Here lies ________, victim of _________.

[King of Casuals]

I dont know about you guys, but I've had a lot of characters that I had plans for, whose lives were cut short by death, sudden changes in character lineup, or (worst of all) campaigns ending prematurely. So I decided that I'm going to create this thread so that people can post their lost characters and their dashed dreams.

[King of Casuals]

Heres mine:
RIP Morgaine Angelfire, Level 3-Level 6
She was a mute, Half-Elf Oracle (without the ability to speak). She was difficult to learn how to roleplay at first, but by using a chalkboard and a lot of OOC actions I made it work. She was orphaned at a young age, causing her to lose her speech due to childhood trauma and was taken in by a priest of Iomedae. After leaving to see the world, she met with the PCs and fell in love with the 8 Wis, 18 Cha Paladin. Morgaine loved fondue and shiny things and hated dogs, she played the harp, and even took a level in Bard to make her harp playing legit. I planned on getting levels in the Valkyrie prestige class (one of my own design, its all about flight) and she would be known as the silent angel, maybe even take the leadership feat and create a guild of silent protectors, hell maybe even die a saint! But alas, my group got bored of the campaign, and Morgaine's story ended too early.

[DigoDragon]

Here Lies The Great and Powerful Trixie, skilled sorceress.
It was a good run despite being trapped in the mundane human world of Earth. Finally, a place where your magic and your species was unique! If only the Game Master was not called away to work night shift at the mall, your exploits and reputation could have proceeded you and brought you fame a hundred times what you might have found back home. Instead you were doomed to the horrible fate of a dead campaign and way too many 'saddle bag' jokes.

[Keltest]

Here lies Keltest (three guesses where my tag comes from), Victim of unnamed Drow Wizard and Morged the Black.

He got better.

[JeenLeen]

Here lies Meta, victim of his trusted ally.

In a Mage: The Ascension game, I played a Virtual Adept member of the Reality Hackers who went by the handle Meta. He believed the world was a video game and Ascension was how you escaped to become a real person in reality and not just a player character. He also believed mages and most supernaturals were player characters, but almost all mundanes were NPCs and thus didn't have any qualms about killing. While he and a Chorister ally (another PC) were hiding from a potentially Jhor-crazed Euthanatos (third PC), the Choristor killed him in his sleep. The reasoning was a mix of him being annoyed at Meta considering converting to religion to 'unlock prayer as a focus' (since all non-coding foci were just hacks in the system he could exploit), that Meta was a bit of a sociopath, and that we had considered torturing someone to gain information. The DM was surprised that the torture thing was what tipped him off the edge, since earlier the Euthanatos helped a Marauder ex-Euthanatos flay somebody and he was just annoyed at that.

I was rather sad about it, because I was looking forward to trying to make him good through conversion and I really enjoyed his paradigm.
There was a good bit of intra-party conflict in that game.

Here lies Frederick, victim of his wife Emma.

Same game, but later set of PCs. At the endgame, our party (3 PCs, NPC my char's wife Emma, and a werewolf ally NPC) had defeated Voormas. The only survivors were my PC (barely), another PC, and my char's wife. She then revealed that she was Nephandi (as I IC and OOC had told the party, but they decided to ignored), killed my char, then defeated the other survivor.

Good ending, still.

[Maglubiyet]

Here lies the A-Team. Impaled and trampled by mounted dragonnewts with lances.

[Zalphon]

Here lies Kelas, Dragonborn Paladin of Bahamut, victim of an ancient brass wyrm who felt insulted by the fact that he was called out for not helping the poor people above with their Orc Infestation.

[Bard1cKnowledge]

From a DM perspective

Here lies WyrmRot, noble Wyvren god king of the kobolds, victim of a barbarian cleric of Gorum

[draken50]

Here lies Olaf the Opportunistic, Weaponsmith, Leader, Thief of Glory.

No beast was too mighty, no horror too foul too that could not be ended by his axe. In his compnaions hands, weapons he forged fell like a torrent upon his enemies, driving them to the earth, crushed beneath their combined might, and finished by a well timed blow.

His grandfathers hammer, returned to the clan too soon, but his axe roams the world still.

"Damn dwarf stole my kill again" - Kurath Troll Sky Raider.

[Pex]

Here lies my participation in a 5E game, victim of other players' and one Co-DM's selfishness and indifference.

A combat starts? Great time to abandon the party and loot the bodies of dead NPC flavor text corpses.

[JAL_1138]

Hoo boy...I can't even remember all their names. Several had numbers after them, e.g. Alistair 4 or Gavin 6. Preceded in death by Gavin 5, Gavin 4, Gavin 3, Gavin 2, and Gavin. AD&D was a meatgrinder at low level.

[DigoDragon]

Here Lies Alexis, Android Doctor.
Despite being an abandoned Starfleet project in favor of a holographic doctor program, Alexis still managed to get a good programmed doctorate and land himself a decent job as the medical officer on a Federation registered cargo ship. Unfortunately the GM suffered from a fatal disease of forgetting Alexis' existence, to the point that his status as an android was never discovered by the crew, his girlfriend was killed off on a whim because the GM didn't think she was dating anyone, and when his player walked out in the middle of combat from frustration, it still took the GM three rounds to notice. He will be missed by the captain, the only one to ever value him as a crew member.

[Bard1cKnowledge]

Here lies Jinxie, the gnomish bard

He played some sick riffs,
Now his lies down quite stiff

[Morcleon]

Here lies Hatsuyuki the psion, victim of rocks falling.

The DM didn't like psionics and the fact that I was soloing a great wyrm blue dragon in a one-shot he specifically told us to optimize our characters for. :smalltongue:

[Ettina]

Here lies Fodder, victim of tons of bandits and his master's stupidity.

He was my dread necromancer's very first zombie. I had a really cool backstory for him, and was planning to awaken undead him and do some cool RP. But then I got him to provoke some bandits, and thought making him lie down would make them lose interest in him.

[roko10]

Here lies Harroc, victim of abadoned PbP games. May he continue using his rocket chain-fists to punch evildoers.

[BWR]

Here lie Guiseppe and his Angels (Lirielle, Vivienne, Ylissa and Nessie), victims of Tiamat, whom we failed to stop in "Red Hand of Doom".
We had somehow managed to visit every room in the complex before the final battle and wasted a lot of resources on the way, then made some poor tactical choices in the fight against Azarkul. After more than 20 years of D&D, some of us still forget that taking out the minions before focusing on the Big Bad is generally the way to go. Damn those at-will unholy blights. All the bad tactical choices in the world can't make up for crappy rolls, though, and there were some crappy rolls that fight.

[Illogictree]

Here lies Nacoh "Noir" Sunset / Naoko Kuro'o, victim of a flaky GM who would rather play Call of Duty than run our game.

I've told this story elsewhere (in one of the Bad GM threads), but here it is again: Noir was a 1st-level kitsune bard (detective archetype) whose whole shtick was pretending to be a 1st-level human rogue - the other players were ignorant of her true class/race both IC and OOC. She was a rather gothy and cynical teenager who talked like a character from a film noir movie (hence the nickname), and was a real blast to play - for the two whole sessions that the GM ran of an online campaign. We ended the second session on a cliffhanger, about to confront an ogre. After that... said GM dropped off the face of the internet for a week or two, and when I got back in contact with him, he basically said "Oh, sorry, a new Call of Duty game came out."

"So are we going to start playing again?" I asked.

"Nope. One of the other guys got promoted and doesn't have time to play anymore. See ya."

:smallfurious:

I had intent of having her take ninja levels in the future, but I didn't know enough about how the campaign would have progressed to go beyond that.

Here lies Priss Vincent, victim of...?

A character for a sci-fantasy themed pbp game on these very forums, Priss was a 6th-level catfolk gunslinger (siege gunner archetype) specced to be a ship's gunner and heavy weapons expert. Her backstory was basically that she had been ordered to join a space expedition by her bosses back in Alkenstar and try to secure advanced weapons technology for them - which, while not necessarily at odds with the purpose of the expedition, would possibly have led to intra-party drama and conflict later down the line. Future plans for her included upgrading her with as much cyberware as our GM would allow, and possibly taking the Leadership feat and gaining her own loyal gunnery crew.

So what happened? ...I'm not privy to the IRL details, but the GM sort of disappeared on us. One of our players dropped out very soon after we started, and while I and one other player had fun playing a little freeform RP based on the game, and the GM promised the game would resume at some point, there hasn't been any activity for two or three months at this point and I think it's pretty much done by now.

Here lies Eazlor, victim of IRL things and lack of player interest.

This was my character for another pbp game on this board. A 1st-level vizier in an attempt to run through Paizo's Kingmaker AP. Eazlor was supposed to be a stereotypical 'wicked vizier' type like Jafar from Disney's Aladdin, played as a hammy manipulator. Unfortunately he didn't gel well with the other characters and wasn't as fun text-only as he would be IRL. Then, our GM had a family emergency and cancelled the campaign before our first combat encounter. There was another, similar campaign that started recruiting soon after, but I didn't have enough interest to continue.

Oh, and one other, for honorable mention:

Here lies Seelah, paladin of Iomedae, victim of a Hezrou demon whose name I forget

Only character I've actually had die on me, and it was a pregen in a Pathfinder Society module... :P

[critter3of4]

Here lies Stan The Orphan , victim of real life of getting in the way

Stan's my first character I ever created for 5e. He was a dex based fighter with the alert feat. This feat plus his Urchin background made him a very useful scout. He looked like Alfred E Neumann with a couple of extra teeth missing. I'll be using this build again if I get the chance.

His untimely death was due to the fact that I got a new job that changed my availability to play. I still play Wednesdays with my wizard Navin Johnson who has a striking resemblance to Steve Martin.

[Necroticplague]

Here Lies Urist McUberdorf, victim of the might of his deformity.

Thanks to some complicated scenario, this dwarf was completely immune to damage from heat and smoke. Thus, he was merely walking around like nothing was wrong after he was caught in a crossfire from a magma trap during a seige. Normally, the fire would have died after a little and he would have been fine. However, all that breaking goblin neck apparently made him thirsty, so he went to the booze stockpile for a drink, and learned the hard way that bottled/barreled booze doesn't react well with fire.

[NowhereMan583]

Here lies Og, Slayer of Great Mammoth, victim of GM hate.

Back in college, one of the regular GMs started up a Dark Heresy campaign. One of the character options he pitched was someone who had been picked up from "a primitive world". I went all the way with that and rolled up Og: a low-to-average-intelligence Paleolithic-equivalent hunter who was pretty friendly as long as he had plenty of food, chatty despite his loose grasp of Gothic, and willing to go along with the party's missions even though he didn't really understand the context of any of it.

The GM made no secret of the fact that he hated the character, and the first time I missed a session, he had Og jump in front of a laser bolt in a heroic act of sacrifice.

[TheThan]

Here lies Barbie the barbarian

A mighty warrior was she
She was sent to explore a shack
and sallied forth with glee
But found she could not hack
An ambush by a goblin
For she was stabbed in the back
and quickly ended up in a coffin

[Dayvig]

Here lies Franco 'The Baron' Calderi

Thrown from a balcony after a climactic showdown with his evil, genetically superior clone. He was resourceful, experienced with a crossbow and rapier, loved crafting all kinds of things, and most importantly, his positivity never wavered.

[Inevitability]

From my own (DM) perspective:

Here lies Ramirez 'Slayer' the Black

Killed by the PC's who figured out their cute little pet kobold was actually the shapeshifted archvillain, chased him across the entire ship they were on (he almost got away) and then proceeded to swarm him.

