One of the things Iv'e noticed during my several visits to Fugue is the massive amount of detail that the DMs have inlcuded: (The tombdstone city below, the wall of faithless, etc. etc.)
I think it would be cool to have a group of characters start in that area each one having died in a means of their choice, and being able to venture beyond the wall of faithless unlike other people, (for whatever reason.) They would then be put through many DM-devised mind puzzles and Wicked battle scenes, and essentially escape the realm of the dead to the island of Ymph.
Does this seem like a good idea at all? Or have the DMs already made plans for something like this? (Just think you guys might, due to the detail of the fugue plane.)
That sounds verry interesting!
Someone once suggested this.
No Dm wanted to run it.
Not to sound too negative, but it doesn't seem to make very much sense that a group of souls would somehow manage to escape Kelemvor's realm and magically appear with their flesh intact on Ymph for some vague reason, in my opinion.
Id love this so much, but it would never, ever, ever happen.
I fear the forward is the way we must move, character wise (and thank god. I still cringe when I think of some of my characters in the past)
Speaking of which, off to roll my next one!
The idea outlined is about a prelude starting in the fugue, not about bringing an old and dead character back. I like it. How about some deity having fun and playing some tests on the dead spirits after having tricked Kelemvor somehow? The winner of the riddles and tests gets to live again - for a price. [Enter dark plot]
Yeah I didn't mean an old character starts this prelude, I mean a new one. >_<
Someone already asked about it? bummer.
I thought I'd come up with something really creative, for once. :P
Yeah I dig the idea above! It could be like Mask tricking Kelmevor, or maybe some other deity of trickery.
*bump de bump*
These people were once Nightrisers or zombies from the marching dead temple and were resurrected for some reason. It wasn’t their time to die or they are getting one more chance at life due to a constitution save or something. Maybe they are even clerics only and their god is giving them one more chance.
How about the prelude be set up that when a PC party kills X amount of Nightrisers, instead of the normal drop of bones and loot a body appears on the ground and the PC’s spirit in the Fugue now can respawn to where the body lays and role-play themselves back into the living. Who knows how long they may have been dead and how different things are now that they live again.
Could be quite interesting and not just for a faction but an exciting and different way to introduce a new PC instead of only the portal zapper.
QuoteApp only intro…
After app is approved and player of the risen is ready in the Fugue a DM takes over an NPC Nightriser that a PC is fighting someplace in the game or if the wait is to long walks the Riser into a public area to be attacked and ‘killed’. At this point instead of the normal loot drop the PC will be expecting the DM drops a body into which the player now respawns.
Can this happen?
This all seems like a big timesink to me. For one, you will never have any memory of the Fugue, so the entire experience in the plane, will not add to the PC's backstory at all. The only reason for doing this prelude at all that I can see is you want your character to have been in a situation that almost guarantees certain death, since your last memory will be the point at which you would have died. You can replicate this effect anyway by being teleported to the Ziggurat when facing a certain death situation, to the same results.
Garag lived on an island in a time long ago. His tribe was isolated on this island and knew not about good or evil, civilization or currency. They had trade but it was more or less just some of this, which I have for some of that, which you have, (think aborigines). His tribe had their simple laws, rules in which they lived by and that were more or less rules to help them live amongst the other creatures of the jungle island and survive. These laws (more like laws of nature to them) lead to a faith of life. Life and death were what they knew as absolutes, most everything else didn’t matter. They strove to live as long as they could and even became somewhat of a cult to (insert deity name here) without realizing it. Age had a part in their structure, and elders were looked upon with respect for their age. Birth also had its place in their primitive society as the start of life, which was to be nurtured, taught and protected from death. Killing of other members of the tribe was prohibited as they believed in safety in numbers and the loss of one of their tribe could mean the death of many. Killing of any other race, animal or creature was done mostly for food or in self-defense but sometimes over territorial disputes or other predators in their hunting grounds that they believed threatened the lives of the tribe.
Garag died in a hunting accident of a predator that was feeding off the herds in their territory. He was accidentally killed by a spear thrust that was meant for the beast but instead robbed him of life at an age that was considered an early death for his tribe. A special ritual was preformed for him when his body was brought back to the camp for he was not taken from life at his designated time but by the misfortunate accident of one of his own tribesmen.
Garag waited in the Fugue with a long line of spirits wishing to debate what they felt was a wrongful demise. After time he was almost content in this new existence though he did not understand most of it and time meant nothing to him here. The years passed and soon his mortal body was covered by earth and turned to bone, his tribe vanished and his people were nothing more than forgotten artifacts to the world of the living. This is when his name was called for judgment. He spoke all he knew of how he was killed and his beliefs on life and death and the next thing he knew was a he was feeling the cool fresh breeze of wind on his face…
Garag’s bones were dug up and used in necromantic ways in an unlife he remembers nothing about. He only knows he is amongst the living once more but without his tribe and without any knowledge of the people or places that now occupy the island he once called home.
Anybody think Garag would be fun to role-play[COLOR="Red"]?[/COLOR]
Garag sounds like a good concept, but to play him as he is, he does not need to be born 4000 years ago, he does not need to remain in the Fugue for 3976 years, when petitioners are either whisked away by their respective deities, or taken away by Jergal as faithless or false, usually within a week, nor does he need to return to life inexplicably from the bones of a specific type of undead creature and find himself on Ymph. There are still secluded tribes in Faerun that behave in the way you described.
My concept is just one of numerous ways Petey’s idea (or whoever thought of it first) could work. Personally I like the idea and feel as long as one has an open mind and an imagination it has lots of potential.
