Effects of Death

[SableWyvern]

Some time ago, on the old, boards, I started a thread that got onto the topic of RP effects on characters that have died and been raised.

There was really good stuff in there, but my memory fails me. Since I have just had the first death/raised experience IMC, I'm looking for input on what DMs out there do (generally, from a non-mechanics POV)with regard to raised characters.

 

[Darklone]

Would like to read that too

Sign me up.

 

[Tsyr]

IMC, characters don't retain any memory of the "world after" when they are raised. It's just not something a fully mortal soul can comprehend. Characters raised aren't even exactly aware they died... they know they were badly hurt and "passed out", but don't know they actualy died unless someone tells them.

 

[DungeonKeeperUK]

Thought I'd post my thoughts on this thread..., now this may get into a bit of game mechanics, and I'm thinking on my feet because as yet no one had doed in my 3rd Ed campaign and been raised...

But I'd go for when the character is raised (-1 level of Exp and -1 Con) then I would alllow the character a Will Save of DC 15+days since death say to avoid some sort of psychological ill effects (I suspect Call of Cthulhu d20 is going to be a great resource for his kinda thing)....
You may also want to put a restriction on how long before they can get back to "normal" life again dependent on hong long they been dead

But it all dpends on the religion of the character too adn their beleifs in the afterlife or resurection... A high level Barbarian Shaman who beleive sin such would recover much quicker than a backwater peasent whos who philosophy is based around a "heaven" where they reside after death, coming back may prove a great dissapointment.

hmmmm thats a couple of thoughts.. go ahead and flame me..

 

[Tsyr]

I suppose I aught to expand a bit on mine.

In my world, most sentient beings have two "souls"... the mortal soul and the immortal soul. They are two aspects of the same soul, seperate but linked. The mortal soul is what most people "use" in their daily life. There are a few exceptions though... First, all magic-users have an exceptionaly strong immortal soul... it's what allows the person to tap the mana of the world. Magic doesn't actualy come from the soul (unless you are a ki user), but it's a gateway to the magic. This has only one effect in game terms... a magic user (even a minor one), after being raised, can sometimes get... flashbacks... of the time they were dead. These most often manifest as dreams while the magic user is resting, normaly only after the magic user has pushed himself to the brink for the day and the immortal soul has mostly taken over to recover. In the dream plane (part of my worlds cosmology), only the immortal soul exists, and thus sometimes can "remember" things.

The other exception is celestials/fiends/halfs/dragons/half dragons, and that works as follows:

Celstials and Fiends only possess immortal souls. Thus, if you somehow killed one and raised it (theoreticly) it would retain full memory of what was beyond.

Half-Celestials and Half-Fiends possess a much more prominent immortal soul. (So does one subrace of elf that actualy has a number of celestials in it's early lineage). All halfs have the "flashback syndrom" that magic users have, but for non-magic users it tends to manifest only on nights of great stress. True magic users can sometimes activly remember little snippets, but never very much.

Dragons have _no_ immortal soul. None. They can never, under any cicumstances, be returned from the dead... when a dragon dies, that's it, gone. (Demon-Dragons are pure immortal soul, but they aren't really dragons, despite the name). As a result, there are also no dracoliches in my campagin... IMC, a lich is a mortal body controlled and powered by an immortal soul... much like a celestial, but a celestials mortal body is created to be controled by an immortal soul, a mortals body is not, and doesn't quite work right (rots, etc). And yes, this means in my campagin (GASP, sorry BADD members) dragons have no true "magic". They have very limited innate powers (Polymorph self, fire breath, the ability to fly when their wings shouldn't be able to support them, darkvision, and they can see invisible), but the best arcane scholars still havn't figured out where that comes from. It's not even "true" magic... dectect magic, dispell magic, etc... don't effect it's abilities.

Half-Dragons have an immortal soul because of their (demi)human blood, but their mortal soul is more dominent. Magic generaly feels... awkward, to half dragons. The exception is druidic arcane magic. (Druids are arcane in my world, not divine, again it relates to the cosmology and magic theory of my world), which they take to quite readily for some reason. This has no effect in game terms (A determined half-dragon could still become a caster if he really set out to do so), it's just a roleplay thing. In terms of what happens when you raise a half dragon though... they remember NOTHING, EVER... even magic users. Their mortal soul is too dominant.