Of course, I wouldn't be a DM if I didn't have a back-up plan for such things.

[Zyoto12]

Mine
Here lies Victor the Cowardly Magus, Victim of being the only PC without a mount when wychfires attacked. (PF Rise of the Runelords)

Here lies Joe the Rogue, Victim of his own Rod of Wonder. (Rise of the Runelords)

Here lies Captain James "Bloody" Barrett, Gunslinger Captain of the Rum Ration and Terror of the Inner Sea, Victim of a poisoned crossbow bolt to the back. (PF Skulls and Shackles)

Here lies Desim Di Fortuna the Binder, Victim of the Dread Necromancer not knowing the zombies have double hit dice and losing control of his zombie dire boar.

Not Mine
Here lies Anka Jim the Cripple Oracle, Victim of grappling tengu. (Rise of the Runelords)

Here lies Vincent the Summoner, brother to Victor, Victim of a tentacle monster with a wand of scorching ray. (Rise of the Runelords)

Here lies Dorf the Dwarf Druid, Victim of not having a mount and getting kidnapped by Ninjas. (Rise of the Runelords)

Here lies Sergei the Paladin, dog rider, Victim of plants. (Rise of the Runelords)

Here lies the Unnamed Barbarian, Victim of calm emotions. (Rise of the Runlords)

Here lies Mitch the Goblin Alchemist, Victim of plants, and his own unstable firebombs. (Skulls and Shackles)


So yeah, Rise of the Runelords was pretty brutal for our group, mainly because we all kept not building full casters or optimizing that hard. Only 1 player never lost his his starting character. The game lives on in our memories as The Caravan of Pain and Sadness.

[dysike]

Here lies Eric, victim of his own stupidity

Here lies Hagrid, victim of his own and Eric's stupidity

Here lies Reginald, victim of Hagrid

[Velaryon]

Like several others here, I've acquired quite the graveyard of abandoned or prematurely killed characters. I'll have to spread these out over several posts because I have a game later tonight, but here are a few:

As the spoiler says, this was my first ever D&D character, a half-elf Fighter who later became a weretiger and multiclassed to Ranger.

Creel was actually an alias - his real name was Durin Lucian, and he was the son of a minor Cormyrian noble who had been framed for the murder of his family. He had stormed out of the house one night after an argument with his father and gone to get drunk in town, only to learn that someone had killed his whole household and he was now suspect numero uno. He fled to another land, lived under an assumed name, and took up the adventuring lifestyle in order to become strong enough to return home and hunt down his family's killer.

He possessed a mighty heirloom - a Ring of Regeneration that actually gave true regeneration as trolls have. He "died" many times in battle (thanks to poor stats and a horribly unoptimized build), got infected with lycanthropy and became a nigh-immortal badass. Then one day his party was captured by a literal ice queen (some kind of water genasi/half water elemental sorceress, and we never played again. The DM was in his last year of college and the pressure of exams and student teaching became too much for him to continue running the game. Creel's backstory, which I still think is pretty awesome for a first-timer, never came up in game and was left completely unresolved.

Percival was a Human Wizard/Swashbuckler/Abjurant Champion who came from a rough-and-tumble background but managed to gain entrance to a prestigious magic academy through hard work and determination. When the entire city was obliterated by a magical catastrophe, he fled with a few of the survivors, including a Necromancer student of the same academy whom he despised and maintained a barely-civil rivalry the entire campaign.

Percival layered up in protective magic, then jumped into battle wielding a spiked chain. It seemed like a good combo, and I had his build pretty much all figured out up to level 20, but we never got there. One day, a relatively new party member (brought in as a replacement character) double-crossed the party for reasons I can't remember anymore but seemed paper thin to me at the time, and helped an NPC we were already outmatched against TPK us. Well, nearly TPK - that darn Necromancer teleported away to save his own skin, leaving the rest of us to die.

That's not the worst part, though. The DM at the time was having money problems, so as a birthday present he liked to give his players a "1-Up" to be used in game - resurrection was hard to come by in this campaign, but if you used a 1-Up then your character would come back to life at full strength, no questions asked, and be justified in game however the DM could come up with. This game took place the day before my birthday, so I just missed the cutoff on that. The DM was not inclined to lenience and wouldn't let me have it early.

Duncan was a human Druid/Bard going for Fochlucan Lyrist that I played in a Ravenloft campaign which didn't last very long. He came from a clan of druids in the land of Forlorn, but that wasn't his passion so he ran away from home to the neighboring land of Kartakass to become a bard. I had plans for him to eventually reconcile with his heritage and learn to blend the bardic tradition with his roots, but the campaign never made it that far. Duncan ended up the victim of an apathetic DM who couldn't hold onto his motivation long enough to finish the campaign.

The most memorable event for this character came when we were tracking a monster that had been terrifying a local village or something into the forest. I forget exactly what it was (likely a Ravenloft-specific monster out of Denizens of Dread), but it was some kind of evil hound-like creature that could cause some kind of fear effect on us. I failed the save, and the DM rolled on a chart to determine the exact kind of fear (Ravenloft likes to make fear more complex and varied than the simple rules in vanilla 3.5) and it turned out I was so afraid it actually caused me to become enraged at my fear. So I dropped my lute, pulled out a sword, shouted "FEAR MY BARDIC FURY!" and charged at the thing full speed. It didn't go well for me. I think we ended up barely surviving that battle, no thanks to me. :smallsmile:

[Algeh]

My first character ever, Chandra the 2nd edition AD&D Bard, was partway through the Temple of Elemental Evil (which had taken this particular group about 2 years IRL to get even a few levels into, but that's another story) was lost when the folder with my character sheet in it got misplaced by the DM between sessions. I then went off to college shortly afterward, so I never did find out if he found it later. Through a series of truly ridiculous rolls on some homebrew charts of the DM's, she'd just gotten this really cool shape-changing familiar who had (a) a form that could fly and (b) a form with hands and enough intelligence to tie knots. I'd taken tightrope walking as well as rope climbing by that point (I think we were around 4th-5th level? I don't remember that well - this was in the 90s) and was looking forward to getting into some interesting new kinds of trouble by getting to edges of of the scenery.



In a long-running GURPS campaign I was GMing, one of the reveals planned was that the leader of the Pirate Illuminati (an organization the PCs had been gradually learning about for that entire campaign, which had been going for a year or two by then) was Karl, an NPC that had been in a previous campaign that a few of my current group of players had been in. Only one of the three of them was still coming regularly by the time we finally got around to when they should meet Karl, so it wasn't going to have the impact I'd planned when I'd started setting the thing up years before, but I still wanted to see the expression on that player's face before we moved on with the rest of the plot. Then he stopped coming to sessions, and so did his girlfriend. They each kept making excuses and said they'd make it next time, and the rest of us kept killing time since I finally had to tell the party that it was important that that particular PC was present when they met the leader. It pretty much killed off the whole campaign while we stalled waiting for him to show up. (We started up several other campaigns that alternated to fill the time, then eventually the group fell apart when I started grad school.) Six months later, we learned that the two of them had broken up and didn't tell us, which is probably why they both started ditching the game.

[Freelance GM]

Here Lies Pincushion, victim of Two Dozen Spears

So, the first two D&D characters I ever got to play were a Ranger and a Paladin. At the same time, because, long story.

Anyways, the Paladin got swatted across a room and mauled by orcs, but miraculously survived, and the DM said, "Well, I guess he's the party pincushion. The name stuck and he became a legacy character.

Several campaigns later...


Pincushion, being a Paladin, is morally opposed to infiltrating a bandit camp and assassinating their leader. So, he instead single-handedly attacks the camp. This distraction created an opening for the rest of the party to, well, infiltrate the bandit camp and assassinate their leader. Just as planned, because Pincushion was honorable, but not stupid. He knew it was a suicide mission, but he's a Paladin and it was for the greater good of the nation we were defending. He valiantly held off almost two dozen bandits with spears, before being critted, impaled and pinned to a stone obelisk. The bandits stabbed him a bunch, and he slowly bled out over the course of the next hour. So yeah, Pincushion turned out to be an incredibly appropriate name.

Here Lies Mikael Salander, Victim of a Fungal Infection

In one of the thousands of rooms in Rappan Athuk, there is a room with some sentient, hostile mushrooms, which my character (reasonably) assumed it was a good idea to burn a path through. Sadly, the other mushrooms didn't respond well to their brothers and sisters getting incinerated, and swarmed poor Salander. The mushroom's attacks damaged his CON so badly that his max HP was reduced to 1. Then, Salander got whacked for 24 damage, which resulted in his instant death.

Here Lies The Bond Cycle, Victim of a Missed Right Turn

I'll keep this one short and sweet. Some days, there's just no good place for a bomb.

This day, it was strapped to my ludicrously expensive motorcycle, which came straight out of a Bond movie with a full suite of surveillance gear and concealed, integrated weapons. My Rigger had found an empty parking deck to dump the bomb in, and was remotely steering his bike there at top speed.

Only, he missed the right turn into the parking deck.

So, the bike continued into a crowded city block, and detonated, killing hundreds of civilians and devastating the buildings. We saved the people who hired us, and luckily all evidence incriminating my character was vaporized in the explosion. So, technically, the mission was still a success, and we still got paid.

But my character didn't care about that.

He lost his bike.

[JAL_1138]

Here lies Wizard Whose Name I Don't Remember Over A Decade Later #1, victim of a housecat.

Here lies Wizard Whose Name I Don't Remember Over A Decade Later #2, victim of a barnyard goat.

Here lies Wizard Whose Name I Don't Remember Over A Decade Later #3, victim of a couple-three squirrels.

Here lies Wizard Whose Name I Don't Remember Over A Decade Later #4, victim of a swan.

Here lies Wizard Whose Name I Don't Remember Over A Decade Later #5, victim of a boar.

Here lies Wizard Whose Name I Don't Remember Over A Decade Later #6, victim of a stirge.

Here lies Wizard Whose Name I Don't Remember Over A Decade Later #7, victim of green slime.

Here lies Wizard Whose Name I Don't Remember Over A Decade Later #8, victim of a black pudding.

Here lies Wizard Whose Name I Don't Remember Over A Decade Later #9, victim of a kobold.

Here lies Wizard Whose Name I Don't Remember Over A Decade Later #10, victim of a gnoll.

Here lies Wizard Whose Name I Don't Remember Over A Decade Later #11, victim of a stray dog.

Here lies Wizard Whose Name I Don't Remember Over A Decade Later #12, victim of a horse on a failed ride check.

I could keep going, but you get the drift. I stopped playing wizards in low level campaigns after a while.

[King of Casuals]

Here lies Sora Laikov, victim of cranial bombs.
So in my One Piece d20 campaign I was playing as a cyborg sniper whose mind got taken over by programming implemented by her creator after one of her crewmates was shot with lasers, caused a chain reaction of explosions, buried in rubble, and then finally vaporized (he didnt make it) and turned on the rest of the crew. After our captain knocked me out and tied me to a chair, the super overkilled player's new character, a mad scientist, came in to try and help bring me back to my normal self. So he opened up my characters head and found 3 bombs inside, so we had a very long and very tense wire-cutting game in which the mad scientist cut the wrong wire, and instead of letting him try and fix it, our captain threw me out of the third story window of our hotel, my head exploded on the way down, and I went splat on the floor. This just happened last sunday so im still a little salty about it.

