What's Your World's Afterlife (and session help)

[barsoomcore]

Dudes n Dudettes:

So only a few weeks back I was asking for help with 500 rampaging dinosaurs. That turned out very well, but now I'm stymied yet again.

My job is chewing up a lot of my brain these days, and Barsoom sessions are coming maybe a little too fast and furious for me.

And I honestly never even considered what would happen AFTER they entered the land of the dead. It just seemed like the fun would happen naturally.

Okay, so my heroes have entered the Ghostwalk (thank you, Monte!), which on Barsoom leads to the Buried Sea of Omean, where the dead souls go. They're able to survive travelling the Ghostwalk because of these little runes that slithered onto the chests when they entered a fallen meteorite thingie (thank you, Monte!) -- normally only the dead can travel the Ghostwalk.

Now, not all dead souls pass down the Ghostwalk right away. Some sit patiently along the path, waiting for loved ones to join them or whatever. And there are stops (somewhat unspecified) along the Ghostwalk where travellers can interact with the Living World in some degree.

Our heroes need to go to Omean to recover a lost artifact that one PC's dead daughter said they needed to stop bad things from happening. But of course I want fun and thrills to happen along the way.

So, fellow ENWorlders, I turn to you yet again. What can happen in the land of the dead? What is your campaign's afterlife like (maybe I'll get some ideas out of that)?

Oh, and the game runs this evening. And I have ZERO ideas.

Why do I do this to myself? Why?

 

[Desdichado]

Well, what kind of tone do you want? I've always been kinda fond of the afterlife as presented in A Darkness at Sethanon, where the ghostly shades of mortals kinda stood around in eons long lines waiting for the Death Goddess to judge them. It was kinda sad and pathetic at the same time; the characters came across an old friend who had died several books ago, but they could barely get any response at all when they tried to talk to him; at most a "did he smile when I said that, or was that just my imagination?"

 

[Rystil Arden]

Hmm...have you detailed the history of your campaign setting in such a way that the players know of any historic NPCs? Let them encounter the spirit of a famous NPC of history, or even just friends or family who have passed away, like Aeneas or Odysseus when they entered the realm of the dead. At least, that's the simplest thing that could add some interesting flavour.

Other than that, make some outlandish and strange things, like rivers of blood or a wall of damned souls. And make sure there are interesting guardian spirits/creatures, which would ideally be interesting and balanced (if on the tough side) to fight, but possible to negotiate with as well, since the PCs have legitimately come here on a mission.

 

[reason]

...

I don't think my setting's afterlife can help you much - I deliberately set things up so that no-one knows what the deal is.

---

Passages: ...All too many - amongst the commoners, the priests, the sages - declare death to be the very end of a long Road. They do not see that there might be anything more beyond the last breath, but I cannot accept this. A Road cannot end: only cobbles and route markers can end. The Road continues for as long as the traveler carries it in his heart and sets one foot in front of the other. The death of mortals will forever be the greatest mystery in all creation. It is a hardship, like so much of our lives, yet we must take heart. Each and every one of us will learn this great hidden Truth in the end. ...

---

As has been pointed out in other discussions here and on the WoTC boards, actually knowing for sure that an afterlife exists should bring enormous changes to a lot of very common views and philosophies...

If you are in a hurry for afterlify goodness, you should borrow from real world sources. Your afterlife already sounds fairly Greek / underworldy; a place where people are shades of themselves and bemoan the things they failed to do in life - punishment here is largely self-inflicted; even those who are set to tasks like pushing boulders up endless hills are doing it because they feel they must suffer for what they did. People from the living world should be beset by spirits who are obsessed with their failures, or want nothing more than to be remembered. As I recall Sandman did a great piece on this; those being punished refused to accept that the world had forgotten them, and their punishement was a way for them to continue to believe they were relevant and important to the world they had left behind.

Reason
Principia Infecta

 

[Varianor Abroad]

Okay, so my heroes have entered the Ghostwalk (thank you, Monte!), which on Barsoom leads to the Buried Sea of Omean, where the dead souls go. They're able to survive travelling the Ghostwalk because of these little runes that slithered onto the chests when they entered a fallen meteorite thingie (thank you, Monte!) -- normally only the dead can travel the Ghostwalk.

