Set and Setting - VI - Death and Passing Rituals

Set and Setting is a series of posts intended as aid in fleshing out a world by way of setting-specific rule design and reinterpretation.

Introduction

First disease, now death. The onset of Winter does prompt the morbid streak.

It is known that characters on the old school warpath constantly walk the line between the rewards of odds-defiance and the dregs of disposability. Superiorly played characters are made to thrive between these two extremes whereas others just end up as casualties. This post happens to be about the latter.

Even as one advocates rolling in the open, not cuddling up to players, not defusing hard choices and keeping the threat of death dangling at the front, back and general periphery of adventurers, there lingers this nagging awareness that, as one walks this talk, there's this one little snag that, statistically speaking, will eventually come to pass… *cue the drums*

The Protagonist Lies Dead

Verily a dismaying premise with which to begin a post.

As an all too natural consequence of repeated brushes with death, even on the players' own terms, someone is bound to eventually slip in the proverbial bathtub and ingloriously snap their gangly neck. Just ask Friedrich Barbarossa about his name-level sometime.

Dealing with the event of a cherished persona’s demise and having to say farewell to a storied survivor of many battles, no matter how glorious the final act, requires a level of maturity and upper lip starch that doesn’t come easy. A senseless death is always hard to stomach and the playstyle here endorsed forcibly presents plenty of chances for it to be just so. Speaking of a running where bleeding out is not regarded as something wholly unavoidable, a couple of questions then beg themselves: 

"When to introduce the replacement character into play?"

and

“What is to be done with a character’s possessions and wealth once he leaves the mortal coil?”.

or even

“How to silverline such a debacle without abdicating from the running’s core principles, mainly the one stating that a new character is to unfailingly begin play at first level?”

Regarding the issue zero of character replacement, an agile generation process and swift inception into play are matters where a setting’s realism dial can be relaxed to the utmost. Having players who are real people with finite schedules twiddle their thumbs because the party has yet to travel enough miles to reach the nearest population centre and credibly recruit a worthy successor is the kind of stonewalling that is not conducive to good play. Whenever there is a need for a character to hold the torch aloft, conceding to a series of fortunate events short of coincidental teleportation is the soundest practice. However, what fate to reserve for the deceased one’s belongings is quite another matter. The gamist optic would point at the strange newcomer being expected to inherit everything for being under the control of the same player with not a peep heard from the rest of the characters, whereas the more realistic approach would sooner see these spoils declared as communal property of the party. What follows is an attempt to straddle the road.

The procedure, far from being a novel idea, was directly inspired by OSR readings, though the exact source eludes me. Working best with a more accumulative style of play, it is envisioned to serve the dual purpose of allowing a degree of in-setting mitigation for character death without compromising the running’s principle of new characters joining as glorified nobodies and introducing a way to shed wealth and gear off a party’s hands, shearing excesses that might come with successful adventure.

Raising a Horn for the Fallen

It is presumed that members of a party are conjoined by iron bonds of camaraderie, friendship and mutual respect, forged in the heat of braved danger, with nothing but a little less to be expected from among the respective players.

Having surviving party members merrily hand their departed comrade’s panoply to a new arrival is behaviour that is past enforcing. Sentiment, religious and moral ethics could presumedly conspire to prevent other characters from simply doing away with the fallen’s gear and treasure share, to say nothing of his inheritance and estate, but necessity lies at the heart of exploration and the heartless types are people too. Accepting that the world turns on incentives – games presenting an excellent microcosmos of this truism – just wishing for parties to care about their fallen isn’t garanteed to accomplish much, especially in a sandbox-type running.

Ultimately, the decision to avail oneself to the advantages of a ritual of passing is to lie with the player of the deceased character. The stark trade-off being that any prized possessions should follow their rightful owner on to the next life, that they may serve in battles and trials yet to come.