[Amphetryon]

Here lies Amphetryon, who cut himself while training with a sword dipped in Hades' Horn. Stupid 'training to level' rules; stupid Critical Fumble rules. Mutter

[chainer1216]

Here lies Jedi Master Kuroi (lvl14), Victim of a banana peel and bad luck.

[Anchor&Quills]

Here lies Blink, blue goblin nomad, victim of a rusty nail.
The nail happened to be the source of an anti-magic field, which also stopped Blink's impressive psionic abilities. Once captured, a band of orcs drove the nail through his skull, and a frontal lobotomy soon followed.
Blink is survived by dozens of former goblin slaves that he rescued from the shackles of tyranny.

[Jay R]

I dont know about you guys, but I've had a lot of characters that I had plans for, whose lives were cut short by death,...

What else would a life be cut short by?

[chainer1216]

What else would a life be cut short by?

Marriage


Ziiing!

[TheCountAlucard]

[snip]Yeesh, that reads like a NetHack graveyard; I'm surprised none of them died to food poisoning or kicking walls.

[Erth16]

Here lies Shana, victim of her liege's monk bodyguard suspecting her a threat, and strangling the poor low powered sorcerer to death after killing her bodyguard.

Here lies Aernwyn, victim of the legal system, legs broken as punishment for trying to purge a bar of it's evil, and he was later killed by the warden when he tried to escape.

Here lies Jack of the Blood Oath, victim of his replacement, Fleur of the Blood Oath, when he tried to abandon his allies.

[Bard1cKnowledge]

Here lies a swarm of baby phase spiders, victim of Lerissa, my warlock who blasted them after they swarmed on her

[ImSAMazing]

Here lies the great Vadania(Vladimir) the great High-Elf Wizard(lvl 12), victim of his evilness, his stupidness, his DM, and indirectly his party.

He was assigned to follow and observe the party, until an order came: "Kill the monk. He knows to much...". I tried, but somehow my Wizard remembered everything his friends did for him. He, instead of killing the monk when he had the chance, let the monk kill him, to show his respect.

Remember guys: Evilness is not the option. Especially not when you have such a good DM as Dire_Stirge!

[Brendanicus]

From my perspective:

Here lies Ron Sween, my first player character, victim of me geting bored with the character.

From everyone else's perspective:

Here lies Ron Sween, victim of DID YOU SEE THE SIZE OF THAT SAHUAGIN BERZERKER? HE HAD AN ANCHOR AS A WEAPON THAT WAS BIGGER THAN HE WAS! HE CAN'T EVEN WIELD IT WITHOUT FRENZYING!!!

[YossarianLives]

Here lies Nop, kobold rogue, slain by a horde of giant ants. He was only level 3.

[Nexahs]

Here lies Faerdin the Warmage (and the rest of his companions), victim of several Homebrew Werewolf Things.

Famous last words: "After I'm done with you I'll cut out the b****'s heart and eat it!"
Turns out that A) these particular Homebrew Werewolf Things retain their mind while wolfy, and B) do not respond kindly to threats.

[JAL_1138]

Yeesh, that reads like a NetHack graveyard; I'm surprised none of them died to food poisoning or kicking walls.

Disease (bad food, bad drink, catching something horrible in a swamp or sewer), yup, done that. Also to actually-poisoned food & drink. Can't recall dying from kicking a wall; I usually carried a 10ft pole (or a polearm when playing a class that could use one) for all wall-prodding needs. (Does falling down the stairs at the inn because I tripped while drunk count?) Being flung into a wall, yes; the wall being a monster, yes; the wall having a monster in or on it rather than being an actual monster itself, also yes.

[DigoDragon]

Marriage

Ziiing!

One of my characters was recently engaged, so I guess i'll prep an entry. :smalltongue:

[JAL_1138]

Here lies Marten the half-elf bard, who inadvertently drank (a small portion of?) a Water Weird which burst from his stomach like the Chestburster in Alien and killed him.

EDIT: Here lies Thief Whose Name I Don't Remember Over A Decade Later, Probably One Of The Various Gavins, who died when he was stung by a lock lurker while trying to open a chest in knee-deep water, failed his Save vs Paralysis, and drowned.

EDIT AGAIN: At low level, AD&D stood for "Arbitrary Death & Dismemberment" and could more accurately be described as survival horror rather than heroic fantasy.

[GoldfishBowl]

Here lies Malcolm Phillip Ractice, victim of my premature pouncing on an opportunity to actually close a character arc.

This is gonna be long winded as I simmer in the nostalgia. Sorry.

We were all hyped up hardcore after The Dark Knight, and decided to play a game set in Gotham using World of Darkness. Despite the punny name, Malcolm was a competent doctor who was inspired by Batman and took to the streets of Gotham as a vigilante. He fought criminals using stealth and sedatives, targeting drug dealers because of his own past addictions. Went by the name Dr. Narrows. Wore a badass scary looking gasmask and duster. Sneaks up on fools and KO'd them with a needle to the neck. Big on the Hippocratic oath, not taking a life. Dude was awesome, GM was awesome, easily my favourite character and I was totally into it.

Anyway, first session we have a run in with Killer Croc, hopped up on who the hell knows what. Knock him out with way too much horse tranquilizer, has a bad reaction with the cocktail of other drugs in his system, and nearly dies. Some ridiculously lucky willpower fueled medical successes later (Like 14 on one roll) I manage to save him, but he's gonna stay in a coma for a while.

Six months real time in, Malcolm is putting his life together. He's solving his personal issues and he's one of the only party members who's on good terms with Batman, notably to his strict no killing clause. He's reconciled wih his sister, and is repairing his relationship to his family that he broke with addiction.
Then Croc wakes up, hungry for revenge. Snatches sister, calls Narrow's phone, gets voicemail. Says show up by 11pm at this location, or your sister dies. The situation was planned like this ahead of time, but the party threw the DM a curveball had all ditched their phones to not be traceable for our mission. Narrows gets the message at 3am, and rushes to find his sister dead as promised. End session.

I'm then struck by inspiration, and write a short story from Croc's point of view, going after the rest of the family. Narrows intercepts him, captures him and, in what was described to me by the DM as "The best ten pages of torture porn I've ever read", executes him. Unable to cope with the death of his sister and breaking his oath, Dr Narrows gets on a bus and leaves Gotham to rot.

Before, all of my characters had just fizzled out because of an untimely death to an orc with a greataxe, or the campaign just ending to lack of interest. I finally had an opportunity for a satisfying, if bitter, ending and I jumped on it. Unfortunately, after the buzz wore off I was left playing an uninspired replacement character who I could not get into at all for the next act, until relationships within the group exploded and the game ended.

So I mean, I guess it's good he got out when he did. But I still miss the guy.

[goto124]

One of my characters was recently engaged, so I guess i'll prep an entry. :smalltongue:

But in your case it opens a whole new adventure... oh.

-knocks on wood-

[Roderick_BR]

Here lies (dwarven cleric I don't recall the name), victim of a (not really) former team mate riding a mine wagon, running the poor cleric down the minute he (the cleric) appeared in the adventure.

My shortest lived character ever.

[King of Casuals]

What else would a life be cut short by?

Its almost like i actually continued that sentence by listing off more things that ended a character's life and youre just looking at the first part of it. Wierd huh?

[illyahr]

Here lies Robinda Hood, victim of:

a giant spider
a swarm of smaller spiders
a tunnel cave-in
an orc raiding party
an annoyed weapons dealer
a natural 1 on a Heal check for stabilization
Rule 0

My DM really didn't like her kleptomaniac ways (all torches were bolted to the wall so she wouldn't keep stealing them) and kept killing her off however he could. Unfortunately for him, we kept managing to bring her back. He eventually just said that Olidammara made her a better offer and she didn't want to return. :smallbiggrin:

[Uncle Pine]

One of my characters was recently engaged, so I guess i'll prep an entry. :smalltongue:

Please don't hold a ceremony. People tend to die from explosions and stray bullets bolts when PCs or highly renowned NPCs hold a wedding ceremony. :smalltongue:


Here lies The Great and Powerful Korg, magnificent wizard, faithful companion, founder of Korg Boiled Chicken. He lived a full life.
Here also lies Fireball, housecat, casted in a bar brawl and never retrieved.
Here also lies Fireball II, iguana, buried alive with his owner.
Here also lies Fireball III, rooster, drowned during a cave flood.

- Fireball IV

Long story short, the first time I get the chance to play a straight Barbarian who thinks he is a Wizard (credits to Gnome Alone (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?195049-Help-Me-Be-Annoying-with-a-Barbarian-Wizard) for the idea), the campaign lasts only 3-4 months. Btw, Fireball IV was a winged centaur.

[DigoDragon]

Here lies Ace Gambit, victim of the abrupt unknown.
Ace was a changeling working as a bookstore clerk in Ponyville. Lived in the back room and had one reliable friend he could count on. Then a really awesome magical fair came into town with the promise of glittering prizes! Ace was a goofy and boisterous character who often got by on luck. However, he was never aware that he was lucky and thought he was actually skilled (he was in magic, but not much else). He often made friends readily, outdone only by how easily he can embarrass himself. Yet, Ace never let it get him down. An eternal optimist.

The game was abruptly ended by the GM without reason stated. I still keep the character concept around in case of a future chance to play the silly critter.



But in your case it opens a whole new adventure... oh.
-knocks on wood-

Heehee. Is it a bad thing that I started writing an amusing 'Alternate-Universe' tale where those two broke up instead?"


Please don't hold a ceremony. People tend to die from explosions and stray bullets bolts when PCs or highly renowned NPCs hold a wedding ceremony. :smalltongue:

I'm now thinking about the second wedding scene in Wreck it Ralph. :smallbiggrin:

[VoxRationis]

Here lie the Prophet of the Cleansing Flame, his acolyte, and a wizard whose name I do not recall, victims of poor Fortitude save rolls and a dying assassin with a vial of inhaled poison.

[Bard1cKnowledge]

here lies, Barlog "The Hammer" Half-Orc ex gladiator, died after refusing a necromancer of Hades offer of becoming a hired hand and later being attacked by a water weird in a drowned temple in the middle of a swamp where said necromancer was hiding.

JAL knows his pain

[JAL_1138]

JAL knows his pain

All too well. All too well.

[Keltest]

Its almost like i actually continued that sentence by listing off more things that ended a character's life and youre just looking at the first part of it. Wierd huh?

I don't know about your campaigns, but in my settings characters continue to exist, ready to be picked up, should an OOC reason happen to drive them out of the party.

[Beleriphon]

Here lies two unnamed heroes, victim of the critical hit.

My story is as the GM. I was using the intro adventure in the Eberron Campaign Setting book, with two characters. I ran the first encounter, and both characters were ignobily killed in by critical hits in the first two round of combat. We'd been playing the game for less than an hour.

[Gnomish Wanderer]

Here lies Silas Vong, 4e Lvl5 Paladin, victim of morality differences, absurb self-assurance, and a poor memory.

I played a male Paladin who was very... overzealous in his feelings towards evil. First off, though, he was genuinely a good person, in so far as he gave up massive amounts of gold to charity, personally helped anyone he came across, and risked himself life and limb for his party members.

However, on the other side of the coin, he would not permit a witch to live. Mercy wasn't in his vocabulary, and he acted in black and white in a campaign that was filled with grey. A shopkeeper was knowingly taking part in a slave trade? He asked the rest of the party to come with him, held the door open for them, closed the door behind them and locked it, and proceeded to punch the shopkeeper to near death. A group of bandits ambushed them. Silas killed all of them but a young kid, who he tied to a horse and had drug along the ground until the kid would reveal the location of the leader of their bandit party. He was brutal, and believed he was working within the natural order of things. Evil does bad things, bad things happen back to them. It was all fair.

