Reflections on Character Deaths

Different tabletop games have different likelihoods of player character death (Call of Cthulhu has a particularly treacherous likelihood) while games which are the "tabletop game version" of a media property (I played the Firefly ttrpg many years ago and found it very, very gentle). But in all games, dying is a big deal. You've made a character, and you presumably care about them and their goals, and you've spent considerable time with them, even if just in creating them. Character deaths are the thing of story and legend for better or for worse. 

I honestly have tried not to think too hard about the character deaths that I've been party to. I understand that it's necessary to have serious consequences for risky actions, and I don't think a deathless game or story would be more compelling than the alternative. I do believe that death should be a part of tabletop games . . . in theory. It's good that the option is there for when it's the right thing. But I think very frequently in the gaming community, character death is used by GMs as a way to tell a "shocking" story (rather than coming up with an idea that would be interesting, just kill somebody). 

Let's say that you are in fact using good wisdom on how to deal with character deaths. It's still going to be one of the defining moments of the campaign, so it needs to be handled gently and with consideration. In order to really fully get at my experiences with death in tabletop games, I'm going to reflect on the characters I've seen who didn't make it to the end of the quest. 

My first GM was a gentle man, a neighbor and father of a school friend who graciously invited me to learn at his table. He became something of a surrogate father to me, and I think he saw me developing as a GM even as I learned to play. My second player character ever was for an evil campaign, a horrifying self-scarring grim reaper-inspired orcish Barbarbian. My teammates mocked her name (Morana, which they said was basically "Moron," which they said she was) and me for having a female character (I would, many years later, come out as a transwoman). During the climactic fight that was to define our opening session, I charged forward to save an ally; the ally retreated, and the rest of the party fled and left my character to be overwhelmed and killed. It was awful. 

What stung the most was the intentionality of it. My party's players wanted to hurt my feelings, so they seized on the situation and maneuvered so that I would die. I never saw it coming. Morana was torn down by enemies (I don't even remember what type at this point), and my DM decided that perhaps this party was not the best home for me. He created a new group--fostering my interest in the game--with one of my best friends where we had our own evil campaign. I played a nasty little gnomish Wizard who terrorized the countryside and always figured out a way to stay on top, and his named was Loki (I was a high schooler, okay?). 

I have so many stories of Loki that it's impossible to know where to start. I mentioned wanting a castle, and my GM presented an expansion on elaborate keeps, and I took one over and began a trade empire. I met a man with a beautiful gold ring; I shook his hand and cast Incinerate (3.5E), plucking the ring from the ashes. My evil deeds spread, and an Inevitable was sicced on me; I tricked it into believing I was dead, survived its "just to be sure" attack, and went on being evil. Loki was everything you could dream of as a first real tabletop game character--he was bound only by my creativity, I was in a friendly, safe space (the GM really made me feel at home), and Loki was the star of the show every time I played--I got to see my little character be truly powerful. 

After high school, I did some scattered GMing; nothing was professional or refined, but it was quick and fun tabletop action. Later, when this scattered fun grew tiresome, I tried more ambitious projects. I set out on an experiment to see if I could get a party to assassinate an entire royal regime (the result: not at all). This party was, as an out-of-game construct, very turbulent. We began as a group of four: my best friend, my brother, my girlfriend, and my roommate. As the game continued--and it lasted nearly two years--we added more people--more friends, friends of other players, etc--and it swelled to eventually eight players by the end. It was, in a few words, entirely chaotic. 

This is especially true when you consider that the story ended up being about the division of the city where it was set splitting in half in a compacted civil war that destroyed the ruling class. The players ended up splitting into loyalists to the throne and anarchists trying to overthrow the city, and the result was something of a compromise: a democratically run council to replace the monarchy. The wrinkle is, with all this conflict built into the game and the long campaign time, there was a practical issue. 

I said in the end eight players finished this campaign. One did not. An original player--the guy who had been my roommate--and I ended up in a difficult situation. We were living together, working together (I was his direct boss), and our social circles all overlapped. We couldn't get away from each other. Eventually, things snapped, and I threw him out of the campaign. It was, I will admit, a childish move. I should have talked things over with him, I shouldn't have let my feelings get the best of me, and I definitely shouldn't do what I did next: I killed his character in a really mean way. Specifically, I said he was run over by a stationary cart, hoping to make a cruel joke at the expense of the character and the player. The party laughed, and every so often people who played in the campaign bring up the death. I feel awful about it, honestly. I was immature, and I turned character death (something heavy and not very funny) into a careless punchline. Looking back, I was an unconfident GM who felt like something shocking would work. To a degree, it did, but I'm happy to not do things like this anymore. 

I had a vision of what I wanted my tabletop games to be like--collaborative stories, though I couldn't have articulated that yet--and I had the skills to develop and improvise open world, so I set off running. I ran an audio actual play podcast and live radio broadcast of D&D in the early 2010s called Listen Check, and while we stretched what was considered possible in the artform at the time, we didn't stray into character death scenarios. They entered on many dangerous scenarios, but there was never a moment that placed them at death's door. I consider that a blessing as a GM since I wouldn't have known how to deal with it. 

I turned my focus on a mad quest that would span three campaigns: how could I grant the most possible control of the game to the players? I made a critically wrong assumption (that the empowerment would come from outside of the game) and set to work. I made a campaign in which each player submitted a storyline specific to their player character, each of which I would tie together. I made a campaign of mishmashed references, bits, settings, and comical NPCs for an antics party based on their insane list of inspirations (one of which involved me watching the National Treasure series for reference). I developed a mystery story using themes and details from player input. Their scrapes with death were unique and taught lessons not specific to death. 

In the first campaign mentioned, the Eastweald campaign (named for the large region of the map I created where the campaign took place). One player, my best friend, in fact, told me towards the very end of the campaign that he was dissatisfied with his character. He felt that the best thing that could happen was for his character, a somewhat disillusioned Paladin, to succumb to the depression and commit suicide. I was opposed to this for a lot of reasons. What I told him was this: we can change your character. The point is to have fun. Don't feel shackled to it. Change him in a way that feels fun. And shockingly to all of us (I think including the player), the Paladin threw himself at Vecna in the final moments of the campaign, only to find Vecna unwilling to defend a former Paladin, and the fallen Paladin was slain by the rest of the party. 

