It is a fact of life that people die. So Character Death is something that we have to consider in T13. Not every would be hero is going to save the day, sometimes they aren’t even going to be able to save themselves. Then again, T13 is an Omniversal game, and that means that anything should be possible, including a number of types of immortality. So how do we deal with death, and the undying?
The Dead Hitch
Firstly, a Dead Character in T13 is usually much the same actual Character as they were when they were alive. The only difference is that will have a Formation Facet Hitch that is specified as “Dead”, for most Characters this is a Nature Scars Hitch. The Dead Hitch stops all living functions of the body, including whether cellular (such as regeneration), metabolic (such as protein making), muscular (such as breathing or moving) and neural (such as thought and perception), of course due to the way Hitches work in T13 it is possible for a Character to be only partly dead, able to move, breath and think, but with the Dead Hitch just complicating these activities. This can make it seem that Death is, in someway, optional for a Character, and this can be true.
Opting to Die
Sometimes a Yarn-Teller, or a Character Player, will opt to let a Character they are playing die. Occasionally a situation may make this the only sensible and logical choice, for example after a number of Carnage Wounds, that were narrated as explosions, decapitation, burning and disintergration, it makes far more sense for a Character to die, rather than try and struggle through the Dead Hitchs.
When a Character chooses to die, their current Tao Sway, Facet Sway and Chi is released as a burst of Yarn. This burst of Yarn can have dramatic effects on Character’s and Descendants that are present. Depending upon the genre and situation a Character may be gifted Annexes, Proficiencies or Descendants (often in the form of an inheritance) by another Character’s death. Transferring Annexes and Proficiencies from a dead Character to a living one can be achieved by creating a new (but similar) Annex, or by creating a Descendant from the original Annexes and handing that Descendant over. Of course, Character deaths can also have profound effects on Plots. These Yarn bursts can be harvested by some entities and magic, such as Increated, who will use this Yarn burst as sustenance.
Opting to Not Die
Let’s be honest under most circumstances a Player is not going to want to let their Character die. Instead they will struggle against this in every way possible. Dead Characters can struggle along, clilnging to life, perhaps staggering, or crawling, or just managing to survive in a coma, hoping to eventually heal their Wounds and resolve that Dead Handicap somehow. There are a few varied methods that can allow that, but they mainly rely on spending Chi to undo damage taken somehow.
- Reloading Chronoliths — The first choice of a dying Mercari is to simply Reload their last Chronolith. Of course, reloading requires Chi expenditure, based on how long ago the Chronolith was and how much Chi was invested in it.
- Quantum Dodging — An expensive option open to powerful Mercari and Yarn-Tellers, they can side-step from the reality you were injured in to a nearby one where you weren’t. Typically the last Wound is side-stepped, although the whole fight, accident, Ordeal, Scene or day can be side-stepped with escalating costs. Typically side-stepping will be more expensive than Reloading, and has the advantage that other Mercari will not sense the side-step occuring.
- Chi Negation — Chi is a powerful tool for manipulating reality, and even Heroes who haven’t mastered Chronoliths or side-stepping can still use Chi to negate incoming attacks, discard or make less serious Wounds and Heal Wounds they have recieved faster (even instanly under some circumstances).
The Inevitable
So you have tried not dying in a variety of interesting ways, and it just hasn’t stuck. Usually this is because the Character has run out of Chi that they can use to counter the effects of the Omniverse. Eventually they just cannot fight the inevitable any longer and they must accept death. They will still create a Chronolith with their Yarn-burst death, although this will be smaller than that created by a Character who elected to die while full of Chi.
