Slab"). A full half of it was a participant drawn graveyard scene littered with tombstones, graves, monuments and mausoleums to our past characters. Of course, depending on what was left of the character depended on what kind of memorial... and one player's grave was modified into an open grave when he went missing.... MUAHAHHAHA. Sometimes we even buried particularly nasty opponents as well, as a frightening reminder.


-Will

 

[Tonguez]

Hey I thought all Gamers mope around for a week wearing black and contemplating either suicide or the summoning of Dread Cthulhu in order to hasten the End of the World when a character dies...

Never actually done an ic funeral although I've had pcs 'ascend' (to Outsiderdoom)

 

[thundershot]

Burial? Uh, the PCs that I DM always "gentle repose" the body, and they cart it off to be resurrected with the "resurrection fund" that they save up over time... I can think of only a few instances where the character stayed dead, but that was the player's choice...