Idea for A cool Prelude (Fugue)

[Sternhund]

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!

[petey512]

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.

[Sternhund]

Maybe Mask, or some other deity, would! However, I'll leave that up to whoever runs the prelude. (Sternhund is busy. :( )

[petey512]

roighto, thanks sternhund.

[kanrath]

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.

[Nightshadow]

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.

[petey512]

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.