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What happens to the dead if they die after they die? (lemm.ee)
submitted 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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So in my campaign a character died in a way where the body is entirely destroyed, but the players wanted to revive them anyway. The only spell that they can possibly access can fix this for them is true resurrection which is way out of range for them. The backup plan was to go find their soul and figure out a new plan from there. I'm fine with that with my understanding of what happens when you die in Forgotten Realms lore (as follows)

Step 1. You die.
Step 2. You go to the fugue plane and get judged by Kelemvor.
Step 3. Your soul is sent to whoever has a claim to it in cases of warlockery, religious beliefs or other deals.
Step 3a. In case the above doesn't apply your soul gets sent to it's alignments plane.
Step 4. You either become a native being of the plane (lesser devil, demon, planetar, etc) or are a spirit that resembles your original body.

This character was chaotic good, meaning they're in Arborea/Olympus. My players are on a crash course to getting into that plane and finding this character, but Olympus is a plane of heroes and has lots of things to fight, what happens if this character dies? Do they get rejudged and just end up where they are again? Are my assumptions wrong and I'm missing something?

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Obviously I don't know your game, your table or your players so take everything I say with a grain of salt.

Why is true resurrection out of range but plane hopping isn't? This seems like a great opportunity to have them complete a quest for some high level NPC who does have access to true resurrection, possibly with motives that run contrary to the PCs? You can have the dead PC run another character for the duration of the side quest.

If they are already half way to the plane where this character's soul is, bringing the dead PC back to the material plane would revive them as far as I was concerned. Good luck getting them back though, also if it were my table there would be consequences to reviving this way.

Just as a side note it sounds like you are looking for the "correct" answer for what would happen in the forgotten realms, always remember you are the DM, correct can be whatever you want it to be.

Best of luck from a fellow DM! Hope you have a great next session, sounds like you are really invested and your players are lucky to have you.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Why is true resurrection out of range but plane hopping isn't? This seems like a great opportunity to have them complete a quest for some high level NPC who does have access to true resurrection

There are a few reasons for this that I left out of the post because the context required would have bloated the post, the first is simply that I try to avoid high level spellcaster NPCs because players tend to see them as the solution to everything, the closest thing they have is a wizard friend who studies magic but doesn't like to use it aside from things like identify.

Secondly the deceased character is from our previous campaign, which soft-ended when that character died because around the same time one of the other players had to leave the group but we got a new player who had never played before who wanted to join, we didn't want to slap them with an 8th level character sheet though so we started a new campaign with the understanding that around 8th level the two campaigns would converge and the new players character would join the old party. The player with the dead character is fulfilling the role of character who can enable the plane shifting, giving me a convenient way to write the character out when the time comes. The other 2 players will get to choose if they want to continue as their new or old characters. (This was all discussed with the players before starting the new campaign in very big picture terms)

Thirdly, plane hopping just feels more fun to me than standard resurrection and it adds to the weight of the moment. That character died by sacrificing themself. If you've played the 5e spelljammer adventure you'd be able to guess exactly how it happened. A running gag of the previous campaign is that no matter what misfortune befell them they'd always weasel their way out of serious consequences (despite my best efforts) and this would be the ultimate no consequences moment.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Do you want this character to come back? Does it cheapen the narrative sacrifice for you?

Sorry, I haven't played the 5e spelljammer adventure, I don't really play 5e anymore. But spelljammer would make plane hopping make total sense and fit the narrative.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

It's not up to me, as the GM it's my job to interpret the players actions and ideas through the lenses of both the rules and the world.

Also we discussed it after it happened and everyone including the player who sacrificed themself wanted the plot to go forward that way.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (2 children)

If the character that was already dead, dies?

Nothing, they can't die. They're a Petitioner. They're in the afterlife. They exist in Arborea until they basically achieve Nirvana.

Going off what I recall from 2e planescape lore

Edit: I'm not so sure now, maybe petitioners can be killed. Hold up I have the box set right here

Edit edit: I'm not finding what I'm looking for from my books. But I think Petitioners can die, though I feel like they re-form on their plane until they're Done With Their Thing. The idea was that the Afterlife is a place you can visit, and the dead people there are trying to be "united" with the essence of their plane, sorta. You're NG so you go to the NG plane and there you work out your cosmic debt or what have you till you can just be a part of NG Heaven forever, and so on

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (2 children)

Any planar entity that dies on its home plane is dead-dead, unless otherwise specified in the lore of whatever you're dealing with. No returning to the fugue or their afterlife plane or anything like that unless specifically mentioned.

This applies to petitioners, deities and everything in between.

(edit: this is why the parties of the Blood War are so interested in new recruits, incidentally, and prefer to fight battles away from their home planes. every battle on their home plane creates permanent casualties)

edit2: This might apply more generally to the outer planes, I'm not sure. If a lantern archon goes through a portal from Mt Celestia to the Outlands, and then dies there, it might be permadead now. This would not apply if it was summoned by magic though.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago

Thats what I was forgetting, thanks

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Any source for this?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Not very good ones, my memory from playing Planescape decades ago. A quick googling of something like "planar death home plane planescape" should do the trick though. I am pretty certain.

Note, I am not referring to any of the recent editions, I've never really cared for WotC updates. 4.0 or 5.0 could say something completely different. They change shit all the time.

edit: Alright, I did a quick googling. Here's a discussion thread on the topic with some citations:

https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/164187/is-there-any-lore-to-suggest-that-celestials-or-fey-can-only-be-killed-on-their

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (2 children)

@[email protected] - why not make a custom ruling for this. Make it like Valhalla where the players are stuck on repeat in their plane. They fight, die, ressurect, fight, rinse, lather, repeat.

Use the Planescape rules and your own intuition to craft the scenario, not RAW. It's your world after all.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago

I'm pretty sure that's in Planescape already but yah for sure write it how you like it!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago

The backup plan is always just to make it up, but I prefer to stick to established lore with the hopes that 50 years of ironing out (or retconning) has made it internally consistent enough to get by.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 days ago

Dealing with the afterlife and the planes is really up to you. I think making this a little unclear, vague and inconsistent leads to a little mystery to the game. In my game I would follow something similar to what you had laid out above. Here is how I would run this for my campaign.

  • The players would have to find out where their soul went. This would be some adventure to find this out by petitioning Kelemvor or another method to ensure they find the correct location
  • The players find a method to travel to the plane (I would do olympus because it would have some fun fights). I would either have some quest to get a planar aligned tuning fork (if they have plane shift) or some kind of planar tunnel to get there.
  • Once there they will have to find the soul (who I would treat as a different creature for spells like scrying / divinations). I would have them continuously fighting and dying from the same fight.
  • After they defeat this boss again, I would have some RP / skill check to convince the soul to come with them because their memories would be wiped / reduced. I would have time move very differently for the part vs this player.
  • On the way back if the soul dies outside their fight arena I would have it dissolve into the essence of the plan (a.k.a. DEAD except for wish) or return back to their fight arena.

This sounds like a fun series of adventures.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 days ago

My take is, it is your game. You could say the groups desire to return the player to life has caused their soul to be stuck in limbo whole they are looking for it, or send it to where ever they are going. If you want them to succeed then breadcrumb them to it. If you do not want them to succeed turn it into something big and nasty with a vengeance for them not saving the player.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 days ago

Maybe treat them like a devil? They lose all experience gained in the previous iteration of existence and start again in their home plane.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago

A patron god creates a new body ex nihilo to enable the execution of an important mission. Maybe the death was part of a bigger plan?