- Villains that are so committed that they won’t stay dead are great!
- I ran a game where a character killed by the party dedicated her ‘life’ to destroying them.
- Fans of Critical Role are hoping that a recently-deceased villain can use her eldritch connections to come back and harry the party
- If NPCs can do cool things, PCs should be able to do them too! Thus, I should allow my players to refuse to stay dead.
- This was a hype moment for a player character in Critical Role.
- I have trouble with the Last Breath move in Dungeon World where Death offers a deal to let a character return to life. What does death want?
- More death? Everything dies eventually.
- More death faster? If so, no evil overlord would stay dead, since they tend to kill a lot of other people.
- The PC’s possessions? The PC is already going to lose everything by dying.
So here’s the synthesis of all the above. When a PC dies, it’s not Death offering deals, but several powerful spiritual forces.
- The Good-aligned god of a heroic adventurer says she’s spent enough time in the muck, chasing monsters, hands soaked in the blood of victims she couldn’t save and the villains who killed them. Come home to Paradise. Rest.
- A war-like deity knows that the dying adventurer still has work to do. Life will be offered as a loan. You may live until you complete this final mission.
- One Last Job: When you complete the mission assigned to you by your deity, the next time you make the Make Camp or Recover move, you die peacefully in your sleep. You know this is coming. Perhaps you should gather your loved ones.
- Revenge personified says, “Your hatred of those who killed you is justified, and I will empower you to carry it out!.” Not only will the adventurer die again once vengeance is achieved, but Revenge grants the adventurer several powerful and messy moves to achieve it
- Eye for an eye: When you focus your hatred on your target and injure yourself, your target receives the same injury. You may not kill yourself with this move. If your wound is healed, the target’s wound is also healed.
- No rest for the wicked: When you don’t pursue vengeance for an entire day, your sleep is disrupted with dreams of what your target did to you. You do not gain the benefits of the Make Camp move.
- Boiling hatred. A rage meter that increases powers but causes violent outbursts, etc.
- Just you and me: when you look your target in the eye and challenge her to combat, gain Hold equal to your Rage. During this combat, you may spend 1 Hold to negate one attack from a source other than your target, as your singular focus allows you to ignore everything else.
- Nothing to live for: When your target dies, you explode is a shower of boiling, acid blood. Everything within reach takes your weapon damage plus your rage. Everything within near takes damage equal to your rage. You die immediately and do not make the Last Breath move.
- The demon in charge of a plot that the adventurer may or may not be in the process of foiling could use some capable help, and offers a full lifetime, just as long as the adventurer does his best to make sure the evil plot is not disrupted.
- Asmodeus’ First Law: If you disrupt your patron’s plan or injure those carrying it out, you suffer your weapon damage.
- Asmodeus’ Second Law: If by inaction you allow your patron’s plan to be disrupted or allow those carrying out to come to harm, you suffer a debility.