What do your Heroes do when they Retire?

My druid started a home for retired animal companions. She spends her time taking care of elderly wolves, invalid dire tigers, and other animals that can't travel with their druids any more.
 

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Back in OD&D days, a select few became deities. We never bought the Immortals Set, so that was the ceiling as far as we were concerned.

Moving on, more than a few retired to a life of well-earned peace and prosperity. A few rode off into the sunset, on one last quest.

The most recent one rests unquiet as a ghoul. Thanks to heading off in the dungeon on his own and that ole' paralysis touch.
 

I've had different characters retire in various ways.

Helen Highwater, the hobbit hooker got married and the couple opened a tavern for adventurers.

An albino hobbit named Pillsbury opened a chain of bakeries.

Lady Rowena Iceheart noh Torunaga Avatar Poluchek, the Eternal Champion of Law finally had her spirit able to rest in Tanelorn.

Grizlak Half-here, a half-orc who lost part of one arm and one entire leg, retired to an apartment over a tin shop he owned. He would hire new journeymen tinsmiths who wanted t a place to work and save up for their own shops. His only restriction was they needed to open their place in some other town. He let them know if they didn't follow through on that part of the agreement he would kill them. Grizlak had a bad reputation....

The Great Wazoo, a human illusionist of questionable sanity, had his spirit imbued into a Wand of Wonder. There is a dispute as to whether the item can be considered "intelligent".

Phineas T. Taurean-Defecate, a dwarf with a manic temperment and exuberant rogue, ended up with the Crystal of Ebon Flame artifact because the guy IT liked didn't want it. Shortly thereafter, Phineas plane-hopped to escape the authorities and his artifact was out of synch with the one on that plane of existance. He quested for it and survived the contact of the two artifacts - they proceeded to blend together.... with him. He now reside on a demiplane that resembles a tropical island. He doesn't know where Hawaii is but he loves the shirts they make there.
 
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My first character ever, Zaron the Magic-User, eventually retired when he was 18th level. He opted for the "simple house in the woods" scenario, albeit guarded by an iron golem that basically stood in the garden and got covered with vines.

Another character, Olaus Wormius the Illusionist, eventually became a demigod. His daugher, Frividae, became my next character and she took over a kingdom by marrying into royalty and duping the nobility.

Winker B. Dinklemore the halfling thief acquired a flying castle where he kept all his ill-gotten gains, and had the largest tapestry collection in the world.

Quarn the druid merged himself with nature, to be reborn in times of need.

Boris the Dwarven Cleric established himself as king of the fire beetles.
 

I've had only 3 characters retire in all of my time playing...

My 2e Bard, Narik Gestare, took his enormous wealth and built "Narik's Palace of Pleasure" a hundred or so miles NE of Waterdeep. It was a building that connected several towers, which were used for an odd assortment of things. Gambling, prostitution, and selling exotic things were the most common. Narik also had begun a secret organization during the campaign and in a secret tunnel beneath the cellar was their base. We encountered Narik in quite a few of our other campaigns as an NPC. A town kinda built up around the Palace, and Narik pretty much ran things through a figurehead mayor.

I had a 3.0 Psion (telepath) retire, and he also built a large structure hidden away in some mountains. He had a 10th level Ogre fighter as his Thrall (who was badass and had a funny, if not sadistic, sense of humor), and began recruiting other psionic folk to start an 'army' of sorts.

My most recent was a 3.5 Fighter/Cleric/Tempest (took cleric for a few buffs, a bit of healing, and Will saves) and he's been one of my favorite all-time characters. Near the end of the campaign, he dealt some mega damage, had a good AC/HP, and was really fun to play. When we retired, he upgraded everything he could to the best he could afford (which was a lot) and traveled the land looking for elite warriors to recruit and train for his brother's (the paladin of the group) kingdom/army, to which he later became the head of the Elite forces. When the war the Paladin's kingdom was engaged in (23 years before the start of our next campaign) was over and won, Kale built himself a manor house on a plantation in a pretty secluded area. He married a woman and they had children, one of which I played in the next campaign who chose the wizard's path (and thusly died at the hands of an owlbear). Poor Kale...
 