To have this Paladin kill himself accomplishes nothing narratively or for the character. Having him believe that darkness would enrich him and finding no hand to support him has a similar result--the Paladin dies--but with a more interesting choice and with an end that actually fits someone who would make the choice he made. To be honest, it's clumsy compared to something I might have come up with if I hadn't only found out about the Paladin's intention to defect as it happened, but it worked, and the player who made the Paladin maintains that it was a fitting end he doesn't regret. 

What makes the Paladin's death fitting is that it takes a meaningful action (siding with an evil deity) and provides it with a meaningful reaction (he is left to deal with his betrayal of his teammates alone). Had he committed suicide, there would be no meaningful action or reaction. And keep in mind--the player chose the betrayal. He called out to a trickster deity, asking for help without anything meaningful to offer. It was a desperate plan, and it didn't work, and death was unfortunately the only option I could offer him. 

The National Treasure campaign, as it was sometimes called (along with the Western campaign, the Goofball campaign, and other various nicknames), had no character deaths. I had essentially set up the large Western continent to be a sightseeing tour--a dozen unique and interesting places with story possibilities and colorful characters. The goal was not for them to be in danger so much as free. It didn't go as planned. The Goofballs earned the name every moment of every session (they were, for instance, permanently barred from ever returning to all but one of the towns they visited), but that was the point--they were having fun by being chaotic and wild and full of surprises, and making the world dangerous wouldn't contribute to that. It was a deathless campaign, as well it should have been. 

The mystery campaign was also deathless. To be fair, it was something of an experiment. To begin, we were using D&D (a system mostly focused on combat rules) to investigate a mystery (something that could have been done more easily with something like Call of Cthulhu or another more investigative game). Next, I knew from GMing experience that you can't make one piece of information that's especially hard to find and call that a mystery--there had to be a network of escalating clues that carried them from uninformed to the solution, and I had never done that before. Combat was rare, and we limited antics to a pretty rare frequency--we were really trying to tell a story and roleplay. There were death close calls, there were meaningful NPC deaths, and there were deaths that would change the gameworld, but the trio of player characters survived. 

In the interceding years, I got to try a handful of tabletop games that strayed from the D&D style to different degrees. I played characters in Don't Rest Your Head, Call of Cthulhu, Geist, Exalted, and the Firefly tabletop game, and fortunately for me, all of those characters survived. Not all my party members were so lucky. I saw Don't Rest Your Head allies fall to risks that went bad. I saw a Call of Cthulhu ally killed, it seemed, because she pissed off the GM. I saw a near party-wipe in Exalted when our GM fostered a party split and incentivized a player to snap. For the Don't Rest Your Head players who took one too many risks, I respect it. That's how the game is designed, and we accept those risks when we play. But the other two instances I mentioned--what amounts to GM malfeasance--it's awful. It should be avoided. Remember, the point is to have fun, and this kind of behavior is not fun. 

This brings us up to my most recent work, something I am immensely proud of. I call this campaign Of Gods and Dragons, a name that at once tells you that this will concern the most powerful forces in the setting with a linguistic flair, an indication that this is literary in a sense. And in fact, the party was abducted in the opening moments by an oppressive dragon, then rescued by another dragon, all before being set loose on a gameworld I've spent almost 20 years building. It was, as the mystery campaign was, a roleplaying and storytelling game, which was important given than I gave my players immense power to begin with (level 12 at session one--they easily could have wrought hell on almost any target if they'd chosen to be more chaotic. As it was, they chose to bring kindness. For one hundred years of epilogue, all three player characters improved the world. It is the peak of my GMing career so far.

No player characters died, but characters who were as important as player characters did die. I cast a group of ten characters as dragons, people empowered and made nearly immortal by their dragonhood. Seven survived. One of the three that died fell into an unfortunate scenario, catching the party at a time where she couldn't leave them alone and they couldn't leave her alive. Another was planned, the assassination of the man scheming to bring down the forces of reality in the name of destruction and empowerment. The last was a matter of closing loose ends, taking the last truly evil dragon out of commission so that the world would be, at least at the level of dragons, more good than evil by a greater margin, and so that the world would be safer from his potential threats. These dragons had been the source of conversation and planning for an out of game year, and finally facing them was unavoidable. 

Looking forward, I don't know what to expect when it comes to death in my campaigns. I'm eager to run other systems, and death is not a huge part of every game. I am especially intrigued by running a tabletop game I created in which players explore historically accurate versions of important times and places like 1750s London and 1930s Chicago (not to mention my projection of Washington D.C. in 2050). I don't suspect I'll be encountering a lot of player deaths in my future. 

So this next part isn't really for me. This next part is for GMs who are free with player death. I'll work backwards. Of Gods and Dragons taught me as the GM that death and danger are not necessary for a high stakes game. My various tabletop experiments taught me that when used irresponsibly, player death can ruin an experience. From my experiments as a GM with radical freedom, I learned that a well-earned consequence (including death) can enrich a story, and a poorly-considered consequence (including death) can ruin a player's experience of the story. My time DMing on the radio taught me that the story cannot precede the players and their experience--I often had to be changing game expectations based on radio broadcast, and I let the story and the listeners be more important to me than the players. My civil war campaign taught me to let the players define everything except reality. My clumsy DMing in college taught me to go beyond the cliches. And my time with my first DM, my neighbor and the man who spent weekends making popcorn and hosting movie afternoons in the basement, taught me that deaths are awful. 

Seriously! I spent a lot of time develop Morana. She was this fearless warrior who I wanted to be like, and she was strange but didn't care what people thought (something I was and desperately wanted to do), and she was covered in decorative scarring, not unlike tattoo art, which I was obsessed with (currently, about 50% of my upper body is tattooed). I cared about Morana. I looked forward to playing with her for weeks. I painted a mini for her, something that took endless hours and painstaking care. Watching her get hacked to bits while my supposed friends got away with the treasure was the kind of experience that would have turned a lot of people away from tabletop games. Most people, I would wager, would take that experience and decide the whole thing wasn't for them. 

