Story gone wrong

[darkork]

So my players just finished a mission to kill a tyrannical pirate king and burned his body. This is all good until you consider that I had planned to resurrect him as an undead king later on in the story.
I though his body was safe since the party usually kill the monster/ person and leave the body.
Does anybody know of any way bringing him back?

[Inevitability]

Ghost seems like a pretty obvious solution.

[CaPtMalHammer]

He could be reincarnated, resurrected, could make up a spell that allows him to come back as an undead version of himself. Maybe a form of retribution magic or spell. Maybe he makes it to the other side in your realm and convinces the powers that be that he needs to return and they return him to his body and restores it. You as the DM have lots of options. Its your story overall and that allows you to be as creative as you like :) Don't let the mechanics get in the way of a strong story.

[AlexandraNelsen]

In Pathfinder at least, the True Resurrection spell doesn't need a body to work and can be cast even years after the death. I'd just do a variation on that, where either the spell goes wrong and he comes back undead, or the spell was altered and meant to do that in the first place. I totally agree with CaPtMalHammer that you shouldn't let the mechanics get in the way of a strong story!

[John Longarrow]

So my players just finished a mission to kill a tyrannical pirate king and burned his body. This is all good until you consider that I had planned to resurrect him as an undead king later on in the story.
I though his body was safe since the party usually kill the monster/ person and leave the body.
Does anybody know of any way bringing him back?

Alternative is to use an undead king who can take over now that the living pirate king has been taken care of. Its always fun when the PCs find out their actions accidentally unleashed some horror they didn't know about.

[Arbane]

You could just let him stay dead and find someone else to be the new Big Bad.

Otherwise, next time the PCs kill this guy, they're gonna make him stay dead in ways that would make Rasputin turn pale. :smallbiggrin:

[Calthropstu]

By burning him, they have spawned a radically powerful undead called an effigy. The pirate kings will fused with the fire creating a hostility that wants to burn everything. Spawned out of the fire and the burning hatred the pirate king had for these worthless rats who killed him.

PHB2 page 89

[Flickerdart]

What level is this at? Destroying the body is a very minor setback to someone who has a clone (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/clone.htm) made in advance, but it's a high level spell.

Also, bones do not burn (crematoria grind them up into dust after burning the flesh). If all your PCs did was set the corpse on fire and wander off, you still have a body to work with.

[Peelee]

Alternative is to use an undead king who can take over now that the living pirate king has been taken care of. Its always fun when the PCs find out their actions accidentally unleashed some horror they didn't know about.


By burning him, they have spawned a radically powerful undead called an effigy. The pirate kings will fused with the fire creating a hostility that wants to burn everything. Spawned out of the fire and the burning hatred the pirate king had for these worthless rats who killed him.

PHB2 page 89

Two best ideas here. Use a path that comes into play because of the actions of the party. They'll feel more invested, because their actions have consequences.

[icefractal]

I'll second Ghost. I'd be wary of "he came back anyway", even though there are legit ways for it to happen, because it could easily feel like fiat to the players.

Also, if he's a ghost, he could be a perpetually burning ghost, which sounds cool. You could use the Coldfire Radiance ability from Frostburn, but switched to fire.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Hey, unless what kills you explicitly says you don't come back, you can come back if you have peole that want you back. Even being effectively removed from reality by an unnaming is reversible. Just gotta get the right magic.

A god snuffs you out, you poke a sphere of annihilation, your soul is trapped and consumed to make a magic item, and a handful of other effects are truly permanent. Everything else just starts a countdown timer before you're staying down.

[Beneath]

Bringing him back anyway because that's what you planned and making him stronger for having been cremated is more railroady than I would advise.

Seconding the idea of bringing in something else evil that the pirate king was keeping down, or would have kept down if he came back as undead), if only by taking things the king needed, but the new thing shouldn't be a bigger threat (b/c the pirate king needs to have been able to beat him. Make the world adapt to the players rather than cheating to force your pre-planned plot.

[daremetoidareyo]

Bringing him back anyway because that's what you planned and making him stronger for having been cremated is more railroady than I would advise.

Seconding the idea of bringing in something else evil that the pirate king was keeping down, or would have kept down if he came back as undead), if only by taking things the king needed, but the new thing shouldn't be a bigger threat (b/c the pirate king needs to have been able to beat him. Make the world adapt to the players rather than cheating to force your pre-planned plot.

I agree with this, but what undead king would be stymied by a pirate? Plotwise.

Maybe some sort of monopolistic greedy cutthroat businessman who made themselves undead just to make money longer. .

[flappeercraft]

I would reccomend making him a Revenant which would fit the backstory as revenants are all about revenge against those who killed him. Although Revenants only have a 6 month lifespan as their body starts crumbling but since they are an animated Corpse I would reccomend taking an Eternal wand of Gentle repose which under some interpretations make him not crumble.

[Jack_Simth]

Bringing him back anyway because that's what you planned and making him stronger for having been cremated is more railroady than I would advise.