Playing him was a ton of fun. The other players loved him. The other player CHARACTERS, however, felt very different.

His end started on a shipride to a different continent. The players were told to stay beneath deck for the first half of the journey, and storms rocked the ship the entire way. At some point, the boat just stopped for a day, with no explanation. The party didn't venture from their cabin, though Silas was plenty suspicious. When they came up, Silas decided to investigate what had happened. He broke through locked doors, interrogated crew, and in general was his aggressive self. The party had developed a policy of 'We're not with him' in response to his antics, though they often happily participated :smalltongue:

Silas got frustrated because it seemed like legitimately nothing was going on that he could detect. I decided the smartest thing to do was to roll an Intelligence check, to see if I recognized any of the crew from when we got on. In fact, the crew seemed entirely different! (I believe I botched the roll) So, he came up with a theory. Obviously, the crew were up to no good. And what kind of people did no good on the seas? Pirates! But the crew weren't pirates when they originally came aboard. So, obviously, when the boat stopped, a pirate crew switched out and killed all the real crew!

Yeah, I... I dunno. Silas was paranoid and kind of a witchhunter.

Anyway, Silas attacked the ship and killed a bunch of 'pirates' while the party finally got tired of covering for him and attacked Silas themselves as to avoid being thrown overboard if this mutiny didn't go Silas's way. Now facing PC's as well as a weak crew, the mutiny definitely didn't go his way, and he ended up jumping onto a dinghy and riding away. Well, before the archer took a shot and managed to hit a hole in his raft.

And that is the story of how Silas presumably drowned on the high seas

[TheCountAlucard]

With an ordinary arrow? :smallconfused:

I mean, when my gaming group's armored paranoid guy went down in a lifeboat after making the remaining crew afraid for their lives, they used a ballista to sink him, and even then they fired off like three bolts to make sure he was gonna sink.

Assuming one arrow can punch a hole in a lifeboat, it still probably isn't enough that he's guaranteed to sink; he can probably keep it baled out more or less indefinitely as long as he stays on top of it.

[Gnomish Wanderer]

With an ordinary arrow? :smallconfused:

I mean, when my gaming group's armored paranoid guy went down in a lifeboat after making the remaining crew afraid for their lives, they used a ballista to sink him, and even then they fired off like three bolts to make sure he was gonna sink.

Assuming one arrow can punch a hole in a lifeboat, it still probably isn't enough that he's guaranteed to sink; he can probably keep it baled out more or less indefinitely as long as he stays on top of it.

Magic arrow, and yes, the point was that they were several weeks from land and he had no food or water, so he'd probably faint from dehydration, his boat would sink, and ironically he would drown.

The longterm plan was for him to reappear as a new NPC villain, having been picked up by a ship and found out the proof of the party's 'evil', trained up a few levels, and brought back with terrifying results. Unfortunately, the campaign ended a few sessions after Silas's escape, so he presumably died on the high seas.

[Lord Torath]

Here lies Railee, Halfling Thief, victim of cowardly companions, a Hold Person spell, and a Gargoyle.

The big-bad fighter/thief with the Gauntlets of Ogre Power, Girdle of Giant Strength, and the Hammer of Thunderbolts went through the door first, with red-headed Railee right behind him. The other two fighters, the Ranger/Cleric, and the Cleric/Mage stayed back. The evil cleric in the room cast Hold Person on the fighter/thief, and then tried (futilely) to wrest the hammer from his grasp. Railee threw her Dagger of Throwing, dropping one of two ogres to 2 hp, and lost the other ogre in the dark hallway behind the room. She bravely re-entered the room, back-stabbed the cleric, and finally fell to the claws of a gargoyle, after severely wounding it with her Longtooth dagger. The gargoyle dragged her from the room, and she was never seen again. The rest of the party finally managed to finish off the the cleric and ogre, but felt no inclination to track down the gargoyle and rescue Railee, despite having a Ring of Regeneration that could have brought her back to life. :smallannoyed:

[King of Casuals]

Here lies Viktor the drunk pirate, victim of evil robot death lasers.

[woodlandkammao]

Here lies Gavin Bells, World of Darkness Private Investigator, victim of the magical explosion upon backhanding the BBEG demon in the face with a holy symbol scribbled in whiteboard marker on his wrist.

[RogueishScholar]

Here lies Merida Manystep, victim of the DM abandoning his campaign and me stepping in as DM. She would've been the best halfing thief this side of the Sword Coast by now...

[King of Casuals]

Here lies Jeremy Hawkster, victim of the DM giving up on the game. He was my character in One Piece D20 and was pretty much the coolest motherf***er in the world. He wielded a chainsword and i got super lucky by rolling the "Time-Time Fruit", giving me the ability to control time. It wouldve been a great character, but the DM was new and decided to quit after a few sessions

[JetpackJimmy]

Essentially, Vendetta was a DC character in the Marvel universe using the Marvel Heroic rules. She was a murdering, antiestablishmentarian soldier with a stolen suit of battle armor, greed up the ass, and enough firearms to compare to the Punisher. And then the universe switch happened, and Tony Stark (Circa Civil War) captured her. It was going to be amazing. Then the DM, our science teacher, left to teach at another school and Vendetta would be recycled a year later.

Braven was meant to be a fun, likable swashbuckling elf, and because I'm pretty big on representation, they were agender and asexual. They quickly turned CG-in-name-only, improvising firebombs, torturing, and at one point, burning down the entire quest hub. This happened after they set the forest on fire so that the goblins in the cave would starve, and blocked off the cave using the bombs, totally wrecking the dungeon crawl. I'm told that the only reasons I could get away with it were that I was very good at roleplaying and that it was a prepublished module. The campaign ended early, and it was universally declared that Braven, post campaign, became a cruel and violent dictator before being sent to Ravenloft to suffer eternal torture.

Elizabeth Eisenhart and Dorothy Cho were significant NPCs in my Dresden Files campaign. Elizabeth was essentially Vendetta, sans powersuit, as a Warden. She was horrifically corrupt and evil, and basically turned John Jay college into her own little hellhole. Dorothy was the (as forced by one of the players during city creation) adopted daughter of the White Court Business ******* PC, and she was a budding pyromancer with a bodycount and a penchant for self-loathing. Also WoW. I had E.E. call up WCBAPC and his buddies, asking for Dorothy in exchange for not killing them. By the way, these players, a were-owl, a full blown wizard, and a WCBAPC, were not skilled enough to deal with one warden and her charge. Her charge basically wanted Dorothy for revenge. Naturally, I didn't expect them to actually drug her, kidnap her, and try to trade her over. Suddenly, bam. Eisenhart's abused adopted daughter shoots her and the charge dead. They then put the unconscious Dorothy and the corpse of Elizabeth into an industrial furnace, and sat back while they burned a child alive. I tried to bring her back in a sequel campaign, but the WCBAPC player kept reminding me that he apparently saw the body.

That one charge, as described previously, was Gaku Hayakawa. A Japanese supremacist raised from birth by bigots, he lived in Koreatown due to his parent's plans to assert Japanese control over the area. Naturally, the kid and his parents left Japan because they disavowed anything past 1945. He was enough of a schoolyard bully and racist prick that Dorothy came to his fancy-ass house and burned the place to the ground, scarring his throat and rendering him mute. Clearly, his next action was to pick up a half-melted wakizashi from one of the broken display cases in the rubble, mug some college kids for money and a laptop to speak with, and sign up with Eisenhart (Because not all white people are bad, he met a lot of neo-Nazis in his life). He sees her, and her total willingness to let him murder for various slights and false justifications, and he signs right up to follow her. The Summer Court sees this easily-brainwashed kid, and decides to fight Winter influence in Manhattan by engineering him as the Summer Knight, and handing him essentially a weaker Summer Court version of one of the Swords of the Cross. And then he got a bullet to the head. He was going to come back as a ghost possessing someone, a lot smarter, but it never panned out.

This one's pretty simple. It's a long story, but suffice to say via some very good roleplaying and one (fizzled) 0th level spell, I totally wrecked a crappy campaign, without doing anything evil.

[JAL_1138]

Here lies Thief Whose Name I Don't Remember, drowned.

Here lies Thief Whose Name I Don't Remember, victim of sahuagin.

Here lies Bard Whose Name I Don't Remember, victim of Ixitschacan'tpronounceitbutthey'reevilmantarays.

Here lies Glenn the Bard, victim of a morkorth.

Here lies Fighter Whose Name I Don't Remember, victim of kuo-toa (and drowning).

Here lies Wizard Whose Name I Don't Remember, victim of a water elemental.

Here lies Barlow the Thief, victim of a Death Minnow.

Here lies Perrin the Cleric, victim of a sea hag.

Here lies Sir Vaughan the Paladin, victim of a giant-squid-induced shipwreck. And the squid itself, of course.

[Steampunkette]

Here lies Sharna Dakkar, Minotaur Barbarian, victim of a Bozak.

In my first ever game of 2e AD&D the GM was running a Dragonlance game set in the Autumn era. While Tanis and his folks went off on their quest, ours was just as important (though would end in obscurity). However, late in the 8th session I wound up making the Noble Sacrifice moment for the team. I used my body to block a doorway that had been kicked down while the rest of the party made their escape. I managed 2 turns before Sharna collapsed under that Bronze Draconian bastard and his minions!

Here lies Bianca Siranov, Vampiric Necromancer and daughter of Lirobia the Mother of Corpses, victim of DM Ennui.

5e game which collapsed under it's own weight. I'd been using the Fiend Warlock with Pact of the Tome reflavored into Necromancy for a very different style of necromantic awesomeness. The campaign's core conceit was that people were being turned into Monsters by a group of Demigods called the Night Mothers. My character got Vamped. Which was, essentially, a Half-Elf with some Fluff and unfortunate eating habits. The gameplay all occurred at night.

Here lies Salanthus Marco, Finely Aged Human Wizard, victim of his own Machinations.

Back in 2e, Salanthus Marco was my most successful evil character. He had a serious rivalry going with other members of the party, but it was never violent or angry. They just knew that he was only helping them because it would help himself. My most horrific moment with him involved another PC who had fallen for his looks, even though he was older than her. He went away from the group to "Think" and she visited him during the night's camping. She asked what he was thinking and he explained how he was going to kill her and make it look like the nearby Gnolls (A neutral group in relation to the party through plot) committed the murder. And then he cast Hold Person, pulled out an axe that had been taken from the Gnolls before they were neutral and hacked into her to kill her. Then used Mage Hands to hurt himself with the axe. And dropped a couple of Gnoll Corpses he'd saved (From previous fights with Gentle Repose) on the ground. He limped back to the group, told them the Gnolls had killed her, and the group went off to go fight the Gnolls.

He did it because he was Lawful Evil and wanted to protect the trade route the Gnolls were raiding. He knew that only a "Broken Treaty" would get the party to kill them, so he supplied the impetus.

MUCH later the rest of the group found out in-character, including the new PC who had joined the party just after the murder (Same player, new character). I loved it when they turned on him. All the magic in the world couldn't have saved him from the just vengeance they exacted for all the lies and schemes and manipulations. All in the name of "The Good of the Realm"

[Bard1cKnowledge]

Here lies Thief Whose Name I Don't Remember, drowned.

Here lies Thief Whose Name I Don't Remember, victim of sahuagin.