*edit*

Further random tidbit: To someone capable of percieving the immortal soul in my world, a person with a strong immortal soul (such as a caster) has an "aura" of another person... Generaly a very "angelic" (or demonic, depending) looking representation of themself superimposed over themselves, like a hologram almost. A person with the right spell can see anyones aura, even a non-magic user. The only time an immortal soul "scars" is if it has died and came back... so you can tell people who have been resurected sometimes just by looking at their auras.

 

[mmu1]

Hmm... I don't know how heavy these side-effects should get, really. In mosts D&D worlds (unless you're playing in a home-brew, of course), everyone knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that gods and the afterlife exist, and believers are taken in by their deities when they die without any real weighing of their sins, or karma, or whatever - unless they completely abandon their god's worship.

This pretty much means that near-death wouldn't be nearly the spiritual experience some people find it to be in reality, where we're all plagued by fear and uncertainty of what's going to happen to us... And even in real-life, the reason most people find it hard to function after a near-death experience has more to do with the physical damage they usually suffer in order to bring it about, not because they're so deeply plagued by existential doubt.

However, if you want to play around with this, you can definitely have a field day - flashbacks of past lives, visions of celestial creatures (or perhaps demons) haggling over who gets to take your soul, prophetic visions, being back but feeling that it's only for a short time and being convinced that you know when it's your time (and everyone else's if you want to creep out others) to die again, etc...

Oh, and you no longer loose 1 CON when you're resurrected - you only loose 1 level of xp, unless you are 1st level - in that case you loose the point of CON.

 

[DungeonKeeperUK]

Hmm... I don't know how heavy these side-effects should get, really. In mosts D&D worlds (unless you're playing in a home-brew, of course), everyone knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that gods and the afterlife exist, and believers are taken in by their deities when they die without any real weighing of their sins, or karma, or whatever - unless they completely abandon their god's worship.

I'm not sure everyone would know without shadow of a doubt about gods and the afterlife, you're assuming by that that everyone worships a god, its not a requirement to live in a fantasy realm that you must beleive in a god. Admittedly going by the words of the PHB and DMG it may look that way, but these books are looking thru the eys of a player/DM adn running the game for the player. Not every race or society will worship a diety, and evn those that do may be worried that they have not proved themselves worthy to be accepted to their exhalted halls upon death....

Oh, and you no longer loose 1 CON when you're resurrected - you only loose 1 level of xp, unless you are 1st level - in that case you loose the point of CON.

Yup knew that, was just saying how I stil run things, coming back from the dead is a traumatic experience in my books, so they lose the Con too.. , though it don't happen very often....

Cheers
Andrew

 

[Victim]

IIRC, the Forgotten Realms has lag time as the spirit travels to the afterlife. So, in many cases, the character will be raised before he or she actually gets to his/her place of rest. The only way to raise people without patron dieties is to cast the spell during this lag time, because the god of the dead imprisons them when they reach his realm.

Therefore, there probably wouldn't be that much psychological impact beyond temporary confusion and disorientation if so raise the character before they reach the realm of their diety. On the other hand, I can't imagine too many people actually reaching their idea of paradise and deciding to go back unless they have really important things to do. And once those tasks are completed, I wouldn't imagine that they'd stick around too long, one way or another.

 

[Crothian]

When characters die, I have them go to a paradise. Then they can retire the character and know their character made a difference and is now being rewarded for it. However, I inform them of the things thet will happen if their character stays dead. THese are the goals and interests of the character. Most characters have choosen to come back.

So, for these people I use an orginization out of Touched by the gods. These people think resurected people are the most hidious form of undead.

So, I have characters that are more focused on their goals and they have a new enemy they know nothing about.

 

[SableWyvern]

Come on people.

There were heaps of great ideas last time, and I didn't even ask for them.


IOW: *BUMP*