This post is part of a series where I put forth a challenge for bloggers to answer all 100 questions on this table by d4 Caltrops. This week I rolled an 80.
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80. What Happens when a Character Dies in your Setting?
They cease to biologically function and can no longer perform actions.
Okay, fine, I'll answer properly.
Something that seems to be inexorably tied to the concept of an afterlife is the existence of realms beyond our own. This is common across both fantasy and real-world religion, with heavens and hells of various descriptions being the usual answer to the question. Reincarnation is a notable exception, but nonetheless a person simply going somewhere else when they die is a prevalent notion in the zeitgeist and seemingly always has been.
It looks like this is going to be a continuation of my recent trend of ignoring DCC's advice to avoid an overly structured approach to the planes. Granted, the way my afterlife planes are designed is intentionally such that the structure doesn't get in the way and you can pretty much slot in whatever you want. The players don't need to (and shouldn't) learn how it "works".
On that note: here's how it works.
When a body dies, its soul escapes. The soul has influence on the corporeal world but exists primarily on the overlapping Ethereal Plane. It doesn't usually spend long here before moving on; it can take moments or hours, but for it to take a day or longer is unusual. These are the cases where something has gone wrong, such as a soul with strong willpower adamantly refusing to leave. These souls are what people call ghosts, and in severe cases where a ghost has lingered for months or years you get a haunting. Beware haunted places and objects, for if you die here your soul may join the occupants.
Where a soul then moves on to varies by circumstance. The Ethereal planes are the only place from which one can travel to planes beyond the physical reach of the Astral Sea that our Mundane World lies within. Deities, devils, demons, and other immortal figures create planes of their own that are not directly connected to our world, and the Ethereal acts as a halfway point through which a tunnel can be opened. Death is therefore a convenient process for those who want to gather souls from the Mundane World.
Deities will often invite their followers - especially the devout ones, including all Clerics - to join them in this plane after death. What this life looks like varies as much as the gods do. Devils prefer more "persuasive" methods than invitation, and demons will outright force you into their hell after destroying your physical body. To an average person who has done good by their god more often than not, and steered well clear of demons and devils, this generally leads to their expected afterlife. A soul with no claimants may be picked up by whomever is willing to take them.
You might notice that there's plenty of room in this process for conflicting claims to a soul, and this is why most deities (even the Chaotic ones) will consider a deal with a devil to be unholy. Deities, even the Chaotic ones, will not generally step in to rescue someone from a devil if their own sinful actions led them there. They may send guardians to save someone from the doom of being taken by a demon, but only the most devout of followers and highest-level Clerics are worth making a cosmic declaration of war over. Greater demons might be able to scare off even powerful gods and occasionally even snatch a Cleric from their rightful afterlife.
It's entirely possible to use this cosmology with DCC's p. 306 suggestion to have a dead party fight their way out of Hell - in fact, you could continue the adventure from the exact moment of their death, in the Ethereal realm. Perhaps the Cleric will have to deal with the fact that they must forsake their own afterlife to follow the party into Hell. It depends on the Cleric whether this would be considered a holy or unholy act. Perhaps the party all end up in different planes and some solo-adventures or group discussion is needed to bring them back together. I'd be wary about continuing play with an individual character who dies as it sets a precedent that death isn't permanent. But for a whole party, there's a few interesting options for continuing the story.
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This week, Judge Toast joined me on this challenge and posted about treasure in a dragon's hoard!
I encourage any other bloggers to check the table for inspiration. Even if you're not up to the challenge of doing them all alongside me, just do one!
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