Here lies Bard Whose Name I Don't Remember, victim of Ixitschacan'tpronounceitbutthey'reevilmantarays.

Here lies Glenn the Bard, victim of a morkorth.

Here lies Fighter Whose Name I Don't Remember, victim of kuo-toa (and drowning).

Here lies Wizard Whose Name I Don't Remember, victim of a water elemental.

Here lies Barlow the Thief, victim of a Death Minnow.

Here lies Perrin the Cleric, victim of a sea hag.

Here lies Sir Vaughan the Paladin, victim of a giant-squid-induced shipwreck. And the squid itself, of course.

Uh, was the fighter dragged into the water and attacked by quippers?

Here lies a level 1 fighter from the game I ran last night whose name I did not catch,
Victim of two magic missiles and a group of of troglodytes bottlenecking the party in a small hallway

[JAL_1138]

Uh, was the fighter dragged into the water and attacked by quippers?

Nope! That was back in 2e.

But I know which 5e Adventurer's League adventure you're referencing. My valor bard lived through that, and so did the rest of the party, but we only avoided deaths by every caster in the party blowing ALL of our spell slots on healing, partly due to the encounters in the tunnels and the immediately preceding area as well.

[Bard1cKnowledge]

Nope! That was back in 2e.

But I know which 5e Adventurer's League adventure you're referencing. My valor bard lived through that, and so did the rest of the party, but we only avoided deaths by every caster in the party blowing ALL of our spell slots on healing, partly due to the encounters in the tunnels and the immediately preceding area as well.

He he, both fighters got smashed by trogs in the tunnels, the paladin and cleric wasted spells and healing before the water weird, it was fun playing DM in a 5e adventure

[TheCountAlucard]

-snip-One more graduate of the NetHack School of Adventuring. :smallamused:

(My recent playthroughs of NetHack, I named the various wizards I played Croesus. The Dungeons of Doom may be littered with their tombstones, but at least I didn't forget their names. :smallwink:

[Socksy]

Here lies Collus, Hobgoblin Cleric, Victim of a Sky Kraken and a long fall.

He survived with -9 hit points, and the rest of the party decided to look for treasure, leaving his near-dead body alone on a piece of driftwood in the middle of the ocean (they had no way to heal him).

[Raezeman]

Here lies Kethro, raptoran stormcaster, victim of war.

Together with his companions, he found out about Orcish plans of war against a large human population. Not only did they warn the humans, but they also decided to fight against the orcs in the frontline of the battlefield. The warning allowed the humans to build a massive defensive wall around their homeland to fight off the invasion. Kethro and his friends fought off a number of attacks on this wall, but not all of them. An enemy archer breached the wall using his metal enforced dire bear and consequently pierced kethro's magical defenses with multiple arrows. The young raptoran fell and bled to death on the battlefield.
Kethro met his companions on his walk of the four winds. While he has 3 brothers of the same age that all left on their journey the same day, they all decided to go a different direction so that they all had many stories to tell when they got back home. Over time, all three brothers returned back home, all three hoping that the reason why Kethro still hasn't returned is not the reason they fear.

[JAL_1138]

One more graduate of the NetHack School of Adventuring. :smallamused:

(My recent playthroughs of NetHack, I named the various wizards I played Croesus. The Dungeons of Doom may be littered with their tombstones, but at least I didn't forget their names. :smallwink:

That's not even close to all of them...of course, there are a lot of multiple entries under the same monster type, but I'm pretty sure I've died to every single aquatic monster in the Compendium at least once, and to most of the land-based ones too.

I had a rotating stable of names that I'd just tack a number onto for a while, but ten+ years later I can't remember which went with which character or what number they were. "Gavin" had the most entries, I think, got up to thirty before it got banned.

[DigoDragon]

Here lies Phoenix Blaze, victim of the running team driving a Pinto through their target's front door.

The job was to kidnap an 8-year old girl from her home in the middle of the night, but said girl was under guard by a group of seasoned mercs. Phoenix (the team mage) devised a few illusions that would distract the mercs in the living room so that the runner team could sneak in the back door and grab the target.

And then the technomancer asked why they couldn't just drive a car into the front door because all the mercs spent most of their time there. And this idea was sooooo dumb that everyone else decided to go with it (except Phoenix). And somehow, by the grace of the GM and several streetwise rolls, the team found a working Pinto for this trick. And if that wasn't explosive enough on it's own as a poor choice of vehicle, the team filled it jugs of volatile chemicals and wired a remote driving control rig to it, with a trigger for their homemade chemical bomb. And we all stood by the back door waiting for the car to do it's job.

What happened next was not a mystery (https://33.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m60zroljau1qzuy7bo1_500.gif).

[Erth16]

Here lies Westley, who when asking what a particular stone was, he was told "That is the rock of death, all who touch it die," he assumed it was sarcasm, picked up the stone, and died.

[Reltzik]

Here lies Suul, victim of No One In The Damn Party Being Able To Make A Save.

[Inevitability]

Here lies Gorlof Steelbender, victim of a combination of eldritch blasts, a magic battleaxe, and DM fiat.

[Jormengand]

Here lies Valmkell Ulfsark, victim of Swain Swainsson and himself (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/conditions#TOC-Confused).

[PlatinumVixen]

Here lies Blanche Throckbreast, Lawful Evil Future Queen Of The Harpies (she had some lofty goals), victim of a second but connected party being really unhappy with their build choices and the way the DM split the group into Party A and Party B, resulting in going from one week being really excited about what might happen next to the game abruptly being canned the next week because the DM could no longer handle Party B's bickering.

At least she got to rescue a lizard king from some fungi?

[Jormengand]

Incidentally, this needs to be a Cards Against Humanity card. :smalltongue:

[Gamgee]

I've never died as a PC. I've been made a fool like anyone, but at the end of the day never died. Anything to avoid the big black fires below to paraphrase Xykon.

Now I could list some of my favorite times my players kicked the bucket but that seems like another topic.

[JAL_1138]

I've never died as a PC. I've been made a fool like anyone, but at the end of the day never died. Anything to avoid the big black fires below to paraphrase Xykon.

Now I could list some of my favorite times my players kicked the bucket but that seems like another topic.

Never played a first-level wizard in AD&D (1e or 2e), I take it. :smalltongue:

[Bard1cKnowledge]

I just post things I kill too, the baddies need to be remembered as well.

Here lies an ambush of ninjas, victim of a German cyborg and a teenager who didn't have a drivers license

[RoyVG]

I just post things I kill too, the baddies need to be remembered as well.

Here lies an ambush of ninjas, victim of a German cyborg and a teenager who didn't have a drivers license

He'll be back :smalltongue: I know he's actually Austrian but come on, close enough!

Here Lies 'Random Encounter Shark', victim of a Paladins Special Mount summoned and dropped on top of it. Paladin did not fall.

Here Lies Army of Kobold Minions, victim of pyrohydra summoned and dropped in the middle.

Here used to lie generic Large Red Dragon, victim of Bag of Holding and a Dread Necromancer who didn't want to walk anymore.

[Bard1cKnowledge]

No see, were doing the new FATE mecha vs kaiju thing, we fought ninjas because Japan and suddenly ninjas

Here lies he who must not be named due to copyright (Godzilla), victim of getting slapped with his own arm after it was sliced off

[RogueishScholar]

Here lies Shadow the rogue, victim of a young black dragon biting him in half.

Our DM got 3 crits on Shadow, and the worst part is that the player wasn't there for his PC's death. :smalltongue:

[Xallace]

Here lies Constance d'Cannith, shaper psion. Knocked unconscious by devils in the lowest pit of hell while trying to climb out of it after a random plane teleportation, fallen right onto Asmodeus' never-dying true body.

Well I guess he's not technically dead (and never will be) but it resulted in a character change, so...

[Forderz]

Here Lies Valerie, Victim of poor Rolls. She died from two oozes dissolving all her fleshy bits. I was investigating a ruined evil fortress, opened a door, and had to make a will save. I rolled a 2. An ooze attacked me, critted. Woke up. juiced my AC up to 26 and cast protection from acid. Oozes roll 19 and 20 on the OoA. Oozes roll close to max damage. Oozes roll 18 and 19 on their turn. 4 points off max damage. Try to stand up to retreat. Oozes roll 17 and 20. Die. Crunch the numbers after the session and come up with .4% chance of dying.

She is survived by Valerie the Magma Mephit. (Reincarnation!)

[PoeticDwarf]

Here lies a chaotic evil sorcerer. It wasn't my character. But his death crushed my dreams

[PoeticDwarf]

Here Lies Valerie, Victim of poor Rolls. She died from two oozes dissolving all her fleshy bits. I was investigating a ruined evil fortress, opened a door, and had to make a will save. I rolled a 2. An ooze attacked me, critted. Woke up. juiced my AC up to 26 and cast protection from acid. Oozes roll 19 and 20 on the OoA. Oozes roll close to max damage. Oozes roll 18 and 19 on their turn. 4 points off max damage. Try to stand up to retreat. Oozes roll 17 and 20. Die. Crunch the numbers after the session and come up with .4% chance of dying.

She is survived by Valerie the Magma Mephit. (Reincarnation!)

That's very sad...

RIP

[Prince Zahn]

Here lies Vamber.
Halfling Gypsy, Fire Mage, daredevil, and loveable scamp,
Who fell victim to being trapped in a setting where he did not belong.

From his very conception, Vamber was meant to take daunting, yet calculated risks in a massive dungeon crawl, or an urban campaign. I remember telling my dungeon master how much I yearned for an urban campaign, and in the beginning it was a dream come true, until Vamber's first quest came along, and within moments we were stranded in some sort of jungle or savanna, where Vamber could not cast a single spell without causing a forest fire or something. I, as Vamber's player was not ready to bear such responsibility for my spelllcasting, and as a result, his personality shut down, remaining quiet and passive for sessions at a time after casting a fire spell (which was all he had.) while the rest of the story went on involving a sort of war between tribes that we were railroaded into.
Mind you, when in combat, our OOC strategies were flawless when you don't count DM Fiat against them.
Anyway, it was towards the end of that semester, and our DM was binge-watching Spartacus for quite a while. when we finally met our great adversary, and the savage terrorist-like tribe he leads captured us, Vamber and Co. were imprisoned in a metropolis in the savanna copy pasted from Ancient Rome, all our weapons, magic items, pets and even his spellbook was taken away, and the DM gave us spears and expected Vamber—my poor, tortured Fire Mage to become a gladiator for their amusement.
his pyrophilia, his dreams of returning to the city, his magic, his money and his basic rights and freedom of both body and spirit. The DM shattered everything Vamber stood for, Yet I was not even allowed to cry IC that story night without a smack upside the head.
I left the group after that session, and the game was immediately discontinued. Later that summer, I cremated his character sheet with a lighter. It's what he would have wanted, but deep inside I regret not burning down his campaign with my fire spells and reserve feat. All that remains of him are a few quotes and an avatar... Mere vestiges of an amazing character who never happened.

[Terrorvein]

Here lies Adon, tiefling duskblade, destroyer of bridges and bearer of knowledge, victim of Ozzyrandion.

We are currently playing RHoD with the most un-OP party ever. We've got an elf swashbuckler/rogue, a dragonborn dragon shaman, a human TWF ranger, and Adon (Pelor rest his soul). Needles to say, almost every encounter is a challenge.

Adon got the bridge, Ozzy got Adon, Ozzy dropped Adon from 1000 ft, Adon fell to his death shooting Magic Missiles from a wand all the way down. It was by far the most epic and memorable death we've ever had.