But I didn't. I was hooked. D&D was a doorway that peeked in on the ideas of storytelling and roleplaying and imaginary play and game design that I couldn't just decide wasn't for me. The fact that my DM saw that and was willing to help me is one of the great kindnesses of my life. I didn't burn out because my character died--but I almost did. It was a bad thing that only happened because my DM's hands were tied--there was no way to fudge that my character survived. A separate campaign for me was the solution he had, and it still strikes me as incredibly generous. Because of my initial interest in tabletop games was strong, because I was given a kind recovery when I was betrayed, and because my interest was then fostered, I recovered. Lots of people aren't so lucky. 

Look, if a character straps explosives on themselves, runs into a goblin den, and detonates it, that character should die. If a character makes a few bad rolls and suddenly die from factors shouldn't really be deadly, that character realistically should not die. The dice and rules might say so, but you're the GM. You are empowered by the game to decide in the end what happens. Don't be afraid to do something. 

Ask yourself a few questions. First, what's best for the character? Does a death here serve a purpose? Has the character achieved everything they were designed to and this death would fulfill them somehow? Does the character still have unfinished business that would be unresolved if the character were to die? Things like relationships with other characters are less important here. 

Another vital question is, what's best for the story? Does this character still have some vital role to fulfill? Are there things later on you can think of that would be complicated or prevented by this character's death? You're not eagerly looking for an excuse to kill the character so much as looking for evidence that the character might benefit from a death; think of it like how juries work--you must be totally convinced that the character must die to kill them, otherwise they are innocent. 

Lastly, what's best for the party? If a character's death is going to have a major impact on the party, it's important to know going in that an issue is going to occur. One example, for instance, is if the party's sole healer would be killed, in which case all manner of complications could occur. Similarly, if the party leader is killed, the trajectory of the party could be massively affected. Or as I've had happen as a player, a crucial party member missing can stop the party from completing part of a quest. Any of these can affect a decision on what to do as far as a player character's fate. 

And finally, ask yourself what the player's experience will be if the character dies. Is this a hardened player who took a risk knowing the consequences, or a new player still learning the ropes of a complicated new game? Is this player being treated poorly at the table in a way that might affect their willingness to keep playing? Will this player keep playing tabletop games if their character dies? You may recoil at the idea of factoring this in, but our goal should be making more happy tabletop game players, not less. 

I made Morana when I was 17. I'm 35 now--that's half my life ago, plus a bit. Morana was, to be honest, a pretty hollow character. She was, like so many characters made by teenagers, meant to be cool without much thought as to roleplaying or anything beyond the lethalness of her scythe. But it still hurts to think of what I lost. Morana played one session before dying, and that meant that months or even years of gaming with her could have taken place. She could have been the character I carried with me in my heart as special, and instead, she was a fallen character who never had a story to tell. Her death hurt, and it could have driven me from the game. 

Instead, I stood my ground. I got some help from a good GM, and I set to playing and learning. Tabletop games slowly became more than a fascination--an obsession, and then a way of life. This website came together. Experimental campaigns happened. Tabletop games were created. My interest in D&D became something so much larger, and all of that could have been lost had I been shaken by Morana's death. There is a timeline in which D&D became "that thing I did in high school," in which I don't return to the stories and dice, in which that world is lost to me. I'm glad it wasn't. 

For a character to die in a tabletop game, you've got to be 100% certain it's their time. Think like a juror: is there no question that this character should die? Or is there reasonable doubt? The stakes are too high to make this decision without caution. This could be a defining moment for the player. Be gentle, be kind, and be reasonable--deaths are remembered, and you want to be remembered well.

That's all for now. Coming soon: how to not get weighed down by worldbuilding, reflections on the campaign of a lifetime, and what perfect GMing looks like. Until next time, happy gaming!

Funeral Rites in My Homebrew Setting

So much of a tabletop game like Dungeons & Dragons is about death. Combat revolves around avoiding death while imposing it on others; so many spells and in-game abilities manipulate death; I've written a guide about dealing with player deaths specifically as well as fudging rolls and managing boss fights to avoid deaths and their sticky issues. All of this is true, but these are mechanical concerns, and in-game, we rarely think of death in any realistic way in tabletop games. Death is how we lose the game, but how often do we really think about it as a part of the in-game experience? To that end, I want to spend some time thinking about how the groups in my homebrew setting deal with death--what sorts of ceremonies, rituals, and rites accompany death in my world? 

A small disclaimer: ordinarily when I develop material for my homebrew setting's groups, I strive for a balance between original content and borrowed inspiration. My profile on the natural world of my setting borrows quite heavily from the real world--each of the biomes included are closely based on real-world places. I aim to avoid that with this guide. I believe it would be in poor taste to appropriate real-world funeral rites for my use in a game, and so I will not be doing any research into real-life funeral rites for this guide (apart from using the Western world's burials for Daltoners). If there are any coincidences in terms of what follows and what exists in real life, the coincidence is unintentional and not intended as disrespect.

Daltoners

Daltoners' faith, which centers around a bloodthirsty incarnation of Pelor, the sun god, views death as a fundamental part of the life cycle, but not in the way that some of Evanoch's more militant groups do; rather, Daltoners see death as a purpose of life. Dying in service of Pelor or taking the life of another in the name of Pelor is essentially the highest honor a Daltoner can earn, so death is something that Daltoners are basically trained not to fear. Along these lines, being a human sacrifice to Pelor is considered one of the highest purposes in life, but that does not necessarily mean that average Daltoners truly desire it. Death by combat is viewed with honor, but not as highly as a death for Pelor. In theory, Daltoners are the group most culturally taught to embrace death, but in practice, they avoid death more than most groups. A "pointless" death (one that does not advance Daltoners as a group or one's family in particular) is considered especially shameful; accidental deaths and deaths from illness are quietly judged. 

Daltoners have gone through a few periods in terms of funeral rites. Initially, on the island of Dalton, Daltoners buried their dead in large plots called graveyards. The dead would be placed in wooden boxes called caskets and buried deeply enough beneath Dalton's rocky soil to avoid the island's occasional flooding. The buried casket would be indicated through a carved stone which bore the deceased's name and dates of birth and death. Later, as real estate on the island became more and more precious, there lacked room for actual burial, and dead bodies were cremated, but the gravestone custom persisted, filling in Daltoner graveyards with more stones. But when Daltoners arrived on Evanoch's shores, there was suddenly room for burials again, and graveyards with buried caskets became the fashion once again. Today, a larger proportion of city land is devoted to funeral sites in New Dalton than anywhere else in Evanoch. 