Seconding the idea of bringing in something else evil that the pirate king was keeping down, or would have kept down if he came back as undead), if only by taking things the king needed, but the new thing shouldn't be a bigger threat (b/c the pirate king needs to have been able to beat him. Make the world adapt to the players rather than cheating to force your pre-planned plot.
Even if the replacement is stronger, it's still viable. Consider:

A long time ago, a powerful evil was imprisoned because people couldn't figure out how to kill it (perhaps a lich when they couldn't find the phylactery, perhaps a Ghost with 15 hit dice, whatever...). The binding method used wasn't permanent, and needed to be renewed occasionally. The order that trapped the evil in the first place maintained it... however, the order has faded with time. That was mostly OK, simply because renewing the binding is a LOT easier than making it in the first place... until the pirate-king came along. The pirate-king ended the order, but learned enough in the doing to know that it was better to keep the evil canned. Being a pirate, though, he didn't trust others... and wanted a dead-man switch. And so the pirate-king has been renewing the binding once a year all this time, but not telling anyone else how, and destroying the documentation. And now the pirate-king is dead, and nobody knows how to renew the binding. Pity it was just a few weeks until the pirate-king was going to renew the seal....

[Beneath]

Even if the replacement is stronger, it's still viable. Consider:

A long time ago, a powerful evil was imprisoned because people couldn't figure out how to kill it (perhaps a lich when they couldn't find the phylactery, perhaps a Ghost with 15 hit dice, whatever...). The binding method used wasn't permanent, and needed to be renewed occasionally. The order that trapped the evil in the first place maintained it... however, the order has faded with time. That was mostly OK, simply because renewing the binding is a LOT easier than making it in the first place... until the pirate-king came along. The pirate-king ended the order, but learned enough in the doing to know that it was better to keep the evil canned. Being a pirate, though, he didn't trust others... and wanted a dead-man switch. And so the pirate-king has been renewing the binding once a year all this time, but not telling anyone else how, and destroying the documentation. And now the pirate-king is dead, and nobody knows how to renew the binding. Pity it was just a few weeks until the pirate-king was going to renew the seal....

If an element of that already existed in the GM's notes, I'd say go for it. If it didn't, then you're adding something new to the world to punish the players for killing your villain more permanently than you intended.

What I'm going by here is that not cheating your players out of a win is more important than keeping your pre-planned story arc (if the NPCs had contingency plans, that's one thing, but if the players surprise you, let them have their win unless that's a power you've established this NPC as having). If you want to add a sealed evil at this point, then seed in clues (and a reason why there are only clues to its existence now) so that even if they don't follow up on them and it gets out, there'll be a moment of "oh, that's what that was".

One of the things Dungeon World explains is that monsters (including bosses) are like arrows. If one misses the mark, that's fine, you have more. Better to let them have their victories and throw something else at them than to turn their triumphs against them.

[Jack_Simth]

If an element of that already existed in the GM's notes, I'd say go for it. If it didn't, then you're adding something new to the world to punish the players for killing your villain more permanently than you intended.

What I'm going by here is that not cheating your players out of a win is more important than keeping your pre-planned story arc (if the NPCs had contingency plans, that's one thing, but if the players surprise you, let them have their win unless that's a power you've established this NPC as having). If you want to add a sealed evil at this point, then seed in clues (and a reason why there are only clues to its existence now) so that even if they don't follow up on them and it gets out, there'll be a moment of "oh, that's what that was".

One of the things Dungeon World explains is that monsters (including bosses) are like arrows. If one misses the mark, that's fine, you have more. Better to let them have their victories and throw something else at them than to turn their triumphs against them.

Oh, there's holes, and you always need to be careful about how you handle... well, anything really... but part of the point of a DM is to present challenges to the party. The pirate-king was keeping the baddie canned because the sealed evil would be bad for the pirate king's goals. How? Maybe the new baddie uses human sacrifice to conjure demons, wants to build an army, and for whatever reason the new baddie has an easier time capturing people who are at sea - pirates and sea merchants; killing pirates doesn't help a pirate king much, while killing the sea merchants is direct competition... the pirate king didn't want either happening for obvious reasons. Maybe the new baddie has a goal of the extermination of the land dwellers, and the pirate king was longsighted enough to know that destroying the producers means no more trade on the seas, which in turn means no ships to raid. Maybe the new baddie wanted to drain the oceans to kill all sea life - which means no more ships to raid. It's a new adventure with a touchstone on the original, and some down-time while the new baddie gets loose and starts to establish a base of operations.

[Âmesang]

Ghost seems like a pretty obvious solution.
Yeah, but then he has to worry about someone spraying him with a can of root beer…

[John Longarrow]

Dead pirate king needs to be addressed in game with what SHOULD happen when the boss of the pirates gets killed.

Pirates normally have some level of organization because its required to run a ship/organization. Pirate king wasn't ruling everything by himself, he's got people who help him in many different areas. Pirate king also had to have some way of dealing with captured goods/crews/ships, so there needs to be some infrastructure that supports the entire "King" aspect.

Odds are who ever he's been dealing with would be very happy he's gone, but only if they can benefit from his demise.

So now that he's dead, who's running the show? What are they doing to put their stamp on the organization? What are they doing to deal with rivals?

This is who your next BBEG for the pirates will be. If they are actually more of a treat than the original, question then becomes "Why were they not boss earlier?". Normal answer is the old pirate king was better at being a pirate king, this new comer is doing a lot of short sighted stuff that's going to attract attention.

Now if said new pirate king used to be that nasty, undead captain of the ship that sails underwater and everyone hated, he's probably taking over because no one else could get more backing and he's promised things to buy loyalty. Without the old boss, he's taking over in a big way.

[Someguy231]

Ever heard of the Revenant? http://www.realmshelps.net/monsters/templates/revenant.shtml