[KnotKnormal]

Here lies Jedi Master Garnell, Jedi apprentice Scorra, Smugler John, Tech specialist Falstad, and Jedi hunter hammond, Victim of Droid #5 Crit string, and Party Crit fails.

He was the last STANDARD droid left and he killed us all... he got a promotion.

[Inevitability]

Here lies Lamarius Swiftbow, victim of Cat Norris.

Man, my DM had some really weird homebrews. (Paw through the skull, as I recall.)

PLEASE ask this great DM if he or she could post the statblock here. :smalleek:

[King of Casuals]

Here lies Nicha Brias, Victim of the DM ending the campaign prematurely.
Nicha was a lawful evil human sorceress with tons of bluff in a party full of neutral and good characters, though oddly she acted less evil than the rest of the party. There was this one time that the party was sent to either capture or kill this renegade wizard who was holed up in a cave. The party fought through his skeletons until we finally found him cowering at the end of the cave system, where he was nonverbally threatening to bring the cave down on our heads if we didnt back off, as he said that if the guards got him they would kill him. Even though I, the face of the party, succeeded in getting him to calm down a bit with diplomacy, our lawful neutral samurai decided that it would be a good idea to use his impressive intimidate score to scare him into coming with us *nat 20*. This scared the wizard s***less and he said "no dont kill me" but all the samurai heard was "no" and moved in for the kill, even with the cave shaking harder than a leaf in the wind, I was forced to cast charm person on our samurai to save the party.

[MrUberGr]

Here lies Laele Windrivver half elf Bard.

So yound, so pretty, so courageous. Decided to storm a Vampire's tower only with her adventurous friend...
Oh, wait. She's back. Why is she so pale? Where is her friend?

Here lies Shgub Big Brawny Barbarian, victim to a Drow hunter. His mouth smells horrid.

Shgub was a good fellow, but always pretty simple in the mind. After a Succubus knocked unconscious one party member and charmed another, he decided to run for his life, even after the succubus was holding on for dear life, after a huge gash in her back and a couple of arrows sticking out of her. He proceeded to get lost in the underground corridors. The succubus, commanded the drow to go get him, because he hurt her. Being a natural, he tracked him down quite fast, and shot him down with three arrows down a hallway. The drow had had a fiesty breakfast and a very spicy dinner. He proceeded to relieve himself in the barbarian's mouth...

Here lies the great Paladin of Tyr, (don't remember the name). May he never come across green slime again.

[goto124]

Why not play the vampire bard? In another campaign, if the premise doesn't allow vampire PCs for whatever reason [and if this is indeed the case, could I be so curious as to ask what those reasons are?]?

[MrUberGr]

I did play her, and my condition was wished away but a party member, who got two wishes from a deck of XX. :smallannoyed: The point was that she died and then came back :D

[ufo]

Here lies Jon Snow the Half-Orc Barbarian

Together with Tom Soya the Halfling Rogue and Mephisto the Elf Wizard he established the Cartographer's Guild which was intended to be a financial enterprise in the field of dungeoneering. He died promptly after gaining his second level when his compatriots were super stoned and forgot him at -7 HP inside a dungeon. They died on the way out without the party's muscle.

He will always be remembered for his ability to kill two goblins in one round over and over.

Don't do drugs, your friends/business partners will die.

[shad0wfunk]

I'm then struck by inspiration, and write a short story from Croc's point of view, going after the rest of the family. Narrows intercepts him, captures him and, in what was described to me by the DM as "The best ten pages of torture porn I've ever read", executes him. Unable to cope with the death of his sister and breaking his oath, Dr Narrows gets on a bus and leaves Gotham to rot.


That sounds like an epic finish for any tragic hero

[King of Casuals]

Here lies Meccao Bayamba the Kitsune Fighter, Sorcerer, and master trickster, victim of the campaign ending prematurely. I was one level away from being a dragon disciple too...

[Lord Gehnvaar]

Here lies Kerry (Gangrel, VtM)

Victim of fellow PC rating out the perfectly knitted plan to overthrow both the Masquerade and the Camarilla because he WASN'T PAYING ATTENTION TO THE GAME, causing the (official) death of the entire party*.

*exception of one member who had wonder of to play Gothic on his pc(the player, not the character), this character was mysteriously found unconscious in the sewers, only to be left abandoned in a park(still unconscious) and wait for the sunrise.

[FlumphPaladin]

Here lies Jubal, victim of indirect mind-control.

Jubal was a bard from one of the Stormwrack races. We had been on the trail of an Illithid plot, and were engaged in pitched combat with one plus his minions. Jubal was mind-controlled, along with his compatriot by his side. Miraculously, he saved before he could do any damage, with a mighty cry of "MY MIND IS MY OWN!!!"

...He was then promptly skewered by his compatriot's trident. With a critical hit. And max damage.

He plays his undersea mbira for Osprem now...

[halfeye]

Cor, I'm glad I only play video games. I'd have hundreds:

There must be at least two dozen in Dungen Master (at four per unfinished game, that's six unfinished games, which seems minimal). JC Dentons at least five or six, though one made it through, similarly dozens of Gordon Freemans, lieutenant Shepards, and Rentacops (what's his name?). must be easily six Gordon Freeman 2s, dozens of Jake Logans, hundreds of Wingcommander (or equivalent) John Does, Dozens of Oblivion characters, two skyrim Characters (due to changed PCs/reinstalls as well as all the restarts from savedgames after incidents).

[The Grue]

Here lies Leo Prescott, victim of gravity.

Werewolf: The Apocalypse game had us look into a chain of kinfolk murders. Eventually led us to a fellow Gaoru, whom we learned recently took to the Dance (and I don't mean he took swing lessons).

Anyway, his Stamina is pumped out the wazoo and he has a scar totem or something that gives him even more soak dice, so we're having a hard time getting any damage to stick. Eventually we chase him up to a twentieth-floor office in the Umbra and have the final confrontation. I beat him on initiative, burn a Rage point to shift and a second to take an extra action:

Grapple , carry him out the window while yelling "SOAK THIS".

Totally worth it.

[Medival Wombat]

Here lies Count Galagog, evil wizard vamipre lord (who could have killed us all solo) and one of his minions, victim of a bunch of overcomplicated players, his own spell and a sperm whale.

To protect himself from our great fire elemental (and the petrified paladin), he casted (what is the past term of to cast?) "reverse gravity". Our druid summoned a puddle of water on top of it, and -with a shared action with our warlock- an invisible sperm whale. Our own wizard dispelled the gravity field and dismissed the invisibillity.

Damage of falling objects in 3.5: 1d6 per 200pounds/3m weight of a sperm whale: several tons...

Yeah... that was awesome:smallcool:

[TheCountAlucard]

what is the past term of to cast?"Cast" can be past or present.

Also, what does invisibility have anything to do with the whale? Why would you need to dismiss it to damage the enemy?

Also also, this whole "drop a whale on them" thing gets talked to death, but even ignoring the (il-)legality of it, chances are that how you orient the whale will have drastic effects on how lethal it is; only so much of the whale's weight can push down on the wizard's space. Still likely lethal for ordinary folks, but rather less likely to splat someone who can cast Reverse Gravity.

Guess we all have different thresholds for "awesome." :smallsigh:

[King of Casuals]

"Cast" can be past or present.

Also, what does invisibility have anything to do with the whale? Why would you need to dismiss it to damage the enemy?

Also also, this whole "drop a whale on them" thing gets talked to death, but even ignoring the (il-)legality of it, chances are that how you orient the whale will have drastic effects on how lethal it is; only so much of the whale's weight can push down on the wizard's space. Still likely lethal for ordinary folks, but rather less likely to splat someone who can cast Reverse Gravity.

Guess we all have different thresholds for "awesome." :smallsigh:

Im afraid that I have to agree with the other guy, that was freaking awesome. Yes, people *talk* about dropping whales on people, but no one actually does it. In practice? awesome.

[TheCountAlucard]

Yes, people *talk* about dropping whales on people, but no one actually does it. In practice? awesome.:smallannoyed:

If no one ever did anything but talk about it, then why did players in no less than five separate games of mine try and carry it out?

Pretty much every game system I've run that has options to let player characters summon corporeal beings to aid them in fights, at least one player has hamfistedly attempted to resort to the "tactic" of "Well, let's just pick the biggest thing allowable and drop it on the bad guy's head!"

It's getting to the point of being severely annoying, to me.

[King of Casuals]

I cast Thread Resurrection!

[JohanOfKitten]

Resurrection ?
Seems like a call for one of my characters.


Here lies Liam, bobcat totem, victim of an Off-screen overdose due to some blind-drunk with pills to forget seeing his mother screwing her husband with Liam's girlfriend's sister.

Here lies Liam, bobcat totem, victim of some unnamed mafia guy (but with classy hair and a shiny very recognizable watch) who get the gun laying on the floor first.
((Actually, great death, allowing the BBEG to wake up from a cursed sleep))

Here lies Liam, bobcat totem, victim of Kathy, his vampire girlfriend who drink a bit to much during intercourse (not that he minds, by the way)

Here lies Liam, bobcat totem, victim of Lionel, Kathy's Sire, who didn't like the way Liam treated her and assumed it would be ok to beat him to death less than one day before the big final battle with the BBEG

Here lies Liam, bobcat totem, victim of his friend's daughter's thirst, because she's just turned vampire (to avoid dying after betraying her demon father) and the said friend told her to feed on Liam 'cause "he's expendable."



Well, his totem link allow him to come back from death, so lot of fun through the campaign, even if I started to feel that it became a bit trivial for the others.
"Hell ! It hurts !"

(Only 4 deaths during a 13 sessions campaign +1 in backstory ? Not so much for a low-selfpreservation impulsive selfdestructive guy ! It's like the enemy were competing to find best ways to hurt rather than kill...)

[LastCenturion]

Here lies Odranoel, victim of... I'm not quite sure.

Basically I made a halfling wizard, specializing in Abjuration, who was incredibly nihilistic. Like, when a guard asked me why I was coming into town, I said I didn't know, then proceeded to argue with him for several minutes about whether it mattered if I went into town, and overall if anything mattered. I finally went past him when he tried to chop off my head. Then I went to the mayor, and pretty much the same thing happened again, except this time I would periodically try to "defuse" him by saying I actually had a reason for seeing him (I had a letter, which I kept referring to but never actually brought out; my partner had it, and she was looking for drugs in a botanist shop. It was a strange group) and eventually I just pissed him off so bad he killed me. I don't think the DM liked me consistently trying to convince everybody around me that life was pointless.

[Spore]

Here lies Quarra, Drow Sorceress extraordinaire, victim of her own annoyed sister

I guess you shouldn't leave your body helpless in an evil campaign even after we agreed that group PvP is not a smart choice.

[EvilestWeevil]

Here lies Zook Nook the Crook Gnome Rogue, victim of the very first trap in Rappan Athuk.

[Lawleepawpz]

Here lies Kamakura, victim of oversight.
A LN lumberjack who had just learned of his samurai heritage, his soul scattered to the winds when his character sheet was lost. Known most commonly for having to roll grapple, be it against chokers or Minotaur Paladins. Truly, it lead to his death in a grapple with a zombie Minotaur in a river.

