Hearre ye, hearre ye. Whereas the Following doth be ann Enumerationne of the Characters that - okay, I'll stop now. This is a list of the D&D (and other RPG-type) characters I have played as, and how they died (or, in rare cases, failed to die). With one exception they're named after obscure fictional characters. If you compiled enough of these into a list, and thought about it long enough, it would probably tell you something useful (or at least interesting) about something or other. In the meantime, well, as I keep saying, if we all restricted ourselves to putting useful things on the Web, the Internet would be a much, much smaller place. ------- Valder of the Magic Sword: Had a horrible curse which turned him into a half-undead: he had an 18/00 STR, an 18 DEX, a 3 END and a 3 CHA. Kind of a boring character, but good for a new player... He ran around doing stuff for a while and then said the wrong thing to an iron golem. RIP. Platypus, Mage-Thief: Received a huge payoff on finishing his first shadowrun, which had mostly involved roleplaying talking to people. Was asked to role-play spending it. Left the party, left the game. This is where I acquired my negative attitude towards gratuitous role-playing. Davin Cavanaugh, Paranoid Cleric: On his island, all the clerics (and most of the populace) had a fanatical hatred of non-clerical magic users. As there was at least one magic-user in the party, Davin's main contribution was a great deal of inter-party tension. One day he captured a mage and carried him along with the party for interrogation. Two days later, the mage broke free, cast Prismatic Spray, and sent Davin to the Elemental Plane of Fire before he could even wake up. RIP. Gai Daigouji, Sleep caster: Gai survived the battle that killed the rest of his party, but he died a few weeks later when the Orc horde they had been trying to stop overran the village. RIP. Grignr, Mighty-Thewed Barbarian: Modelled after the Barbarian of Diablo II, Grignr was able to use Whirlwind Attack and Battle Chant at only Level 4 - quite impressive, as those skills normally require Level 30. In his first battle he picked up a magic ego-34 Sword Of Ultimate Evil, was possessed by it, and attacked the party. He was reduced to 0 HP by the combined efforts of the party and the enemy, fell unconscious, lost the sword, was healed back to 1HP, then was hit for 10 damage in a surprise attack by some minor guards. RIP. Sir Brian Neville-Smythe, Idiot Nobleman: A nobleman in a city where only noblemen may own magic items, and also the only party member without any useful magic items. Similar to Grignr, he had Whirlwind Attack and Barbarian Rage. Unfortunately he encountered alignment difficulties: he was Chaotic Good aligned, and the rest of the party was much closer to Neutral Evil. He left, which was probably fortunate, since the party self-destructed soon afterward. Nessus, named for the Puppetteer: Sir Brian's replacement was Neutral Evil, so he fit in with the rest of the party just fine. His first observation on joining was that the party was dangerously close to discovering information that he would rather be kept secret. Nessus engineered a distraction which killed almost half the party, escaped scot-free, and was in fine condition when we all got bored and quit one session later. Miyamoto, Insane Monk: A Monk with no sense of self-preservation, Miyamoto once challenged Chi-me, the God of Fire, to a sparring contest, just to see if he would win. (Fortunately, the new DM was a kinder, gentler soul than the one that had killed Miyamoto's predecessors Davin and Grignr, and he ruled that Chi-me ignored him.) Favorite line: "Before you can join our party, you must defeat me in physical combat!" He was eventually backstabbed and killed by a PC gone out of control (see "parn.txt" for details.) RIP. Aramil, Burn Mage: An elven wizard who specialized in blowing things up, Aramil led a frustrating existence for the most part, since the DM had a strong aversion to "that combat thing". The only dungeon we encountered was actually a rather nice mansion containing no monsters whatsoever; Aramil spent most of his time reading in its library. Bleh. Guth'Alak, Unpronounceable Druid: Yup, Guth'Alak (or "Gus" to the DM) was a Druid, all right. The trouble is, it's kind of hard to give a Druid personality. Druids don't even get a domain list like clerics do - they get a list of spells and that's about it. Gus's small and vicious assassin-stoat pet, Thalkettoth, got almost as much screen time as he did. The DM quit after three sessions, claiming "too much work". Double bleh. Eladamri, Munchkin Archer: Through deial orcs, crabmen, dinosaurs