When a Daltoner is buried and their gravestone erected, it is common for an official of Pelor to speak briefly about the role of the deceased in the universe--these speeches usually revolve around Pelor accepting the deceased as a parent accepts a child. These ceremonies are kept brief, as dwelling on emotions besides pride in the deceased is considered improper. Family members and friends sometimes visit the gravestone of a passed Daltoner to remember them; this is a complicated social procedure. Paying respects regularly is seen as a matter of duty, but "too much" time spent in a Daltoner graveyard carries a social toll as one becomes perceived as overly emotional, obsessed with death, or unwilling to accept Pelor's wisdom. At the same time, it is considered inappropriate to visit a graveyard with anyone else, but having someone wait at the entrance to the graveyard to assist you when you leave the graveyard with strained emotions is common, and many Daltoner graveyards have waiting areas at the entrance for such chaperones. 

Faninites

On their home island of Fanin, death is regarded by Faninites as a natural step in one's progression through existence. Faninites believe that people are born close to nature and that there are two complicated processes that determine one's relationship to nature. It is believed that children have an innate understanding of nature but lack an intellectual understanding of it; children can feel nature but not express it. As a Faninite grows, they slowly lose parts of the innate understanding in exchange for the more intellectual understanding--the ability to articulate the ideals of nature. Upon death, both understandings are bestowed upon the deceased. The goal of a Faninite, then, is to retain or regain the childlike understanding and develop the intellectual understanding before death to enjoy it in life. Death, then, is seen as a great gift and equalizer, as all Faninites gain true natural wisdom when they pass on. Death is not feared by Faninites, but neither is it sought out; just as plants and animals live and die, Faninites know that their lives will end as a part of the natural cycle. 

Faninites have always followed the same naturalistic way of tending to the dead: they return the deceased to nature in the most direct way possible. When a Faninite dies, their family and close friends are consulted, and the Faninite's inglefrane, or "place of return," is determined. The inglefrane is a physical location in nature that is dear to the deceased, oftentimes a wooded area where the Faninite has visited for peace and sanctuary during their lifetime. Once the ingelfrane is located, the Faninite's body is taken to the location and placed in a position of rest or contemplation, whichever was preferred and indicated by the deceased. The Faninite's body is then left to decompose or become food for the animals of that area. Most other groups regard this element of the practice to be somewhat barbaric and unfeeling, as it is common for deceased Faninites to be moved around by the animals and elements; however, Faninites think of this as being a fundamental part of the return to nature--allowing the Faninite's body to become a part of nature again, removed from humanoid conceptions about dignity or separation from nature. 

When one wishes to mourn for or connect to a deceased Faninite, there are two general schools of thought. One of these ideas dictates that the visitor should go to the location of the Faninite's inglefrane and commune with them there. This method is fairly standard for the period of time after the Faninite's body has returned to nature through decomposition or disturbance by animals; many Faninites, even the most nature-minded, struggle with seeing the still-present corpse of their loved one before the return to nature. The other view, which is more popular among the recently passed as well as those mourning Faninites who were laid to rest across the ocean back in Fanin, is that being joined with nature makes someone universal with nature, meaning that the Faninite's spirit is not tethered to a specific location. Communing with a Faninite in this way means that the deceased is in a way everywhere, and it is not uncommon for Faninites to speak under their breath to passed family members and friends regardless of location, as they believe the deceased to exist everywhere in nature. 

Dwarves

Dwarves regard death as a complicated concept, and while many dwarves claim to understand death as an unavoidable part of the process of life, the practical reality is more complicated. Broadly speaking, most dwarves fear death; despite (or perhaps because of) their relatively long lifespans, they see death as something that can rob them of their rightful claim to life more than as an entity in and of itself. It is because of this conception of death that fewer dwarves call themselves worshippers of Nerull than any other group--in fact, dwarves pray for long and safe lives more than any other group. For an average dwarf, dying is something that remains unspoken about--death is the great taboo of dwarven culture. When a family member or close friend dies, dwarves usually stay as distant as possible socially and emotionally, but because participation in funeral rites is socially important, they often contribute what is expected and resist anything further. 

The dwarven method of remembering the dead began when essentially all dwarves lived in the capital city of Underhar, but it has been adapted to use in other places. In Underhar, the city is mined out of a mountain range's foundation; the city exists under and inside the mountain itself. Traditionally, when a dwarf died, their name would be chiseled into the walls of Underhar--not the walls of the buildings carved within, but the outer walls that hold the buildings. Thus, the first eight feet or so of every outer wall are covered in intricate dwarven writings that name the fallen dwarf. Over time, these carvings have climbed higher and higher up the walls, and many lower class dwarves have taken to chiseling the passed dwarves' names onto the ground or into the buildings where they lived, while wealthier dwarves' names have climbed even higher up the outer walls. Traditionally, the dwarf's name is carved by loved ones, each of whom is responsible for an individual dwarven rune. Outside of Underhar, fallen dwarves are memorialized by carving their name or simply initials into nearby stone faces--family and friends perform this rite if possible, but it is increasingly accepted to have the nearest allies do so. The carving of the name is more about being one with the stone and less about being preserved in some way. Dwarves' physical bodies are cremated in special forges. 

Dwarves culturally reject notions of emotion expressed over death--they simply prefer to not directly address these ideas. However, for dwarves in grief, the most common approach is to make practical use of the emotion. The commonest method for this is in creating arts or crafts, usually in the form of small and intricate rock carvings but increasingly via similarly small leatherwork pieces--these crafts honor the dead by depicting things that the deceased cared about. It is believed that putting care and intention into the passions of the deceased connects the living to the dead. These tokens are kept at home and are distributed when the grief has passed. Receiving a token of this sort is a great honor, as it indicates importance to the passed dwarf, but it would be completely unheard of to display one of these tokens, even in one's private home. Visiting the carved name of a passed dwarf is considered highly dramatic and is frowned upon; this would generally be seen as hysterical and impractical. Speaking the name of a dwarf in the first year after their death is considered terrible luck; rather, nicknames are employed to avoid explicitly naming them. 