[8BitNinja]

Here lies Sir Eric, victim of the dreaded Gazebo

He was a good Paladin, maybe a fire wielding wizard will avenge him. But that note aside, it was quick and painless for him,it wasn't on a grassy knoll

[King of Casuals]

Here lies Quarra, Drow Sorceress extraordinaire, victim of her own annoyed sister

I guess you shouldn't leave your body helpless in an evil campaign even after we agreed that group PvP is not a smart choice.

Reminds me of Qara the human sorceress from Neverwinter Nights 2 who was forced to go to school at a wizard's college and was super annoying because all she would do is either burn things down or respond to everything that you say with "Don't tell me what to do!" and then burn everything down.

[dascarletm]

Here lies Rickard the battle-sorcerer planned to be a fun lil' quarterstaff gish.

As for the victim, let me tell you a poem that was said at his funeral. It summed up his entire life in the game.

What can one say about the times we shared with Rickard? Only that they were numerous and great.
There was the time he almost died to a raging dwarf.
There was the time he took a bath.
There was the time those dire wolves killed him.
The time he was used as a club by a giant.
What great times. Great, great times.


Sadly there was very poor rolls in the two encounters I ever played with him.

[8BitNinja]

Here lies Brad the Bard, victim a woman with a +5 dagger

From now on, I will detect evil on everyone at the inn

I will use that moment for learning in D&D, all female NPCs are out to kill you

[Anarchetype]

Here lies almost an entire party Victims of my own bad choices as a Dm.

So to explain a little i was a novice dm at the time and i was talked into letting one of my players have a bag that shoots out an infinte amount of ice. He decided to have a little fun with this, he pulled out his bag and opened it while the rest of his party was standing in front of a pit, he opened his bag right next to a torch causing every piece of ice to melt and he created a flood pushing the entire party into a bottomless pit causing almost all of the rouges, warriors, and rangers to die.

[Belac93]

Here lies Drubbus dogcooker, favored goblin soul of the demons, part time bard, killer of many pigs (animal companions and not, accidentally and not), victim of other party members being fed up with him.

[Dire Moose]

Here lies Anton, Cleric of Iomedae, victim of getting locked in a room with a pillar shooting a ridiculous number of arrows everywhere from the center, and being turned into a pincushion as a result.

[JAL_1138]

Here lie a few Thieves Whose Names I Don't Remember (TWNIDR) Over a Decade Later:

TWNIDR #1: green slime.
TWNIDR #2: olive slime.
TWNIDR #3: brown mold.
TWNIDR #4: the floor (trapper).
TWNIDR #5: the ceiling (lurker above).
TWNIDR #6: the wall (living wall).
TWNIDR #7: drowning (false floor, dropped down a flooded shaft & knocked unconscious).
TWNIDR #8: gelatinous cube.
TWNIDR #9: pit trap.
TWNIDR #10: spike trap.
TWNIDR #11: poison dart trap.
TWNIDR #12: poison gas/dust trap.
TWNIDR #13: the ceiling (collapsing ceiling trap).
TWNIDR #14: kobolds. Lots of kobolds.
TWNIDR #15: fireball trap.
TWNIDR #16: acid trap.
TWNIDR #17: mimic.
TWNIDR #18: a rope (hanged by a cursed animated noose).
TWNIDR #19: a rope (rope broke, fell down a cliff).
TWNIDR #20: spear trap.
TWNIDR #21: blade trap.

[8BitNinja]

Here lies Torvald the Gambler, victim of the void

I forgot to tell him that the cards he was holding as a Deck of Many Things

[the OOD]

my players bring you:



here lies Captain Logan, victim of: That One UberDaemon.
here lies Simon, victim of: That One UberDaemon.
here lies Deadeye Vash, victim of: Simon(possessed by That One UberDaemon).
here lies Khylear, victim of: Surfing an orbital nuke to the planet during orbital bombardment to "get to punching range"
here lies Bernerd "the Arson" "Coppercoins", victim of: suicide casting with warp magic
here lies Coms Redshirt #3, victim of: That One UberDaemon.
here lies Deadeye Vash, victim of : That One UberDaemon.
here lies Alphonse Elric, victim of: That One UberDaemon.
here lies Deadeye Vash, victim of: the combined battlefleets of every faction in the multiverse.
here lies Karrak(future version), victim of: a backfired assasination on his past self.

damn, that was a fun game.
Vash was one of the few characters to survive the end of the campaign. I *thought* that I had finaly killed him hard enough, but nooooo....:smalltongue:



special mention goes to the mighty dwarven battlerager(In Space!) Fistbeard Beardfist!
he made the wisdom check to accurately perceive Reality, and proceed to punch it to death. RIP.

[8BitNinja]

Here lies Dave the fighter, victim of his own sword

Critical miss and he hit a rock, sword cleaved him in half

[Gallade]

Here lies Jake the Monk, victim of: a teammate and a Dire Bear.
While bravely fighting a Dire Bear after awakening the Dragon Blood in himself, Xaltotun the evil Cleric decided that cutting his health in half was a good tradeoff for killing some Pooka armed with tiny 1d2 swords. He decided to stay and fight to allow Xaltotun time to run away. He was later restored (yet in a crippled state) by plot armor.

Here lies Xaltotun the Cleric of Urgathoa, victim of: a Dire Bear.
He thought a Dire Bear could not reach into a wagon. He was wrong. In accordance to his will, he was made into a zombie.

Here lies Ethernum the Antipaladin, victim of: Ants.
Brother of Xaltotun, he decided to kill a tribe of Pooka who was fighting off a swarm of giant ants. Once they ran away, he was the only other thing the ants could feast on. His body was disposed of as his brother's.


Moral of the story? Don't fooka with the Pooka.

[Spore]

Moral of the story? Don't fooka with the Pooka.

Fey are among the deadliest and most underrated foes.

Here lies Kyras, spooked to death by the one and only Bogeyman.

We always laugh about Phantasmal Killer. That's ridiculous the one says. It's a save or die and only 4th level. That's OP! It's not that dangerous the others say. It requires people to botch two saves. That's highly unlikely.


Here lies Kyras' dignity, killed during a casting of Reincarnate where he came back as the most charismatic goblin around.

[8BitNinja]

Here lies Sneaky Pete, victim or sewage water

He got malaria and typhoid

[eru001]

Here Lies Forester Jonathan Falkirk, victim of absurd numbers of undead, he took most of them with him

Here Lies Sven Erikson, Victim of the Black Market hit squad.

Here Lies Marcus "Aces" Scaurus, victim of DM retribution and Orbit to surface rocks.

[Halflinks]

Here lies Balthier, the idiotic bane of Dragon Cultists.

Balthier was a warlock who sacrificed his intelligence for eldritch power. Meaning that I rolled a 4 for his INT when I made him. Although he was capable of free thought and action, most of his actions were suggested by his familiar, who just so happened to be an octopus that sat on his head. His familiar was the reincarnation of a previous Warlock in our campaign who was cunning and manipulative, but died in an unfortunate Fireball-related death. Part of the original character's pact stated that if he should die, his spirit will continue to serve and aid future warlocks for eternity. Ouch.

So anyways, Balthier had an octopus who embodied the spirit of a warlock named Trayus. As Balthier had sacrificed his intelligence, Trayus often dictated what Balthier SHOULD do.

That's not always what happens.

See, Balthier still had free will. He didn't always make the best decisions; sometimes, he made terrible decisions. Sometimes though, he has shown savant like qualities. Those came in the form of murdering Dragon Cultists. Now, the other condition of Balthier's pact was to weed out any heretics worshipping false gods, AKA not his god. Idolatry, statues, religious artifacts? Destroy them. Worshipping a dragon god like Tiamat? That's no good, time to get rid of that.

So Balthier found a room filled with sleeping dragon cultists with a large statue of Tiamat right in the middle. At this point, I should mention that 3 of the other party members were exploring a different room, so Balthier was hanging with the barbarian. No way could Balthier let all this heresy slide, so he casts Hunger of Hadar centered on the statue. The blackness fills the room, and what does the barbarian do? Panics from the scary noise and shuts the door so it can't get him. The DM looks at his dice and starts doing a bit of math in his head. Without rolling, he says "They're dead. There's no possible way for them to escape, that was the only door in the room and they're trapped in magical darkness. They were all laying down so it's not possible for them to find the door before they die. They're dead." The rest of the party was kinda irked that they didn't get XP for the murders, but the barb and I were happy.

Anyways, so Balthier passed away after an unfortunate PvP incident where he started smashing religious artifacts pertaining to nature-based gods. Our LG Ancients Paladin wasn't happy, so he smashed Balthier with a smite, crit, and murdered him. DM made the Paladin fall to Oathbreaker for that, change alignment, and Balthier was no more.

RIP Balthier.

[8BitNinja]

Here lies Balthier, the idiotic bane of Dragon Cultists.

Balthier was a warlock who sacrificed his intelligence for eldritch power. Meaning that I rolled a 4 for his INT when I made him. Although he was capable of free thought and action, most of his actions were suggested by his familiar, who just so happened to be an octopus that sat on his head. His familiar was the reincarnation of a previous Warlock in our campaign who was cunning and manipulative, but died in an unfortunate Fireball-related death. Part of the original character's pact stated that if he should die, his spirit will continue to serve and aid future warlocks for eternity. Ouch.

So anyways, Balthier had an octopus who embodied the spirit of a warlock named Trayus. As Balthier had sacrificed his intelligence, Trayus often dictated what Balthier SHOULD do.

That's not always what happens.

See, Balthier still had free will. He didn't always make the best decisions; sometimes, he made terrible decisions. Sometimes though, he has shown savant like qualities. Those came in the form of murdering Dragon Cultists. Now, the other condition of Balthier's pact was to weed out any heretics worshipping false gods, AKA not his god. Idolatry, statues, religious artifacts? Destroy them. Worshipping a dragon god like Tiamat? That's no good, time to get rid of that.

So Balthier found a room filled with sleeping dragon cultists with a large statue of Tiamat right in the middle. At this point, I should mention that 3 of the other party members were exploring a different room, so Balthier was hanging with the barbarian. No way could Balthier let all this heresy slide, so he casts Hunger of Hadar centered on the statue. The blackness fills the room, and what does the barbarian do? Panics from the scary noise and shuts the door so it can't get him. The DM looks at his dice and starts doing a bit of math in his head. Without rolling, he says "They're dead. There's no possible way for them to escape, that was the only door in the room and they're trapped in magical darkness. They were all laying down so it's not possible for them to find the door before they die. They're dead." The rest of the party was kinda irked that they didn't get XP for the murders, but the barb and I were happy.

Anyways, so Balthier passed away after an unfortunate PvP incident where he started smashing religious artifacts pertaining to nature-based gods. Our LG Ancients Paladin wasn't happy, so he smashed Balthier with a smite, crit, and murdered him. DM made the Paladin fall to Oathbreaker for that, change alignment, and Balthier was no more.

RIP Balthier.

Like if you cry every time

[King of Casuals]

Here lies Balthier, the idiotic bane of Dragon Cultists.

Balthier was a warlock who sacrificed his intelligence for eldritch power. Meaning that I rolled a 4 for his INT when I made him. Although he was capable of free thought and action, most of his actions were suggested by his familiar, who just so happened to be an octopus that sat on his head. His familiar was the reincarnation of a previous Warlock in our campaign who was cunning and manipulative, but died in an unfortunate Fireball-related death. Part of the original character's pact stated that if he should die, his spirit will continue to serve and aid future warlocks for eternity. Ouch.

