I am death, destroyer of worlds

[Fieari]

I have two incarnations of death in my game, both evil, one lawful and the other chaotic. There's the death that is the devourer, drawing souls into the other world (LE, only takes based on rules... like, if you have a sword stuck in your brain, you're dead), and then there's the death that is the gatekeeper, making sure said souls stay there (CE, has no scruples about whatever it takes to prevent contact between the two worlds).

I set things up this way, particularly with death being inherantly evil, due to heavy real life influences. Growing up, I've seen far, far too much death and quite frankly, I've learned to hate it with a burning passion. I just can't abide the thought of death being nessesary or nuetral. Death severs all contact between me and someone I love! That's -awful-.

So, this philosophy is thus reflected in my game, although it hasn't come up in the specific quite yet. It will be made manifest to my players once they start gaining access to raise dead and similar spells, at which time they'll encounter the gatekeeper. They'll see the devourer when they encounter death magic, like Power Word: Kill.

 

[Nifft]

IMC, Death ls LN. She's also the goddess of the moon, the sea, magic, knowlege, water, owls, and law. She's also the Crone archtype (of the triad Maiden, Mother, Crone), and thus is in charge of "fate" to a degree.

IMC, LE would like to see more death -- corruption and evil is just the means to a nice, clean multiverse that's easy to control.

CE would like to see more corruption -- death and evil are just the means to destroying any structure that inhibits their freedom.

(So, IMC the blood war is all about a bunch of control freaks vs. a bunch of anarchist punks.)

-- N

 

[Gez]

No, death isn't personified IMC. There are entities (a bit like Testament's ones, except they're nameless, usually unknown, and not worshipped at all) of things like Murder, War, and other themes associated to death.

But death itself is natural, just like gravity or breathing air.

 

[Funeris]

Death is usually a TN deity in my games too. Just a part of the order.
Although actually, right now the old God of Death is chaotic neutral though....perhaps to represent the "I didn't see that coming" aspect of it.

As far as the ideas above on Death and stealing his scythe: perhaps the artifact is actually the focus. Meaning anyone that wields the scythe becomes death. So if your PCs pick it up, anyone attempting to using it will be drawn to the task at hand. They will probably lose themselves to the intelligent artifact's ego. But that could explain why death seems perfectly natural sometimes (TN) and chaotic at others (CN) to very possibly even Evil. It was wielded by different individuals at the different times and their personalities (read as: alignment) has shown through.

Come to think of it, maybe there is more than one scythe. hmmm....

They grant "immortality" to each wielder...and once the scythe is passed on then the term of immortality ends. And the ex-wielder can return to whatever he/she was doing.

So if your party captures the scythe, how were they to know it would release the 60th level LE Necromancer/Black Guard who was bound to the will of the blade? I mean seriously? >

 

[Zappo]

I don't have a capital-D Death in my campaign, but sometimes when a player declares an unconceivably stupid action, I'll tell him that there is a skeletal figure near the balor he said he was going to taunt, wrapped in a frayed black robe, sharpening a scythe while grinning at him.

 

[dave_o]

My upcoming Planescape game is going to have true death as almost a soothing force; sort of a "finally, you're finished," partially inspired by the end of The Dark Tower series and my total anguish at Roland's fate.

No, he doesn't die. Read the books, they're some of the best literature written recently.

 

[Flyspeck23]

I have differnt kinds of death. There is compasionate death, vengefuldeath, a death enity that justs kills .....death has had many forms and when one dies, another takes its place. They all are basically demi god like beings for the TRue Death god, a nutral being the rules the afterlife.

Something like this?

 

[Dakkareth]

The souls of the dead are claimed by their gods, if they were fervent worshippers, or simply enter a state of metaphysical decomposition until they rejoin the primordial chaos. There are some cthulhuesque entities holding dominion over certain areas and consuming the spirits of those unfortunate enough to die within their grasp.

 

[der_kluge]

Wow. That's some really interesting and imaginative takes on death here. I especially like the different viewpoints on the alignment of death, and the different manifestations of death. And yes, death as a ranger with a 5 con was interesting, too.

Wasn't there a Hitchcock episode with death as a little guy who was a hitchhiker?

 

[Riggs]

No, this quote!

Not really, but it would be cool. It is something I could look into adding to my present Rhunaria homebrew campaign, though..... {:^D

BTW, where does that infamous quote come from anyway? "I am become death, destroyer of worlds." .....Please don't flame me. I didn't get into fantasy and sci-fi movies/books and such until midway through the 90s....

While everyone has pretty well got the RL quotes, the real quote comes from Baldur's Gate, from the Chaotic Evil wizard you can start with, ahhh, Xzar was his name. He'd yell that exact phrase dramatically whenever he did something like cast Magic Missile...building from a whisper to a roar. "I..am become...death.....DESTROYER OF WORLDS!!!"