Orcs

Orcs regard death not as a singular idea, but a broad series of related concepts. Death itself is the end of life, but it is also a new part of existence--generally speaking, orcs believe that an unknowable new life begins at death, and many orcs argue that existence on Evanoch is itself not the first life that a being experiences. At the same time, it is believed that the only things that remain constant throughout these continuous lives are nature and the orc's spiritual development, and death actually unveils hidden spiritual knowledge unavailable in life. Thus, death is regarded as just shy of a celebration in terms of advancement for the passing orc, but it is also a somber time for the orc's clan, who must learn to live without the deceased. This is also affected by what role the orc in question played during their life. A noted warrior is more mourned than celebrated, as their value to the clan is greater in life than in death, where a wise woman or curtran is more celebrated than mourned, as her death indicates the "promotion" of her soul to the next world. Along similar but practical lines, losing a warrior means losing clan strength, where losing a curtran means the promotion of the next generation of wisdom. 

Orcs mark the passing of their dead via a marking called a horroscan, or "spirit marking." The horroscan is a very metaphorical method of remembrance--the death of an orc is marked by driving a spike into a stone and removing it, leaving behind a hole which represents the "hole" left behind by the orc's passing. The horroscan is sometimes created at the site of the orc's death, particularly when the orc's passing accomplished something of note beyond combat, but it is usually created at a favorite place of the deceased, usually not far from the orc's home. As a result, many orcish settlements have noticeable patches of holes driven into the ground or elsewhere. The horroscan does not change appearance or creation method regardless of how the orc died--an orc who died defending a village and an orc who passed from illness are marked with identical holes--and the holes are not labelled in any way, making each hole totally anonymous. In fact, trying to link a specific orc to a specific hole is frowned upon, as it is believed that all beings are equal in death. [Note: The physical body is completely ignored in burial. Orcs consider a dead body to be fundamentally the same as a pile of earth.]

In orcish culture, there is a special utterance--not quite a prayer, but more spiritual in nature than a simpler mantra--which one recites to honor the dead. Some orcs feel inclined to honor any horroscan they see, while others avoid addressing even loved ones out of respect for death's role in orcish society. Those who recite the utterance consider three distinct concepts in turn. First, they attempt to imagine an orc without defining features to respect the anonymity of the horroscan. Next, they reflect on the concept that death is death, and any death propels the orc towards a new struggle, a new life. Finally, they consider the metaphor of the hole--how the elements can never undo the hole's creation, but they can expand it. The rememberer promises to expand and never undo the passed orc's legacy, whatever it may be. Those raised in orcish culture can perform this process quickly and almost automatically, but even the most practiced tend to suspend the practice in the larger parts of Grob Island, the homeland of orcs which bears the horroscans of generations slain in the War of Kraal. 

Elves

As Evanoch's long-lived denizens, elves have a somewhat peculiar set of views on death. To an elf, who can live to be a millennium old, the cause of death is thought of as an incidental fact. Even whether or not a death is prolonged or painful means fairly little to an elf--elven soldiers are notorious in the military world for being the least susceptible to intimidation and torture. The only thing that matters in death to an elf is the age at which one dies. Even here, the idea does not guide much meaning in terms of tragedy--elves regard the loss of the young, middle-aged, and old as functionally equal in terms of senselessness, as each period of life could be said to carry great tragedy. Rather, elves most strive for and respect deaths which exemplified the qualities of their lives. Elven artists desire deaths befitting of their creativity and beauty, such as passing from gentle illness at a beautiful natural vista; warrior elves wish for deaths that bring victory and honor to their allies; close families hope to pass away surrounded by their loved ones. It is not uncommon for elves to make choices that would create such a situation if they sense danger or illness, and elves have developed the term xillren to express this kind of death, which is neither a purely accidental death nor a suicide. 

When an elf does die, the traditional method of tending to the body is to mummify it. Using long passed-down methods and tools, elven embalmers remove any organ or part of the body that cannot be preserved (keeping as much of the body intact as possible--ancient methods removed most organs, but current methods only remove the eyes), then submerge the body in a fluid that toughens and preserves the tissue. When the body has absorbed this fluid for several days, it is dried for one week, resulting in a preserved body that will not deteriorate for millennia. This process was originally devised as a way to keep elven bodies around for elven generations to continue visiting them, and embalming remains a healthy industry in elven communities. The body of the deceased elf, which at this point looks quite identical to the elf in their later years, is usually displayed in the home of their nearest relative for one year's time. This custom has become more flexible over time, allowing close friends to adopt the body, after a rise in grudge-holding relatives posing the deceased bodies in indecent positions. After the year of display, the body is generally placed in a family mausoleum for wealthier elves or in a public cemetery in a display case above ground. 

Ironically, while elves spend considerable time and energy ensuring that they have the ability to pay their respects to the dead through their physical bodies, in practice, they rarely do. That is largely because respect to the familial dead (or close friends who have passed) is built into several other parts of elven society. Here are a few notable examples: when an elf welcomes a guest into their home to use the community welparin space, they traditionally invoke the names of their ancestors stretching back three generations with a special title (hirien) for the deceased; prayers to Corellon Larethian, the god of the elves are structured to begin and end on invocations of one's most recently passed relative; even elven small talk commonly involves asking when the last time one's home hosted a deceased relative's preserved body among other things. As a result, formal mourning really only lasts during the year display period, and elven culture guides further mourning. 

Half-Elves

Half-elves are known in Evanoch for a few related things: they are artistically-driven, they are cultural innovators inspired by their elven and Faninite ancestors, and their innovations tend to guide modern fashions. This is true with funeral arrangements as well. From their Faninite parents, they adopt the custom of placing the body where the deceased would want it, adding a dash of inspiration from the Daltoners and burying the body (but without a coffin to connect it to the earth) at the preferred site--these steps reconnect it with nature along the Faninite's ideals. At the same time, a sort of proxy body, an artist's tribute to the deceased, is displayed in the home of relatives or friends with a suggested time of one year, but this timespan tends to adjust according to the host's personal beliefs. Today, Evanine funerals are typically referred to as "burials" even when a different funeral method is employed--the vocabulary across the land has generalized the word to refer to any funeral rite. 

The actual process of burying the deceased is deliberately kept vague in terms of custom. The standard elements are digging the shallow grave (a special role is conferred on the person doing the most digging--they are referred to as "the guide"), laying down the body (being "the steward"), and covering the body (being "the pilgrim"). Most groups regard this type of funeral as a smaller affair--most would add no more than three people, one for each role. In fact, there is a special honor in a funeral entirely administrated by one person, as this marks a special and meaningful commitment to the deceased. Sometimes, words are spoken during the covering of the body, often parts of religious texts (Daltoners and dwarves) or personal remembrances (Faninites and halflings), but just as often, silence (gnomes) or music (elves and orcs) is considered a superior accompaniment. 