Reminds me of when a friend made a Trox Barbarian with 24 strength and 4 intelligence at level 3, and I made a Ratfolk Alchemist with 18 int and we did the whole "Brains and Brawn" thing together. That campaign never got off the ground though, so:
Here lies Kabi Firefang the Ratfolk Alchemist and Mog the Trox Barbarian, victims of the campaign ending prematurely. Rest in peace.

[8BitNinja]

Reminds me of when a friend made a Trox Barbarian with 24 strength and 4 intelligence at level 3, and I made a Ratfolk Alchemist with 18 int and we did the whole "Brains and Brawn" thing together. That campaign never got off the ground though, so:
Here lies Kabi Firefang the Ratfolk Alchemist and Mog the Trox Barbarian, victims of the campaign ending prematurely. Rest in peace.

It's always sad to see a campaign end prematurely

:smallfrown:

[Quertus]

Hmmm... I may try to update this with all the characters I've had that have actually died (or otherwise become decommissioned in the line of duty); for now, I'll just list those who went away to IRL concerns.

Here lies Stoned the Mineraloid, invincible* teleporting giant rock monster, victim of meh. The home-brew RPG war game ended due to the loss of players. Stoned's accomplishments include rescuing the princess, and inventing 200-ton death-from-above.

Here lies Quertus, academia mage, author, and professional speaker, victim of being too epic. Seriously, nobody I know runs games at his level these days. His accomplishments are too numerous to list, but including saving over 100 worlds from various "end of the world" scenarios, creating several new races (including an almost sane beholder variant), recovering the Valdus Crystal, the creation of many custom spells and several custom items, and the publication of numerous works on magic including "Quertus' Guide to Spells - Spells on the Planes", and "Metamagical Principles".

Here lies Vinny Hawkins, verbena cultist hollow one orphan mage, victim of storyteller losing interest. Vinnie had the same likely-to-be-censored word, proceeded by "smart" and "dumb" as his nature and demeanor. His favorite rote was "Join the Tremere Group Mind", which he cast every Devil's Night. He was part of a mixed WoD vampire/mage game, until the storyteller bailed - coincidentally, just after Vinnie simultaneously displayed his hidden acumen, and uncharacteristically went off on a group of NPCs. His accomplishments include talking to the prince while stoned out of his gourd, alienating his own organization, and trading blood for "favors".

Here lies Vinny (no relation), accomplished actor, mass murderer, devoted husband, and father of 3, victim of... people moving. Really, most would say that he had a good run, the DM brought the campaign to a satisfying conclusion, etc. I just would have loved to see him - and the rest of his party - do even more! His accomplishments include saving an entire elven nation from an evil curse, and assassinating the fool what murdered the rest of his village.

Here lies Woody "Spider" Deacon, Destroyer of Worlds, victim of several campaigns ending early. Despite his title, and his proclivities, he never seemed to ever actually accomplish anything in any of these campaigns, beyond the collection of mementos and the creation of interesting artifice.

Here lies Delock, shard of the Dark Lord of Creation, victim of misconceptions and irreconcilable differences. Apparently, murdering sentient life forms is OK, but polymorphing or threatening to torture them isn't. Also, apparently failing to contribute is a sign of being overpowered. His accomplishments... none, really. :smallfrown:

Here lies Hunter Neophotis, amnesiac scion of Artemis, victim of players bailing. Hunter only knows that his old team is all dead, and is trying to make up for past failings.

Here lies Khan v1, cleric of magic and trickery, victim of DM bailing. Known for his undead dragon mount that would fall out of the sky whenever it breathed due to partial actions, his nigh-invincibility, and his exclusive use of the slowest possible healing spells. I enjoyed the character so much, I created 3 further incarnations, in addition to the "real" Khan Ravensblood. His accomplishments include animating a number of corpses for the "undead slave trade", and partnering with a Neogi.

Here lies Simon, Shadowrun combat mage, victim of GM deciding he had taken on more than he could chew. Simon loved pretending he was some big, tough warrior, but really wasn't very good at it. His accomplishments include subduing and confusing an entire convoy.

Here lies Mist, the servant of Epigenic, victim of a short-lived, irregularly-scheduled game. A confused and misunderstood alien entity, most believed that he was an invisible, intangible, shape-changing psychic force. His accomplishments include... never succeeding on a combat-oriented roll. :smallfrown:

Here lies Hey, you, magically-enhanced humanoid-shaped collection of unstable molecules, designated self-aware power duplication infiltration and assessment prototype, victim of premature campaign termination. His accomplishments include the cataloging of numerous species of supernatural beings.

Here lies a mass grave of characters whose names I do not even remember, victim of campaigns that never got off the ground.

*Stoned the Mineraloid was just really tough to hurt. Sadly, I knew he was nowhere near invincible, as his predecessor was also a giant hunk of rock, that had been smashed to pieces far too easily due to some very unfortunate rolls.

Here lies the mass grave of characters whose names I do not remember, lost to the meat grinder that was older versions of D&D.

[JAL_1138]

Here lies the mass grave of characters whose names I do not remember, lost to the meat grinder that was older versions of D&D.

It really was, at low levels, especially if not using the optional rules for negative HP. It could easily be kind of like just rolling up a ream of paper's worth of character sheets and throwing them all into a woodchipper.

Want to play a wizard at first level? Enjoy your 1d4 HP that you rolled for, your Con bonus that capped low if you even got one since they started at a higher score than they do now, your terrible THAC0, inability to wear armor (10 AC), your one spell (and no cantrips but the first-level spell called "Cantrip," in 2e) per day, and your long casting times which could be disrupted by any hit during casting (causing the spell to fizzle and you to lose the slot). If you have no Con bonus to HP, you have a reasonable chance (1/8th--25% chance of rolling a 1 for HP, 50% chance of a hit if attacked) of getting one-shotted by an ordinary squirrel.

[Keltest]

It really was, at low levels, especially if not using the optional rules for negative HP. It could easily be kind of like just rolling up a ream of paper's worth of character sheets and throwing them all into a woodchipper.

Want to play a wizard at first level? Enjoy your 1d4 HP that you rolled for, your Con bonus that capped low if you even got one since they started at a higher score than they do now, your terrible THAC0, inability to wear armor (10 AC), your one spell (and no cantrips but the first-level spell called "Cantrip," in 2e) per day, and your long casting times which could be disrupted by any hit during casting (causing the spell to fizzle and you to lose the slot). If you have no Con bonus to HP, you have a reasonable chance (1/8th--25% chance of rolling a 1 for HP, 50% chance of a hit if attacked) of getting one-shotted by an ordinary squirrel.

We had a wizard player who rolled a 1 for HP. We liked to joke that if he sneezed too hard or tripped he would die. Somehow, he managed to survive til like level 8, at which point his player moved, and he was taken over be someone else, who promptly cast Lightning Bolt at something with magic reflection.

RIP Xandar Firewave.

[JAL_1138]

We had a wizard player who rolled a 1 for HP. We liked to joke that if he sneezed too hard or tripped he would die. Somehow, he managed to survive til like level 8, at which point his player moved, and he was taken over be someone else, who promptly cast Lightning Bolt at something with magic reflection.

RIP Xandar Firewave.

That's just tragic. To make it that long and then get fried by his own spell...

A toast to the fallen, to the charmed soul whose luck ran out. Requiescat in pace.

[Draconium]

Here lies Scythar, victim of becoming too powerful for his own good.

A Red Dragon (and later Barbarian/Bloodscaled Fury) born into a world dominated by his kind, he was one of the first to figure out what had happened when his world merged with two others. Joining forces with a War Troll named Corgalex (who would later become a Wizard as well) and a Gnome Bard named Ellywick, they set out to determine what had caused this convergence.

Before long, they stumbled across a prophecy of a group of heroes destined to either return the worlds to normal, or unite all the worlds as one. While Ellywick kept most of the specifics to herself, Scythar and Corgalex decided then to unite the "monstrous" races and fight for their equality in this new world. Each of them managed to gather up enough followers (Scythar's were primarily Kobolds, Drakes, and other reptilians) to form one large army, and, naming Ellywick their queen, they began their crusade.

Before long, they had taken over enough cities to have an official kingdom of their own. With Ellywick on the throne, the other two began to slow down their expansion of the kingdom in order to secure their power. Over the course of the next few sessions, the three of them (along with a few others) had quite a series of misadventures, including one that ended with Scythar adopting three Red Wyrmlings as his own.

Unfortunately, Scythar had begun outstripping the others in power, which caused him to be played less and less until I was no longer able to control him. He technically never died, though, so I plan to one day immortalized him as an NPC in future games.



... I love monstrous games. :smallbiggrin:

[8BitNinja]

We had a wizard player who rolled a 1 for HP. We liked to joke that if he sneezed too hard or tripped he would die. Somehow, he managed to survive til like level 8, at which point his player moved, and he was taken over be someone else, who promptly cast Lightning Bolt at something with magic reflection.

RIP Xandar Firewave.

That fighter, paladin, or barbarian had their hands full protecting that guy

[Keltest]

That fighter, paladin, or barbarian had their hands full protecting that guy

That would be me, the paladin. I think I mourned him up thread, even though he is currently alive.

I die in interesting and fantastic ways.

[8BitNinja]

That would be me, the paladin. I think I mourned him up thread, even though he is currently alive.

I die in interesting and fantastic ways.

As one who doesn't really like to play casters and enjoy playing a tanky character, I'm always the one that's a meat shield for the wizard

[Fayd]

Here lies Jin, victim of sleep deprivation and a lack of spatial awareness. Also a giant mass of motile vines, but mostly the aforementioned sleep deprivation and lack of spatial awareness.

Here lies Carl, victim of an at-will disintegrate from a custom devil the DM built to destroy the party.

[Quertus]

You know, fighters can roll 1s for hp, too. Happened far less often than it statistically should have, IME, but one in ten fighters with con of 14- (more if you count those with a con penalty) should have had only 1 hp at 1st level.

[JAL_1138]

You know, fighters can roll 1s for hp, too. Happened far less often than it statistically should have, IME, but one in ten fighters with con of 14- (more if you count those with a con penalty) should have had only 1 hp at 1st level.

Even with 1HP, the Fighter is still likely to live longer. Use missile weapons with a high RoF and rely on decent THAC0 to kill enemies before they get close, and fall back on armor to reduce hit chance.

But you're right--by my admittedly-spotty memory, either fewer Fighters rolled 1s than statistically probable, as if the dice knew a meat-shield needed more than that (which, as superstitious as I am about dice, is not entirely implausible to me, even if the logical side of my brain protests)...or perhaps behind the scenes they got quietly discarded/innkeeper'd/whatever out of having to be played (or were hidden from the DM and given believably-low but playable HP instead), while the 1HP wizards didn't.

[Erth16]

Here lies Ronnie, victim of being murdered by the girl he thought he seduced, with his own whip even.

Here lies everyone but Ronnie's killer, victim of being executed after failing to find Ronnie's killer because the lead detective couldn't accept that her girlfriend would cheat on her to kill Ronnie.

[8BitNinja]

Here lies Greg the Cleric, victim of being stabbed 37 times in the chest

He was really bad at combat

[AtlasSniperman]

Here lies Gelkar the Half-Orc Cleric, Victim of his allies forgetting that his weapon(lying 10 ft away) could heal him.

[8BitNinja]

Here lies Gary the Bard, who swam in sewer water

nuff said

[King of Casuals]

Here lies Gary the Bard, who swam in sewer water

nuff said

Sounds like Gary was "full of sh*t!". Ba dum tish.

[8BitNinja]

Sounds like Gary was "full of sh*t!". Ba dum tish.

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