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system:death

Character Death

There are various ways to prevent a character from dying, but once it has happened means of undoing this are few and far between. However, for the Enlightened (which includes all PCs) death is not quite the end.

After death, a player’s soul will usually persist for a while, anchored to those they were travelling with such that it remains near the party for the remainder of the adventure. As a player whose character has died, continue to join the player party, but keep your fingers in the air where reasonable to indicate that you are imperceptible. At the start of each encounter, you may choose one other member of the party to haunt - this character can see and hear you for that encounter.

With the exertion of some willpower it is still possible for your soul to impact the world where another creates a way for you to do so. To do this, any party member (whether currently haunted or not) may beseech your soul for aid by calling out “(Name), help me!” or similar, where (Name) is a recognisable name you went by.

If you hear the request, you may respond by calling one of the following within about 20 seconds at the entreating character:

  • GAIN <EFFECT> DURING
  • <CALL>
  • HEAL (only if the character is dying)

Where <CALL> is any standard call you could have made whilst you were alive except for HEAL, GAIN and EFFECT/BE AFFECTED, and <EFFECT> is the effect part of that call. If your aid is sought multiple times you may only do this for each call with the equal frequency to when you were alive. In cases where costs are no longer applicable on account of your death (eg. Warrior Exhaustions), instead you are limited to 1 per encounter.

Creators may use one of the Potentials they would have had to make this the call associated with one of their fully charged Contraptions.

Eg. If you were alive you would have been able to make 3 PUSH calls and 1 STUN ONGOING call per encounter, as well as 2 LOCK calls by using up your Resource. You may call GAIN PUSH DURING up to three times you are beseeched during an encounter, and GAIN STUN DURING once. You may call GAIN LOCK DURING up to two times per instances of the party’s Resources being Refreshed. Alternatively, if the beseecher murdered you, you may instead choose to call STUN ONGOING at them once per encounter when they ask for your help.

Calls which partially consist of standard calls can be reduced to that standard call, whilst MASS or ARC calls can be granted as a single use of the MASS call or two DURING periods without the modifier.

Eg. Whilst alive you could cast a spell which allowed you to call DRAW, followed by EFFECT: Disappear on the same target, as well as one use of MASS PUSH per encounter. To the same extent as your resources allowed you to cast your spell you may respond to a request for aid with GAIN DRAW DURING, and either twice per encounter you may respond with GAIN PUSH DURING, or once per encounter you may respond with GAIN MASS PUSH.

Somehow, those who are currently dying may beseech the dead for aid too, in which case they may respond by making HEAL calls they would otherwise have been able to make.

Once you have forged a conduit by providing a beneficial call to someone once you may make GAIN calls to them without requiring further entreaties that encounter.

Narrative Death

Characters can die from supremely overconfident or simply foolhardy narrative actions during a LARP or debrief. When a character begins on a course of action that all sensible understandings (and most particularly any knowledge granted to them by skills) would suggest is fundamentally suicidal the GM should ask the question (potentially after double checking what skills the character is intending to bring to bare for the task) “Are you sure you want to do <thing>? You might die.” to indicate that death is a highly likely consequence of the course of action the player is proposing. Continuing past that point is an acceptance that the only way the character is not going to die is if they have some understanding beyond the sensible or obvious of the situation which allows the situation to be less suicidal that it seems at first understanding.

Examples

Someone has knocked out the structurally critical pillar in the middle of the temple which is going to collapse and destroy the artefact the party was here to collect.
“Are you sure you want to try to hold the ceiling up yourself without an act of power? You might die”.
This successfully allows others to escape with the artefact before being crushed to death.

You have murdered the first born son of a king publicly known as fickle and quick to anger. During the debrief you still have his head in a bag.
“Are you sure you want to put your weapons aside to go entreat with the king? You might die”.
You have strong suspicions that the king had already had a falling out with his son and was potentially aware that he was in the early stages of planning a rebellion against him so go ahead. You go ahead and then have to walk a very careful social tightrope to not just get executed by the royal guard.

You are standing in a narrow corridor with an angry unicorn charging towards you. Everyone else has started running for their lives.
“Are you sure you want to just stand perfectly still in the centre of the corridor brandishing your holy symbol at it? You might die”.
You go ahead because you think you have uncovered sufficient evidence that unicorns are repelled by the holy symbol of Zel presented firmly and with confidence 1). Then if you are right it stops and shies away at the last moment, the ground shaking with the thundering of its hooves and if you are wrong it impales you through the heart on its enormous horn and continues galloping down the corridor with its new head ornament.

1) No guarantees are made about the efficacy of holy symbols on unicorns
system/death.txt · Last modified: 2020/01/30 22:36 by chaos