My very first PC, Olivia, a fighter back in the 1E days, retired around the time 2E came out (that's when I moved away from the old gaming group), married, and had a couple of kids. Many years have now passed in that game world, and Olivia's older daughter is now old enough to be one of my PCs, on the occasions when I go back up to Wisconsin to play with that group. With 3E, I took the opportunity to update Olivia, and bring her back out of retirement, as a fighter / paladin. Boy, she kicks butt in 3E / 3.5.

My high-level Star Wars PC survived the length of the Rebellion, and is now settled down with one of the other PCs.

I've had two RPGA characters forced into retirement when their campaigns went toes-up. My Living City bard went back to his homeland of the Moonshae Isles, where he's undoubtedly still singing and wooing women. My Living Dragonstar wizard went back to his home planet, and took a teaching position at the college where he learned the arcane arts.
 

NewLifeForm said:
Share some stories.

Drowned at sea,
Feasting in Valhalla after dying in battle against impossible odds,
Fertilizing some burned wooded area after going to -20 hp with a point blank fireball.

Those are the memorable ones is this the retirement you speak of?

Ones a Demi-god now, but he still hasn't 'retired' as such the campaign just faded out after a while.
 

Bryan898 said:
Unfortunately the fantasy stops there, as he died in his early 40's due to STDs... and no, I'm not joking, that was the DM determined fate.

Sounds like your DM hasn't heard of Remove Disease, Detect Disease and legalised (and monitored) prostitution. If you keep it all clean you should check the girls each week with a cleric of wenta (who's the god for this?) helping out maybe. It annoys me how people think its all dirty and wrong, and I wont go into a huge rant about it... nor comment on it again.

Otherwise your fighter was silly and didn't take the proper precautions.
 

My only character to truly retire was a 15th level fighter/ 9th level mage from 2nd ED. I tihnk of all my characters he was the one that I was really allowed to develop the most.

He defeated, a great wrym shadow dragon singlehanded (the dm rolled realy really bad he was 9th level when he pulled it off) saving the party as they tried to escape to take out it's master. Used the gold from his adventures to build a hidden keep in the dagger hills using illusions and misdirection magics to keep people he didn't want finding it out. And slowly started building an army to help protect the dalelands. But sadly his keep was stolen and his family was killed by an evil priest of cyric, who had gained the powers of an adult gold dragon through a magical item gone haywire also driving hte priest insane due to alignment conflicts with the item. He began to study magic and vowed revenge, daring the dangers of undermountain and many other nasty places. Though he never got his revenge he found a new calling with his deity Torm, whom with he pleased to find a mor emeaningful purpose with in his life since everything he worked for had been taken from him. Torm gave him a quest and he jumped at hte opportunity to use his magic and sword. He was able to do one thing no mortal (at least as far as our campiagn went) could do. Make a fool out of Cyric himself, while he was able to untterly get the better of cyric it cost him his life. Torm seeing his devotion and determination to serve and have a meaningful purpose, granted hi ma reward that he didn't really deserve, by most of the other gods opinions, but since most of them don't like cyric they allowed. He was given demi-god status.

I know moat of this seems kinda cheesy, but this brief is really trunicated we did a lot of stuff in the campaign, the Cleric who betrayed him was an actual PC, we had alot of good story plots and i think it was one of the best long running adventures i've been in in a long time. Recently i was able to bring this character back but stripped of all his powers and have him to start a new class as a paladin. He was called by torm to guide a group of adventurers in an impossible mission, which became a test of his faith and a test of who he was. It really made for a fun campaign he made it up to 10th level palidin before he was called back to demi-god status, but some of the party members ened up becoming his followers.
 

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