Good luck with your game. (Though I suspect sympathy may be low for your stewardess plight, frankly. )

Oh, and that's "Thank you Monte and SKR" for Ghostwalk, ennit?

Let's see. I've thought up two memorable afterlifes, even though PCs never made it to either. I can't mention the current one since my PCs are potentially going to explore it and they frequent these boards.

1. The Big House: (Inspired by the backdrop in Feersum Endjinn by Iain Banks http://www.iainbanks.net/sf06.htm). The dead are transported to a massive castle, where rooms are the size of continents. Depending on the god you worshipped (and/or the culture), you go to the appropriate "room". There's little passage between rooms, but it is possible. Everyone's immortal there, but the gods rule and periodically strip power from mortals who rise too high in import. (Or they take them in as servants.) Everyone who ever lived fill up about a tenth of the available space.

2. The Great Wheel: Borrowing from the Hindu culture, I imagined an afterlife where everyone is judged upon their deeds. Except that alignments don't matter and murder of any living being counts against your "score." PCs who rampaged through a lot of dungeons wind up as insects or worse. However, they are on a different plane of existence, a great wheel orbiting the Home of the Gods. They can, if they want, fly there to petition them. It's a helluva trip.

Not sure if either of those are helpful though.

Hmm. What about having ghosts of those they've met and killed show up somehow?

 

[jgbrowning]

Have the end of the walk be a shimmering curtain. The dead go through the curtain and are born again on the other side. When living creatures go through the curtain they die and become ghosts.

Now your PCs have to find a way to the ghostwalk on "the other side" and walk through the next curtain only to find a way back to the world two curtains ago.

joe b.

 

[barsoomcore]

Great ideas, thanks, folks.

River of blood. Hm. I may use that.

reason: in fact the Ghostwalk isn't REALLY an afterlife. And it is coming as a very great surprise to my players -- they had no idea this place existed. The Buried Sea of Omean is a long-standing legend on Barsoom. But self-inflicted punishments are a good idea...

jgb: that's very clever. I might use that.

Oh, and another problem: I need to introduce a new PC. Tonight. After the party has already entered the Ghostwalk.

 

[Rystil Arden]

Great ideas, thanks, folks.

River of blood. Hm. I may use that.

reason: in fact the Ghostwalk isn't REALLY an afterlife. And it is coming as a very great surprise to my players -- they had no idea this place existed. The Buried Sea of Omean is a long-standing legend on Barsoom. But self-inflicted punishments are a good idea...

jgb: that's very clever. I might use that.

Oh, and another problem: I need to introduce a new PC. Tonight. After the party has already entered the Ghostwalk.

What could be really cool is to make the new PC (assuming your folks are relatively high level now) an ancient hero from long ago who is now in the afterlife and agrees to join the PCs if they will help him return to the normal world to right an ancient wrong. If they aren't high level, well he doesn't have to be that strong of a hero.

 

[shilsen]

A few questions: Can the souls in the Ghostwalk physically interact with their environment and each other? Is their any relationship between souls and the situation in which the body of that soul died? How much memory of one's life (lives?) does a soul have when it reaches the Ghostwalk.

The main reason I'm asking is because I just thought of a scene to freak out the PCs a bit. Assuming that souls resemble the state of the body when they die, the PCs could see an 'adult' soul gathering together the souls of children and infants who'd died and leading them off into the distance. Make the older figure seem very friendly to the children, who are immature and still bewildered about their situation. Describe how he pats them and carresses them and gives them 'ghost candy' And let the players/PCs use their imagination to work out what he wants the kids for. Is he a kindly angel shepherding the lost souls towards their ultimate destination? Is he a pedophile who hasn't forgotten what he was? Is he just someone who likes kids and is searching for his own? Is he a disguised demon collecting some choice morsels? So many options - just use whatever works best for you, i.e. whatever most freaks out your PCs

 

[Desdichado]

What could be really cool is to make the new PC (assuming your folks are relatively high level now) an ancient hero from long ago who is now in the afterlife and agrees to join the PCs if they will help him return to the normal world to right an ancient wrong. If they aren't high level, well he doesn't have to be that strong of a hero.

One of the central conceits of this setting, as I've picked up reading his threads over the years, though, is that heroes of the past are often really nasty characters. Meanwhile, a legendary villain might not be so bad after all. Although don't expect him to be a hero either.

PC's are still about 14th 15th level, right?