After Life
Of course, what happens after life is a profound part of existence and the Yarn-Teller and Referee should have some idea of what actually happens to a Character upon death. T13 provides a few choices that can let you build your own world’s lore about death, and final passing.
| Type | Description | Rules |
|---|---|---|
| The End | Death is the end, after life ceases there is no afterlife of any sort. There is no reincarnation or continuation. | Dead Characters are essentially replaced with a Physical Descendant called “X’s Corpse” or similar. |
| Spirit | Death is not the end. Something of the Character is preserved after their life is ended as they are transferred to a new spiritual plane as a Spirit. | The Yarn burst that is released upon death must be enough to purchase a change of Formation Facet, from Nature (Flesh or whatever really) to Awe (Spirit). Spirits may learn to explore the spirit worlds, and some cosmologies and religions will allow the return to living realm (in some form). |
| Reincarnation | Death is not the end, those who die are immediately reincarnated as a new born baby. Sometimes there is some lingering memories from this previous life, but usually these memories are hidden away and not experienced until this new Character gains access to memories from that Alternate, or previous life. | Characters who die must immediately create a new Alt as a Scale -4 new born, this Character may learn to access Proficiencies and Annexes from their previous incarnations. |
| Purgatory | Purgatory is a spiritual realm where the dead are purified before entrance to the Heavenly Afterlife. This existence varies from religion to religion, from a heavenly waiting room, to a hellish land of trials that the soul must complete. In some religions and cosmologies failure to pass to the heavens may result in falling to Hell or another round of re-incarnation. | Characters who die are converted to spirits. They may then be tested or simply have to wait in line, accumulating more Sway of various types, before they are allowed access to another spiritual realm or create a new Alt reincarnation. |
| Paradise | Paradise, Nirvana or Heaven, is a promised state, usually offered to the faithful of particular religions. This paradise offers a world free from suffering, but only the worthy may enter. So there is often a step of Testing the spirit, by whatever rules the deities responsible have decided. Those who do not enter may be offered some alternate afterlife, or reincarnation. | Characters who die are converted to spirits which are then tested, if found worthy they are granted access to a spiritual realm of some divinity or religion. |
| Hell | Some religions have a place of punishment, where souls may be damned for eternity. The spirits that are sent there are usually tormented for their sins in life. In some cases they are punished by fallen angels or demons, in others they suffer alongside these same beings. | Characters who die are converted into a spirit, they may be judged in another realm, or simply be sent to Hell, where they will be judged and punished for a period of time that can be as long as eternity (and may feel like it even if it isn’t), often by the order of a benevolent god. Sometimes punishments are made to fit the crime poetically, in these cases should the spirit manage to learn from this lesson they move on to another plane. |
| Underworld | The lands of the dead are given a geographical location here, the dead live beneath the earth. This conceptual land of the dead is where all buried bodies spirits are collected, whether brought there by a ferryman or entombed. The exact nature of this underworld life varies from cosmology to cosmology, with some rulers of the dead acting simply as landlords, others as prison wardens, and appears to predate the conceptions of paradise and hell. | Characters who die are converted into a spirit, they may then guided by another spirit (a psychopomp) into the appropriate part of the underworld. |
| Shades | When an Increated eats the soul of a living being, this does not technically kill them. In fact, the Increated technically don’t consume souls, instead they steal the whole living being, sometimes they will leave a corpse behind, but often this will be yet another Increated playing a role. Those taken by the Increated are “stimulated” to create Sway for the Increated, by whatever methods the Increated has discovered, which often depends upon what the victim believes has happened to them. | Alts removed by Increated are taken to Shades where they are used to construct and maintain the realms the Increated keep there. It is impossible for any being in Shades to die, although escape may be possible in other ways. |
