Death cleric examples

[BarbarianConan]

Hey

I was wondering if anyone knows of any fictional characters from movies or TV or books that fit the death cleric

[Saintheart]

The Faceless Men from Song of Ice and Fire. Not especially the assassins, but those at the House of Black and White who grant ... services, to those who seek them.

[Pauly]

Dr Kananga and Baron Samedi from Live and Let Die
Papa Midnight* from Constantine
Maman Brigitte from Cyberpunk 2077

Basically any fictional villain derived from Haitian Voudou. Those described as being explicitly magical rather than implied or non magical and exploiting belief systems are a better fit. There are 2 particular Loas who have power over the dead who are often used as inspiration for fictional characters, but forum rules prevent me from being any more specific.

* while I know Papa Midnight’s fictional biography explicitly says he isn’t Haitian, the character, powers and personality are obviously Haitian Voudou given a makeover.

[Buufreak]

*Spoilers for a 20+ year old game.

Not from the list of media mentioned, but the entire religion of Yevon from Final Fantasy 10 seems like a death cult, where half the religious leaders are living dead, the wandering clerics exist strictly to perform funeral rites and grow in power so they can kill a friend and themselves to bring 10 years of peace, and it is all based around the teachings of an individual the society martyred thousands of years ago and act like eventually these actions can be repentance.

[MetroAlien]

Not from the list of media mentioned, but the entire religion of Yevon from Final Fantasy 10 seems like a death cult


I definitely see your point, but ihmo "death clerics" and *spoiler* are both too specific to have a significant overlap
As I understand, what OP means is "cleric with D&D death domain spells/features", i.e. debuffs, negative energy, and the necromancy-adjacent stuff you mention
On the other hand, both use "white magic" / healing, so there's that!

I guess if it was so easy to define, OP wouldn't be asking! :smallwink:

personally, I like the comparison to Voodoo, but arguably that would be represented as an arcane class in D&D.

[Pauly]

personally, I like the comparison to Voodoo, but arguably that would be represented as an arcane class in D&D.

It kind of depends on how close to Haitian Voudou or Hollywood Voodoo you are. The more easily digestible pop culture versions tend towards arcane, but yeah it’s very arguable that even the more traditional versions could be treated as an arcane class.

[MetroAlien]

if you're willing to use your imagination a bit, the grandma from Pixar's Coco could qualify as a non-evil aligned (un)dead death cleric

[Buufreak]

As I understand, what OP means is "cleric with D&D death domain spells/features", i.e. debuffs, negative energy

How are you gleaning this? Considering all he asked was "if anyone knows of any fictional characters from movies or TV or books that fit the death cleric." No mention of mechanics, features, or anything of the sort. Just a clerical figure associated with death.

[MetroAlien]

because it's specifically being asked in the RPG forum and not in the media forum

[Buufreak]

This is to imply that final fantasy games are not rpgs?

[Pauly]

if you're willing to use your imagination a bit, the grandma from Pixar's Coco could qualify as a non-evil aligned (un)dead death cleric

Beetlejuice too. Both have the dealing with the bureaucracy of death as a theme. Although the bureaucrats maybe be better death clerics than the characters the movies focus on.