You were a regular guy, and then one day your soul got separated from your body. Usually this would result in death, but somehow you managed to possess your own body before brain death fully set in. You continue to live, but sometimes your soul separates from your body, and you have to deal with the pros and cons of that. Figure out what being Dead means to you.
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| Merry GLOGmas <3 |
Skill: 1: Psychotherapist. 2: Shaman. 3: Stoner.
A: Delve Into Death
B: Deathsense, ±1 DEAD
C: Approach the Threshold, ±1 DEAD
D: Cross the Rubicon, ±1 DEAD
A: Delve Into Death
You have a stat called DEAD. This starts as either (20 - Charisma), or 3d6, depending on what stats your system of choice uses. DEAD represents the degree of separation between you and your body. In other words, it represents how dead you are.
Roll below your DEAD score to become Dead quickly, hide from unintelligent undead, pretend to be dead while not being Dead, and do other Dead things.
Roll above your DEAD score to become Alive quickly, hide from Psychopomps, and to do other Alive things.
Increase your DEAD score by 1 whenever you roll a 1 on a Dead roll, and decrease it when you roll a 20. If your DEAD ever reaches 20, you die for real. If it reaches 1, you're fully alive again, like a regular person.
You may spend a minute to switch between Alive and Dead states. You can switch faster by rolling below/above your DEAD score.
Alive:
You can walk around, carry things, eat food, and do all the regular stuff that living people can do. Requires a mostly intact body. If people stab the heck out of you while you’re dead, you’ll bleed out as soon as you’re Alive again and die for realsies.
Dead:
Your soul leaves your body, which falls down dead. Your soul can fly around at half speed and phase through walls. You can only be detected by wizard vision, and other things that can see souls. You are immune to poison, disease and fatigue. Psychopomps will show up every hour (they weren’t expecting you to die in this manner, so they weren’t ready for you). They’ll show up faster if you become Dead more than once in an hour or something.
You still die as normal when you run out of HP or fail death saves or get enough wounds or however your system’s death mechanics works.
B: Deathsense
You always know where the nearest corpse is (other than your own). You can also sense other forms of death, such as whether a place has had someone die in it recently, or if someone is dying.
If someone else dies, you can interact with their soul/Psychopomp if you are Dead/die fast enough.
C: Approach the Threshold
You can do ghost stuff while Dead. Lift small objects, make spooky noises, give people chills, fight other ghosts, etc. You can also inhabit other corpses, effectively acting as a Speak With Dead spell. Roll under DEAD for each answer you give, failing a roll means you get ejected from that corpse permanently.
When you sleep, you are Dead, and can go do ghost stuff. Gain sleep benefits as normal. Psychopomps won’t show up during this time.
D: Cross the Rubicon
Once per day, you can be Dead and Alive at the same time. Basically, pilot two characters at once, but they’re both you. This lasts for as long as you want, but Psychopomps will still show up.
When you properly die for realsies, roll under DEAD. Failure means you’re just dead. On a success, you may choose between:
-Become Dead permanently. Psychopomps are done with your shit and stop showing up. You’re a ghost who tags along with the party for as long as you don’t get bored not being able to interact in an Alive manner, or until some cleric exorcises you.
-Somehow survive due to Dead bullshit, and become an NPC somewhere, delving deeper into the true nature of death before either becoming the next Dark Lord, or a paladin strike force takes you out.
-Become a Psychopomp. Show up whenever another PC dies. Act as “Dead Family Member” from Arnold’s post.
