Eladrin Death

[SparqMan]

Last week, our Eladrin bard died valorously after taking her over her bloodied value in damage past zero. The player seemed to accept the potential that her character may be dead, which is a good sign of maturity for this player.

Then I accidentally asked her to roll for death save when it came time.

Player: But my she is dead.
GM: (Pause, realizing my mistake and an opportunity) Well some things are worse than death for creatures of the Feywild.
Player: Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?

So the battle concludes, the heroes return to town with the body and manage to get a Gentle Repose cast on her.

Now I'm wondering what should happen next. What's worse than death for creatures of the Feywild? What happens to Eladrin that is so terrifying? I'm fine if she gets resurrected here with a small hint of something to come later.

Any ideas?

 

[RangerWickett]

Are you familiar with changelings (the classical faerie concept, not the Eberron race)? Maybe the eladrin 'miraculously recovers,' but it's not the same person. It's a changeling who pulled the eladrin's body into the feywild, and then took his place.

 

[dangerous jack]

Continuing along RangerWickett's thoughts, if the Eladrin Bard does get raised, have them change something about their character. IMC (although it hasn't happened yet), death changes everyone and they can choose from:
* adding/changing a multiclass feat
* for dragonborn, changing breath weapon damage type
* for arcane, changing an encounter or daily power to something with a different damage type
* for divine, adding/changing a domain power (e.g. emphasizing a different facet of your god)
* swapping primary/secondary ability scores

Then to add a bit of mystery, one option is to secretly add a rider when they first use a new power such as an encounter power that recharges and attacks again on the next round as a free action, but the character is dazed to compensate.

 

[SparqMan]

Those are interesting ideas, but I've already used the "different upon return" trick once in the campaign.

One major arc in the campaign is similar to the POL Orcus-wants-TRQ's-biz, that will eventually lead to E1-E3. Any ideas around hinting at a preview of difficulty reaching the spirit to bring it back? Maybe she's trapped in some sort of nether?

I'd thought about a Nightmare realm as a counterpart for the Feywild...but don't have any ideas on what that would manifest as.

Further thoughts?

 

[Zinovia]

Perhaps when fey creatures die outside of the Feywild their souls can become lost and unable to find their way back to await rebirth.

Perhaps at the moment of death they are assimilated into the Wild Hunt, either as a rider or a hound depending on if / how well they resist its call. The wild hunt could consist entirely of the spirits of dead eladrin who died in anger and seek revenge against their murderers. The more noble in spirit can reject this fate as unworthy.

Perhaps Orcus has found some means of identifying souls that are destined to interfere with his plans, and at the moment of death he pulls them away from the Raven Queen and hides them. A quest through a dream world or a representation of their fallen comrade's soul would have to be undertaken by the party (including the dead character if desired) in order to help her escape the clutches of Orcus. Even if she succeeds and is raised, she will be forever affected by the experience, and Orcus will have marked her as an enemy.

 

[aco175]

I like this idea of Orcus taking the souls of the newly dead in a struggle against the Raven Queen. It provides some foreshadow of things to come and may provide a cool sidetrek for the party to go on to get the soul back. And now Orcus gets derailed by the party and has a bone to pick with them later on. It could be that right now he is taking feywild sould to not be noticed by the Raven Queen.

The player could play a npc/companion character, a new character for this one quest, (a good way to try a new class out) or even his character that is missing his soul but still functions more or less normal. He gets raised and then finds out about not having a soul.

I would recomend having this be a side trek event, one night maybe two nights of gaming, since it is only focused on one character and after too many encounters they go up another level and how how much time do you want to spend on side treks. Minor quest; another NPC, who happens to have knowledge of this plot and can steer the party in the right direction, is looking for the soul of his XXX, or his XXX is involed in the dark arts and wants XXX rescued from them.

I'm picturing a giant glowing crystal with souls swirling around inside. Breaking the crystal released the sould to go to the Raven Queen and to the raised body at the same time.

 

[TarionzCousin]

In my campaign, we have had an elf, two half-elves, a drow elf, a dwarf-elf (dwarf raised by elves--he worships the elven goddess), and an eladrin.

The PC's call the eladrin "dream elf." Everything is different for the dream elf.

Dream elves don't meditate/trance; they "ascend."

Dream elves don't eliminate waste; they "sparkle," and the scent of a field of wildflowers surrounds them.

When dream elves are on guard duty, they dance the entire time.

So what's worse than death for an eladrin?

• Awakening after death as a goblin laborer in an underground silver mine;
• Being forced to eat meat (dream elves are all vegans) non-stop;
• Tied down and subjected to endless hours of dwarven "singing";
• Being reincarnated as a pig living in a garbage dump/mud sty;
• Not being able to form words; only being able to grunt.

 

[SparqMan]

Any great examples of nightmare/dreamscape adventures? I'm hoping there are more puzzle elements involved in the combat encounters than normal, as the heroes are fighting against the subconscious.

 

[Zinovia]

A dreamscape encounter is the perfect opportunity to go crazy with fantastic terrain elements, animal spirits, riddles, puzzles, and symbolism. You can get deadly if you like, since a character who dies in the dream will just wake up in the real (game) world. It gives you a tremendous amount of freedom since things don't have to make sense. You do want to have some consistency in your symbolism so the group has a basis for orienting themselves and figuring out how to achieve their goals.

So assuming Orcus has interfered with the eladrin's death, you can run a session as an adventure through the dream world to get her back. Somehow the remainder of the group gets a message from her. Perhaps they need the help of a mystic, cleric, or witch to travel to the dream world. They meet the eladrin there and find that she has been severed from her connection to her body, and she needs to locate and re-anchor the silver cord that binds body and soul. Or she needs to gather items that symbolize aspects of her past or personality. Perhaps she herself is trapped and all she can do is change the scene in minor ways to provide information or aid to the group as they fight past obstacles to save her. Whatever it is she needs to be restored, Orcus has it hidden away in some inaccessible place, guarded, or trapped.

Write some rough outlines, but be ready to wing it if the group gets creative. They are closer to the gods while there, so consider what happens if they ask for divine help. Make it fun and memorable, but use it more as a side plot that foreshadows the larger issue of Orcus. Good luck.

Edit- in your dream adventure you should absolutely have them fight a huge soul-ensnaring spider called the Dreamweaver.

 

[Arlough]

As for what would be bad that could happen to a creature of the Feywild, perhaps if the soul does not move on properly, they become creatures of the Shadowfell.

I really like the "advenure in a dreamworld to save the Bard" idea, by the way.
In the dreamworld setting, the bard's spirit could even be there, allowing the bard to continue being part of the party. But part of the bard (the soul) that links the spirit to the real world in life, and carries the spirit to the next when he/she dies, is being held. So in order for the bard to either move on or come back, the soul must be reunited with the spirit.

This gives the players a extremely heroic goal (save the bard's soul) and lets the person playing the bard choose what manner he/she goes out on. Plus, your party isn't short a leader.

If/when the bard does return to life, you could work with the player and create a Paragon Path or Epic Destiny that relates directly to the fact the bard has spent so much time with spirit separated from soul.
That is assuming, of course, the players are not already at that level and that the player in question would be interested.