“Look Upon My Works, Ye Mighty,…”

Mausol’s Tomb, the Valley of Kings, towering Grave Mounds, portentous Last Voyages and Funeral Pyres to hold the very night at bay. These structures, these rites, they all exist to serve as a marker in time, to signal the point of a great passing and, on a world with fewer people, with the mark of greatness being more keenly felt, the erecting of a unique structure or the enactment of such momentous rites resounds as a clarion call for all sorts of questing hopefuls and minor would-be heroes across the land to go on a pilgrimage and come bear witness to a great departure, known faces from the character’s remote past as well as those met during a life rich with adventure. From among them, one may offer to join the fallen hero’s bereft companions.

The Crunchy Bits

The procedure consists of two parts, one being the practical effects that are mechanically formalized and the other being the ritual proper, which is abstracted and mostly freeform, open to player preference as it comes to the ceremony itself, meant to generate play that will fill downtime while a new character is rolled up and equipped.

‘Habeas Corpus?’ (Prerequisites)

- The fallen character’s body, if still whole, must be brought back to civilization, that it may be ritually displayed, mourned over and take its due part in the performance of the death ritual. If only bodily remains are left, these too must be brought back, though the experience total afforded by the ritual will be halved; If no body is present at all, the cheapened ceremony’s yields will be halved yet again;

- All of the vanquished’s personal possessions (armour, weapons, magical items) must be permanently removed from play, in whatever way deemed appropriate to the death ritual;

- Mundane objects (such as rations, rope and other sundry adventuring equipment) can be put to use however the party sees fit;

- Hirelings and Retainers associated with the deceased will disband upon returning to civilization unless a new mutually beneficial arrangement can be produced.

Rituals of Passing

How the preparations are to be made is entirely up to arrangement between the players and the referee. The mechanic cares only for fungible value, no matter if it be spent on professional mourners, incense, grave goods, commissioning bards, exotic scented wood for a pyre or on the act of putting people to death for service in the afterlife. Logically, the lower tiers of expenditure will correspond to lesser perishables and ceremonial expenses, whereas the upper reaches of value may allow the players to dot the landscape with an impressive monument.

What follows is a very raw table of generalist items, placeholding for whatever the appropriate in-setting representation of passing rites may happen to be. Regarding the part of retinal imprint: how elaborate the ceremony, how imposing the religious character of the event and how long it all takes to fully pan out, that should be strictly a matter shaped by circumstance and the flow of player investment.

Expand

A New Protagonist Emerges

Once the prerequisite issues have been resolved and the party finds itself amidst civilization, the group having decided upon what sum to devote to the ritual and plotted its general outline with the referee, comes the point where the final tally can be calculated:

- A new character will enter play with a corresponding number of starting Xp points equal to the number of silver pieces spent on the death ritual;

- If the new character has already joined play by the time the passing is enacted, the above amount won’t be awarded in bulk but will instead constitute a pool from which Xp will be drawn in a phased fashion, matching whatever experience the character gains with an equal amount from the pool, effectively doubling the Xp gain as long as the pool persists;

- Individual contributions made by companions of the deceased are likewise converted into pools that will increase their respective Xp gains.

Limitations

- The new character must be at least one full level lower than the departed. Ritual expenses past this point will cease producing Xp benefits, though other, less intangible ones, may possibly be unlocked;

- Though a single character can foot the costs if he so wishes, players must be allowed to contribute at least an equal share.

This is meant to enable the occasional new character to join that isn’t a rank neophyte, though it is expectable that parties will hardly ever have enough wealth to uphold multiple such rites in quick succession should fatalities begin to mount. This could lead to a more strategic use of wealth in the form of reserve savings for the eventuality of an early demise.

Closing thoughts – Those that bid farewell

Characters that are simply retired from play are not entitled to pass on their gear beyond token gifts, as the act of retiring grants them NPChood and thus a will of their own, being that there is little way to conceive of a character handing over all of his hard-won possessions and fortune, even to former comrades.

On a more wishful long-term view, it might even be conceivable to have characters raid a funerary compound designed and built by another party in the same sandbox.