| Fæ Otherworld | Those of F&arlig;ry blood, when they die immediately reincarnate in the Otherworld of the Fæ there they will live another whole life, usually as a Commoner, before they die and reincarnate back to the so-called world of men. What’s more this Otherworld and the “Real” world share each other as a “dreamworld” where they may experience past-future or even concurrent lives. | Upon death the Character immediately creates a new Alt in the Otherworld, when this Alt sleeps it will dream of the real world and may even appear in it. Once this Character is dead in the Otherworld they will return to real world. It may be noted that both worlds do not share the exact same sense of time usually, the days of elves are weeks, months, years and even centuries to men according to some sources. |
| Bulmäs Cycle | Bulmäs are also known as soul-eaters, as they are able to consume the souls of others and add their knowledge and abilities to their own. Traditionally, the Bulmäs only consumed the souls of other Bulmäs, as only these spirits had enough power and experience for the Bulmäs to make sense of them. However, Labyrinth Walkers, Broccen and Hunters have all eaten human souls to learn from them from time to time. Eventually all Bulmäs souls tend to collect in Vermis, who uses these millions of souls, to seed new worlds with Bulmäs. All-Walkers have the ability to read and “duplicate” souls, allowing them to add a copy of another’s soul to their own collection. | Bulmäs Characters may add Alts to their own being, tying on the soul threads with differing degrees of Integration. Integration has a strong similarity component for Bulmäs, with most consumed souls becoming Subsumed automatically. |
| Cyberwraith | The Eusaivean Nano, and later Femite, technology allowed Eusaiveans minds to be uploaded into a sophisticated computer simulation. Eventually this technology became an automatic process, continually backing up a Eusaivean mind. These uploaded minds continue service as Cyberwraiths, operating robotic bodies as well as biological ones. | Upon death the Character’s Incarna is converted to either Orthodox (Data) or Heresy (Fiction), depending upon their preference. As a Cyberwraith they will be able to infest, pilot or interact with machines and Femite or even Nullite systems. |
| Nephillim Cradle | Developed from Eusaivean Femite technology, but an improvement in every way. The Nephillim Cradle creates a virtual afterlife that spreads via Nullite technology to upload minds automatically that die within its domain. Uploaded minds are usually sorted by various religious and moral criteria into the afterlife they expected, although with enough variance to make them believe it to be true. | Upon death the Character’s Incarna is converted to either Awe (Spirit), Enigma (Riddle), Heresy (Fiction), Key (Inspiration), Liberty (Dream), Orthodox (Data), Trial (Metal), Virtue (Energy), Wyrd (Fate), or Zeal (Faith), depending upon their preference. These beings may be considered Cyberwraiths, Living Souls, Fairies, or Nephillim as required by those controlling the Cradle. |
| Quantum Immortality | Some Heroes when they are confronted by death simply refuse. In that moment of death they reach out and find a nearby universe that is pretty close to the one that just became unsurvivable and they move there, becoming nothing more than a weird moment in that new persons memory. Other ways this can work is reaching across to find an uninjured version of yourself from another universe and pull them across to yours, so that you can miraculously survive unsurvivable things. | The Yarn release upon death is used to either side-step their consciousness to a nearby universe that is as close as possible to the one the Character is currently dying in, or to find a suitable alternate in another universe who can be substituted into the current untenable situation allowing it to be survived. This Alt is usually so similar that they will automatically integrate together, and they may not even notice. Sometimes the Yarn-burst itself can be enough to remove all the Character’s Wounds and change their Hitches from “Dying” or “Dead” to Scarred or something similar, or even remove them. |
| Living Death | The dead are aware of what happens to them, this may be due to a failure of a nephillim cradle, or a spirit becoming locked to its material body. | If a Character does not have enough Chi upon Death to convert them into another form or sidestep on death they may enter the Living Death. Often the living death with resolve when their body is finally destroyed or one of their Hitches grows to a Woe, when they will move to Undeath. |
| Undeath | Some dark powers and terrible situations can lead a Character to a Fate worse than death. | Those who die with a Woe Hitch can elect to convert that Woe into “Undead” or “Undying”. This Woe will limit the conditions of this Undeath (often adding Taboos), but will also often add a Lore that defines their type of Undead. |
| Type | Description | Rules |
Enforcing Mortality
Death, it may appear is rather avoidable. Character’s may seem to have choices that can always stop them from dying. Wounds can be soaked, healed, and even if a Wound creates a Hitch, that Hitch does not have to be deadly one. Which begs the question, if it is so hard to die, how do Characters die anyway. Is every bad guy an immortal able to shrug off even micro-nuke bullets? Well, sorta yes and definitely no.