Practically speaking, visiting a burial site made in the half-elf tradition is not ideal in the weeks that follow the burial, as the body's decomposition tends to be overwhelming in terms of odor. This makes the element of an in-home display a practical necessity. Most commonly, a home will lack a display for the deceased for at least several days until a sufficient work of tribute to the dead can be crafted; with the rise in popularity of half-elven burials, a small industry has arisen for artists who can quickly create these sorts of funeral displays. The increasingly popular model for displays of this sort involve some manner of depiction of the deceased (wood carvings, paintings, and metalwork are all common media) as a foundation for the display--typically, visitors are expected to contribute additional tokens that commemorate the life of the deceased or try to bless the dead through religious items. There is a growing social phenomenon of judging a deceased person's social status by the quality and quantity of tokens in their funeral display. 

Gnomes

Most outsiders would describe gnomes as a people of great silliness, joy, and irreverence. While that description may be generally true of some elements of gnomish society, gnomes are especially solemn when it comes to death. For gnomes, who spend so much of their time building and REbuilding devices, the very permanent end of death is difficult to deal with. Gnomes, who live longer than most groups but certainly not as long as the dwarves or elves, feel vulnerable in many ways when it comes to their mortality. More than any other culture, gnomes have sought to use science and magic alike to stretch their lifespans out and treat preventable deaths. All of this has translated into a general sense that death is an overwhelming foe to be struggled against with full force, meaning that when death does occur in a gnomish community, it devastates. Even an expected death of an elder with no additional dramatic stakes generally leaves a whole neighborhood in deep mourning. 

When a gnome passes, their body is collected and examined by a medical expert of some sort to detect illnesses that might have spread and to study the body for anything that may benefit the scientific community. When the body is deemed safe to be around, the next of kin is offered the body as is or processed through various options (gnomes are not particular about the physical body after death)--the most popular method today is a form of incineration that produces a burning fluid, which is dropped into cold water to cast it into a small, almost metallic chunk of matter. A gnomish funeral is an elaborate affair that involves serving the favorite meal of the deceased and opening their home to be inspected and explored by the attendees, and throughout the funeral, no one speaks a single word. Guests are expected to leave when they feel they have mourned enough to begin to move on, and gnomes have been known to stay wordlessly in their passed loved ones' homes for as much as a week before leaving. 

When the gnome's funeral is over, their property is taxed and passed to those in the will in a complex legal procedure. Gnomes have something of a disdain for physical reminders of a deceased person--they believe that attempting to memorialize a full humanoid being is futile and disrespectful to the dead--but they embrace memorializing the dead in more intellectual ways. Most gnomes write a personal book (not quite a diary) throughout their lives that chronicles all the most important and meaningful discoveries and ideas they encounter, and this book is generally published after a gnome's death, often with a foreword (or a few forewords) from friends, colleagues, and relatives. The books range from personal philosophical musings and crystallized ideas about life to proprietary formulas, blueprints, and other discoveries that can change industries. In fact, these funeral books, or lyfbuk, are some of the most sought-after publications in gnomish society, and it is not uncommon to hear a gnome say of someone they admire that "I'm dying to know what's in her lyfbuk." Sales from lyfbuks go toward government programs, but a new law in Vestry proposes that that money should be attributable in the will. 

Halflings

To a halfling, death is paradoxical. They are small and fragile creatures without real strength, and they live in a rainforest where the deadliest of plants and animals are found; death is something that they are highly vulnerable to and surrounded by. And yet, halflings face death more directly than perhaps any group in Evanoch--perhaps their being so used to it has worn off on them over time. Halflings don't so much fear death as make practical decisions to avoid it. There are elven and dwarven sayings that both say that bravery comes naturally to halflings because they are short-lived enough to laugh in death's face but also long-lived enough to have something to fight for. But none of this is to say that halflings don't view the loss of life as a tragedy--after all, they were the first kingdom to forego warfare out of respect of life. Halflings face death with bravery, but they also mourn the fact that the bravery needed to be summoned. Unlike gnomes, halflings don't see death as unspeakable--only unavoidable.

When a halfling passes away, the traditional method of marking their death is to burn the body and mingle the ashes with the wood that was used to build the fire; the ashes are then collected and mixed with wild animal manure or manure from the departed's pet(s) and occasionally a favorite meal of the departed; this mixture is added as fertilizer to a farmer's land who has been chosen by the departed. (Selecting a farmer to receive one's remains mixture, called a yurjin, is a coming of age rite. The receiving farmer, the yurjill, is considered an important figure in one's life, and sharing a yurjill with a new acquaintance is considered excellent luck.) The yurjin is added to the soil at the next time it would be beneficial to the crops. When multiple people in a town die during an off-season for the farmer, they are darkly referred to as yurj-mates, as they have mingled together in the farmer's fertilizer stores.  There is no ceremony held to include the family or friends in an official mourning. While other groups see this practice as uncomfortable or disrespectful of the dead, halflings regard being useful to both the natural world and one's community as the highest honor one can hope for. 

While halflings do not hold a funeral immediately after a death, they are actually one of the most committed in terms of consistently remembering their deceased family and friends. Halflings have a triad of beliefs which are all enacted through practical means meant to honor the deceased. The first is physical: the deceased's body is used to create sustenance, and so that sustenance is connected to the deceased. The crop grown by the deceased's yurjin (not the specific yield from that crop, but any crop of the type that was grown, such as eggplant or plantains) is a special dish to those left behind by the deceased, and eating it honors them. The second method is mental: in halfling society, when one remembers a loved one who has passed on, it is suggested that they mark the occasion by saying one positive thing about the deceased, even if one is alone. (This can cause a whole chain of positive remembrances as one person sets off another.) Finally, the third method is spiritual: a halfling saying tells people that when you feel like a loved one's death was not ideal, appropriate, or befitting them, you should imagine them happier than you ever saw them in life. This is not to say that they have achieved some sublime afterlife--only that imagining them happy is better for us than being dissatisfied. Thus, halflings are almost always actively or passively creating positive memories about the deceased. 