and fireballs, Eladamri survived it all, not unscathed but close to it. After a great deal of adventuring, Eladamri was eligible for tenth level and had five classes under his belt. Unfortunately, the rest of the party did not fare so well: Of his original six comrades, only one competent ally remained. Worse, most of his new companions were more interested in causing him grief than helping him. Just as he was wondering why he still hung out with the remnants of what used to be his party, his superior called him up and took him to task for violating an oath by staying too long in the city the party was hanging out in. Eladamri ditched the party, left the city, and left the game. Morrolan, Kobold Wizard: The campaign that replaced Gus's failed adventure was a much more interesting one. Everyone in the party was required to have non-good alignment, and we all played hitmen working for some sort of evil organization. The party members cooperated surprisingly well, with none of the hogging-magic-items behavior I'd seen in other games. Possibly this was because everyone knew that failure to cooperate would meet with a swift and violent response, but more likely it was just that we were more interested in munchkinning and combat than in party infighting. The game went quite well until one of the characters made a deal with an evil organization: they would pay the 120000gp to make him into a lich in return for "unspecified favors". This player had a nasty history of backstabbing the party, and it was pretty clear what was coming next. I left the party (and the game), and (probably coincidentally) the game itself dissolved immediately afterwards. Narantir, Alienist: Another transmutation-specialized wizard. I felt I had been getting into a bit of a rut with Morrolan's magic missiles, so I decided to ban Narantir from evocation entirely. As a result, most of his spells went to beneficial party enchantments: nice for the party, but boring for Narantir. After an encounter with a Disintegration trap left him a level and a half behind the rest of the party, he decided to leave the party to take some badly-needed downtime. Fendel, the Red Mage: In a game where wizards are divided by elemental school, Fendel is a Fire mage. This makes him loud and destructive, which coincidentally is just the way I like to play him. The game has finished two story-arcs thus far and is still going. Lu Tze, Barbarian Monk: An entry in a rotating-DM game, where everyone took a turn running a session. Kicked out of the monastery, Lu Tze the half-orc had no recourse but to take up barbarianism. This made him immensely strong, which unfortunately availed him not at all when he ran into a shambling mound. The DM misread the rules on grapple and constrict; Lu Tze died a horrible death. The party sent him back to town to be raised, but they never returned to that town again to pick him up, so he wound up not doing much. Naga, the White Serpent: Lu Tze's replacement. Intended as a summoner sorceress, despite my earlier lesson with Narantir. Combat summoning doesn't work; instead, Naga quickly became known for her Haste-Magic Missile barrages and her terrifying Ghost Sound laughter. Towards the end of the game she tried a True Strike disarm technique against some sort of humanoid opponent; this backfired badly when the opponent picked up his weapon, knocked her unconscious, and took her hostage against the rest of the party. She survived, but then the game ended. The Librarian: My standard wizard, entered into the game that replaced Naga's game. His spell selection was identical to Fendel's (except for his Mage of Arcane Order prestige class) but his personality seemed much blander. He was noted for his tendency to leave the party when he felt they were doing something stupid... This irritated one of the other players a great deal, but oddly did not cost him any experience. Fredathalanian, Elven Archer: Generated at twelfth-level, Fred incorporated all the lessons I learned from Eladamri. The DM let him use magic items of GMW+5 on his bow and arrows; his damage output was quite respectable. But the game only ran one session. Zagato, Mage-Knight: Despite his declared title, Zagato was a burn mage posing as a melee fighter. He made use of Polymorph Self into an annis hag, plus a large array of buff spells. He did reasonably well for a while, then ran into an apparently-precognizant evil cleric and did poorly. The game ended immediately afterward. Jaya Ballard, Task Mage: Fourth level, the DM said. "You've been playing too many wizards," John said. "Okay," said I, "I'll be an archer." "Party needs a wizard," said Brian. So a wizard I was.