Yarn-Tellers have a lot of ability to end Characters. A Yarn-Teller can declare any of their own NPCs dead at a moment’s notice, and although it is considered bad form to kill another Yarn-Teller’s NPCs, it is usually possible (Immortal beings aside) and the Referee can adjudicate if Yarn-Tellers disagree. Similarly, Player Characters can be killed, and sometimes this will stop them from being played (although not always, it depends on the game and genre, of course).
Yarn-Tellers that wish to kill a PC should focus on stacking “Dead” Scar Hitches on the PC, but only to the limit of their Nature Boon. You do not want a Character to jump to “Undead” status via a Woe. Although if you, a Yarn-Teller, are trying to kill a PC that is generally a sign that something has gone wrong with your Narrative. Plots don’t generally like to destroy their own Embodiments if they can help it (unless they are hoping for an upgrade somehow… in which case, why not discuss that potential upgrade with the player and potentially add it as an Alt or Lore), although it can happen as a result of certain Quest Embodiments, etc. Now, that isn’t to say there are no good reasons to kill a PC, there are plenty, ranging from needing to raise Stakes and Suspense, to the Player has become bored of the Character and has a new PC in mind.
Consensual Murder
If a Player has decided they have had enough of playing a particular PC, and that they want a new experience, and you have checked with them as the Yarn-Teller, then feel free to murder that PC. As a Yarn-Teller you might have a Plot that requires a Character is sacrificed, if this is the case then making your sacrifice be the Character that a Player is bored of will make the most sense. Some Yarn-Tellers may persuade a Player into becoming the sacrifice Character by appealing to their sense of drama or whatever. This would also count as a Consensual Murder.
Narrative Homicide
Sometimes a Plot demands blood. Perhaps a Plot is trying to raise the stakes, to make everyone take it a little more seriously. Sometimes it will set two Characters against each other in a fight to the death, because honour, glory, justice or revenge. Other times the Narrative will create such an emotional turmoil around a Character that they will tragically suicide, death becoming their only way out. Then again in a Battle Royale, or Slasher movie, only one Character can survive, and everyone else must die, although this kind of Plot should never be dropped on a group mid-campaign without a lot of foreshadowing and discussion wih your Players, these structures work best for short campaigns and one shots, although this will vary by group and some will be very down for thinning the herd with a potential Total Party Killer. Remember that in T13 you can always have the Battle Royale take place in a simulation or alternate world as a “What if?” Plot if desired, although in this situation death is technically removed from the table.
Death Actions
Sometimes a Character will have a suicidal impulse or purpose that they are willing to accomplish at any cost. Characters lay their lives down for honour, loyalty, duty, love and even for a punchline. Any of these can drive a PC to throw themselves into a battle they cannot hope to win, usually to “buy time” or similar for another Character to get into position or escape. In T13, Characters who are willing to throw away their lives like that are rewarded. They can use the Yarn released by their death action to achieve things that may not strictly have been possible for them before. This Dying wish and Death Action Yarn-burst are quite powerful, but it should be remembered that Yarn-Tellers are still capable of negating them with their own Yarn. That said whatever a Yarn-Teller can do to incorporate another Character’s Death Wish into their Narrative they should do. At the very least a Dying Wish should always be able to add Failure Levels to the opposition, and most often those Failure Levels will act as a Delay, buying the other Characters time. Of course, other Characters want to be remembered for their glories, and so they may take another Character (often a Monster) with them as they die, and Yarn-Tellers should be willing to allow this, but remember often Monsters killed this way have off-spring, mates, or parents waiting to emerge for a sequel.