There you have it--a complete guide to the funeral rites, memorial styles, and views on death in my homebrew setting. I will admit that part of what drove me to write this was spending a lot of time visiting cemeteries on a recent vacation. (I'm just generally kind of weird that way, but I also think seeing cemeteries is very life-affirming.) As I walked through acres of sprawling gravestones with several different cultures represented, my mind was on what it means to live and be alive, but I soon started thinking about my world, too. Writing about who believes what and why has been very good for me and my understanding of my world--I know each group much better now than I did before writing. As always, writing about my homebrew setting opens new doors of creativity and storytelling--I hope you take the time to think about these things, or things like them, too. 

That's all for now. Coming soon: how to write a one-shot, public views of a historical event in my homebrew setting, and transportation in my homebrew setting. Until next time, happy gaming!

How to Deal with Player Character Deaths

It's a possibility that looms over every game: what if the players die? No matter what kind of game you're playing, there's a chance that the players will die. But how do you get there? And then what happens? Those questions can decide how a player feels about their entire experience as that character, so we need good answers for them. 

In short, I say don't let characters die unless it's deserved. That can mean different things, and I'll get into them in a moment. But for now, I want to repeat this: if someone has carefully made a character and made reasonable decisions, they shouldn't die. If you're playing a brutal variant of the game where character deaths are common, that's one thing; but for a full campaign, player characters should survive until they shouldn't. 

Let's dig into the details. The conditions under which we let a character die are all related to the idea of being deserved. One element of that is in making reasonable choices. If a character does something truly stupid, and it puts their life in danger, that is an acceptable death. Let's consider an example. A character is warned repeatedly to not enter the cage with the displacer beast in it. They enter the cage unarmed and with low health "to pet it." The displacer beast is of course going to attack the character. If that character is brought to death conditions—negative 10 hit points in D&D—then I wouldn't do much in the way of intervening. That player was deliberately reckless with their character, and so we let the conditions kill them. Note here that I'm not talking about "punishing" the character for being stupid by creating dangerous conditions. I'm not fudging all of the displacer beast's damage rolls for the higher. I'm only allowing existing dangerous conditions to do what they do. 

But that's a rare instance when players actually care about their characters. More often, you encounter a scenario where something unfortunate happened to the characters. Perhaps they were taken off-guard, or they just got bad dice rolls; what matters now is that the character is dying. Now we have to ask a difficult question: does the campaign improve (including the experience of the player with the dying character) if the character dies? This might mean, "Is this death dramatic and narratively satisfying?" or something more like "Does this wrap up loose ends and allow the player a new route?" It's context-specific, and you'll need to use your best judgment to decide whether a character death actually works. Remember that we are trying to avoid having players feel like they're not in control of their characters. We're trying to avoid taking a character away from a player before they're ready for it. There's always a way to save them (more on that below). But if the conditions are right, a player character death can be very meaningful. 

By way of example, the Eastweald campaign ended with Carric turning to join the evil Vecna against his former party members; when Gerald and Ell defeated Carric, it was a satisfying dramatic moment. The conditions for this character death were perfect. Firstly, it was good timing. This was our last session in the campaign, and the players knew it. This moment had big finale energy, and it made Carric's player willing to make a move like switching teams. There was to be no missing out in future sessions. Keep this in mind—deaths in finale sessions are more open game than earlier in campaigns. 

Secondly, Carric's death was earned. He had chosen to turn against his allies in a fight to the death. Speaking logically, either he would die, or they would. Since he pitted himself against the rest of the party, there was no avoiding dying. So when Ell and Gerald began to win the battle, I felt no need to intervene with DM assistance. I would like to say more broadly that it's a bad idea to mess with the outcomes of player versus player conflicts, though. For fairness sake, and for the sake of making everyone feel empowered, allow those fights to unfold by the numbers. 

And thirdly, this was a dramatic death. I had no idea going into that last session that Carric would turn to Vecna. Carric's player had given me indication that Carric was being corrupted, but I had no idea how that would unfold. I have to tell you, reader: the look on the other players' faces were incredible. I'm sure mine was too. Carric was part Paladin, after all! We reacted in a big way because it was a big action. And with a turn like that, there were only two things that could happen: Vecna and Carric win, leaving them to negotiate in the wreckage, or Ell and Gerald win like they did. The dice favored Ell and Gerald, and seeing Carric perish as a resolution to his turn was very satisfying—it may even have been the only satisfying way to end the campaign at that point. 

So now let's address the tools of hastening or preventing deaths, now that you know what you want to do. The first route, and the easiest to use, is fudging rolls. I've handled this topic in detail before; here’s the quick and easy guide. First off, in battles where you suspect that there’s a real chance of a player character getting close to dying, start rolling privately. Unless you have a policy of showing every roll for fairness’ sake, hide your rolls in combat. I would argue that hiding your rolls constantly is best. This is especially a good idea if your players will notice when you are and aren’t hiding your rolls.

Write down the Armor Class or similar information for all of the player characters. Saying, “What’s your Armor Class? Oh, it’s that minus one. They miss,” is not satisfying. Conversely, don’t let them get a bead on enemy armor classes if you can. I give identical enemies slightly different armor classes to keep them on their toes. And give them more information than they need when it comes to rolls. It distracts from whether or not the number is real. I’m talking about information about the attacks by way of description—specifically where attacks hit or how they miss. There’s a big difference between the above example of an unsatisfying description in combat and the following: “Wow, they rolled a sixteen; just missed you, Horace. Their axe head swipes through the air, but you lean out of the way, and you can feel it touch the whiskers on your chin.” A player who hears this is probably not thinking about what the DM actually rolled.

My favorite tool for fudging is a simple question to ask players with low health. If a character with low health gets hit, you should already have decided that they either are fair game for a death or you’re deliberately getting them close to death for a dramatic fight (but without killing them). If you want that player to stay on the verge of death, roll the damage against that player (hidden, of course) and then look at the dice. Then, ask them, “How many hitpoints do you have left?” Leave them with between one and three hitpoints. It’s very dramatic, and it works pretty much every time. You can of course strengthen this gambit by knowing how many hitpoint they had and skipping the question, but it’s difficult to always know that information. You can occasionally gather that information (and keep it recorded along with the Armor Classes) by asking for hitpoint checks every few rounds—this is a pretty innocuous question that won’t seem like a fudging tool to most players.