Agreed. To point out possible solutions to the concerns listed above:
"Not to sound too negative, but it doesn't seem to make very much sense that a group of souls would somehow manage to escape Kelemvor's realm and magically appear with their flesh intact on Ymph for some vague reason, in my opinion."
The idea would be that he who escapes fugue would start a new life in a new body. DMs could change your appearance and bio, after all. (Like that one girl on star trek, deep space nine. Jax?)
"This all seems like a big timesink to me. For one, you will never have any memory of the Fugue, so the entire experience in the plane, will not add to the PC's backstory at all."
I'm thinking that they would remember it, but only briefly, in their dreams. (Or Nightmares, depending on their experience.) It would require a half-way decent RPer, but that's what the application's for, right?
btw, what are the DMs thoughts on this? I mean, I can drop it if you think there is no chance for this.
Petey, you won't get the prelude. (Unless Wiggy wants to spite me)
Here's why: Preludes are just this, a brief skit to help explain character past, mebbe some plot, to flavor it, and loot.
More often than not, people see a DM offering you a prelude, then people go, PRELUDE, LOOTZ, FUN! Then when it's done, they log off, and never play this character again. This does not endear the DM's to running preludes.
If a DM wants to run it, they'll offer it. You don't request preludes unless you apply for it, which I've done before (DRUIDS OF FURY!).
I wouldn't be so pessimistic, Thomas! We've run lots of preludes in the past by player request. Although it is encouraging to see characters who emerge from our preludes to become successful characters, this isn't necessarily a bar from us doing them outright.
It's perfectly fine to request a prelude without an application, and it's also fine to apply for a prelude. However, we can never guarantee a prelude unless a DM takes interest in it, and is willing to spend the few hours to toolset and execute it. (For instance, the last prelude I ran took six hours to construct! It's a lot of work, so it really is appreciated when people stick with their characters.)
So, if a DM takes interest in this, no problems! However, I personally think this is a bit farfetch'd. Cool in theory, but escaping death is like committing heresy. If the characters escaped to life, the divine forces would probably send down celestial avengers and scary lightning bolts to drag you back to the afterlife. But hey, as I said, if a DM takes interest in it, go for it!
thanks for your thoughts Sternhund. I don't know a lot about the forgotten realms setting, having grown up with D&D under a very different campaign.
But, just a question of curiosity, if a deity did help one dead escape the realm of fugue, (as I said, Mask supposedly works in mysterious ways, so I hear.)
Would he not perhaps be "protected" or perhaps, "hidden" from the eyes of the other gods?
I think it would be really cool if there were angels and things dropping down to Ymph to hunt down the fortunate/unfortunate few, however.
Maybe Mask, or some other deity, would! However, I'll leave that up to whoever runs the prelude. (Sternhund is busy. :( )
roighto, thanks sternhund.
Hmm..you could allways require at least 1 player to make a rogue, and have Mask approach him with a deal, that the rogue must steal an artifact from Kelemvor's bone castle from where he judges the dead. If he succeede's Mask will grant him and those that follow another chance at life, little known to the rogue and his companions, it will be to the living hell of Ymph if they do take the artifact. This would allow the dm to make the charactors say lvl 6 for the start, and should they succede, when the are reborn from the realm of the dead, have Kelemvor punish them by stripping them of all thier power, and perhaps the rogue marked to be slain by any follower of Kelemvor. Whole point of lvl 6 or such is to give the dm room to play with for creature selection.
This would require all new charactors though for this prelude, no old dead charactors. Interesting part of the rp would be mask taking a small part of his shadow self and equipping the dead with shadow items that will only last as long as they are in the realm of the dead and they are not hit by any spells that reproduce the effects of sunlight.
There might be one item per person that survives the move from death to life by absorbing all the shadow essence from the other items. Dms choice. Make it cursed though to represent masks grip on them and some item thats actualy visible, like helm or cloak or armor so others see it and perhaps avoid them. Or have it if its a ring or such represented in the charactors bio.
Very interesting... *takes some notes for later PnP games*... Right. I do believe it would indeed be awesome to have this, of course you'd need a DM willing to do it. First, it would probably be Mask who brought the character back to life, but Cyric might work as well, as he hates Kelemvor. But I thought of something:
Highly RP oriented, likelly little or no combat:
Mask disguises himself as Mystra, and asks the character(s) to determine if Kelemvor still loves Mystra. Why would Mask do this? Well, because Cyric has Intrigue in his portfolio, which Mask wants, and during Cyric's trial, he was accused of innocence due to insanity, and failing to spread strife (which was then part of his portfolio) throughout Toril to anyone beyond his faith. He offered the evidence that he had indeed spread strife, that he had actually destroyed the love between two gods, Kelemvor and Mystra. If evidence is found that Kelemvor still loves Mystra, then Cyric is still innocent, and hence should have been punished for failing to spread strife. Of course, this isn't enough, Mask would need a lot of other things to get Cyric taken down, and hence get the portfolio of Intrigue back, but this would be one of the things. In return for finding evidence that Kelemvor still love Mystra, Mask would return the character(s) to life and hide them from the other gods (similar to what Oghma did with the Cyrinshad), this of course means NO clerics, paladins, druids or champions of torm. When this was done, Kelemvor's and Jergal's celestial servants could come down to Ymph looking for said character, and the story could just keep going and going and going.
Anyway, just an idea.
yep, so far I'm digging this. Do any DMs want to try it out? We got plenty of people who would like to do it. Most of which are good players.