But then, maybe you’ve gone the other direction: you’ve decided to kill a character. As mentioned above, this isn’t a problem necessarily if it’s the end of the campaign. But if your campaign is ongoing, you've got a characterless player on your hands. There are two main solutions to the problem, and solving it means inspecting your gaming situation closely. You might want to seek a way to resurrect the dead character, or you may decide to go the route of creating a new character. 

Let's talk about resurrection. When I was first learning to play D&D as a teenager, I played an elven monk named Algar. Algar suffered a bit in combat; his 3.5 build meant his elven frame was less hardy (low constitution score), and being a monk means being in the thick of battles. He survived for a long time due to careful battle tactics, but then he went up against a vampire in a room by himself. Algar rolled very poorly, missing every strike in two consecutive Flurries of Blows. The vampire slashed him up viciously. At that point, a party member entered the room, summoned a massive fire ball, and walked out. The vampire was badly wounded; Algar was dead. 

I was pretty crushed. Algar was my first character. My DM could see that I didn't want anything except to have him back. When the party finished the dungeon, he set them on a path to a high cleric who could resurrect Algar. And though the party complained about the time and money wasted, they resurrected Algar, and he went on to live out a peaceful life tending to a monastery garden deep in the forest. It was more satisfying than Algar dying—he had been a bit reckless in fighting the vampire alone, but that had come from being abandoned by his allies. My DM saw that Algar didn't really deserve death, so he push the party (which included his daughter) to resurrect him. 

You can go the same route my DM did: have them seek out a powerful spellcaster who can bring back the character. Maybe they're at a beautiful temple; maybe they live alone in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by animals; maybe they run a healing and resurrection shop in a major city. The choice is up to you, and you should pick whatever best suits your world and your story. There's also the matter of payment. You might decide on a large sum of cash; you might have them pursue a magical item; you might make them complete a quest in payment. Again, it's about what suits your world and your story. 

Once you've decided on who's doing the resurrection and for what, it's time to decide the conditions of the resurrection. The official spells in various versions of D&D specify different types of resurrection. Let's look at the 5e versions up close. 

• Revivify: This spell only works on creatures that have died in the last minute, but it's lower level than other resurrection spells. Storywise, we can use this as the idea that resurrection costs more the longer it's been since death. 
• Raise Dead: This spell only works on creatures dead for less than ten days, but it takes a full hour to cast. Storywise, we can use the idea that a more powerful spell extends its usefulness, but also expands how long the process takes. This might not be an issue sometimes, but it couldn't be used in the middle of a battle. There is also an extended sickness which lowers skills, which we can interpret as the body struggling to return to its former self. 
• Reincarnate: This spell also allows for creatures dead up to ten days, and it also takes an hour. One significant side effect is that the character is randomly reassigned a race, which changes the game no matter your approach to it. 
• Resurrection: This spell extends the time limit to one hundred years, and it also takes an hour. As with Raise Dead, there is a significant penalty over time to rolls following the reincarnation. This spell also specifies that body parts can be regrown and diseases and poisons can be cured, adding the story detail that higher level magic actually makes the body healthier too. 
• True Resurrection: This spell again extends the time limit, this time to two hundred years, and it still takes one hour. The spell can do everything that Resurrection does, but without the penalties after being resurrected. It also lifts curses and doesn't require a physical body. Storywise, this shows us that the most powerful healing transcends physical nature. 
• Wish: Because Wish can duplicate any other spell, you could use it to cast any of these spells. 

But beyond these rules, let's talk about resurrecting a character. The moment the character returns, you're going to have to answer some things. What did the dying character feel? Did they experience an afterlife? Do you grant them an audience with their god? (I have any character who dies roll a d100 and have them speak with a random god before reaching any kind of afterlife; a roll with a "meaningful" number means an audience with their god--meaning however likely you think their god would want to speak to the character.) And as DM, you're going to want to stand back narratively. Let the players talk about their reactions to the character's death. There's going to be a lot going on, so let the players work it out. 

And then there's the final option: rolling a new character. If a player is truly finished with a character and they need to begin again, work with them privately to make the new one. Try to grant them privacy from the rest of the party to develop their new character. And let them guide their introduction to the group as much as possible. 

There are things to consider when rolling this new character—how will they relate to the party? What reason does the party have to take on this new character? How will the new party balance affect the story/combat/social dynamics? When you answer these questions, you're going to be affecting the path of the campaign, so be especially mindful. But also don't dismay—sometimes the changes that follow a new character can be for the better. 

By way of example, back when I was playing Algar, I created a second character, Morana, a frightening orc with a scythe who had carved the symbol of the god of death into her body. She slayed monsters and intimidated foes for one glorious session, and then the rest of the party abandoned her in an ambush. My DM—the same DM I mentioned above—couldn't get me out of it. Morana was tragically slain before she even began. 

But the campaign, my first evil campaign, carried on. I needed a new character. I devised a mischievous gnome spellcaster named Loki, and he entered the evil campaign with some fanfare. And Loki became the mastermind of the campaign. We captured castles, we slayed heroes, we even avoided death at the hands of an inevitable. The party had not wanted a big clunky slasher; they wanted a devious murderer with designs on owning the world. I didn't realize that when I first got invited into the evil campaign. But after seeing Morana fail like she did, I knew I needed something else. Loki was that something else. 

My DM had the wisdom to see that I had created the wrong character for the group. He also had the faith to let me try again. And I think it's fair to say that everyone at the table benefitted from having Loki around rather than Morana. I'm glad, in a way, that my DM let Morana die, because Loki is still a figure lurking in my homebrew setting—little gnomish kids in my world tell boogeyman stories about Loki the mage, who comes to steal your breath in your sleep or trick you into a terrible bargain. My DM is as much responsible for that legacy as I am, in some ways. So don't be afraid of rebuilding a party. If you're in doubt, follow this guide to getting a good party together so you can address any changes you might need to make. 

So there you have it. Now you can control and write around character deaths. Just don't forget that these decisions are more weighty than others, so when death starts to loom its head, just slow down and take your time. Your players want your best judgment, not your fastest judgment. 

That's all for now. Coming soon: stereotypes in my gameworld, how to balance plot and exploration, and how to use dreams and hallucinations for storytelling. Until next time, happy gaming!

Back to the homepage (where you can find everything!)