[Raven Bloodmoon]

As you all have probably figured out, I am far more interested in the Eastern and Indian religions than those from other parts of the world. As such, I have been trying to figure out just how to make reincarnation and ascension to higher levels of existance possible within the concept of DnD and the various "afterlife planes." Here's what I've thought of so far:

When you die, your spirit leaves your body and is as a ghost in the ghostwalk campaign setting. If for whatever reason you do not move "away" from the material plane (the deep ethereal is just a road to the afterlife in my mind), you follow the standard rules for ghostwalk ghosts, unless I randomly change something. If you do leave the material plane, you will travel through the deep ethereal to another plane where you will await judgement. I have some ideas for this necropolis, but they are still rather vague and dreamlike. Think Salvador Dali teaming up with Luis Royo and H.R. Giger.

At the place of judgement, you will pass some sort of test and then be sent to the appropriate "afterlife" plane. That's where you'll wait for the world to end and begin anew. After everything starts over again, you'll be reincarnated and get to try ot do better than last time through.

Once you reach your afterlife plane, you retake a physical form and can trade in any ghostwalk class levels for normal class levels. I think there will be ways for you to also trade in normal class levels to ascend to higher levels of existance (i.e. various angels, devils, and other extraplanars). The number of levels required to trade in would equal the total LA plus the ascended form's HD. I don't know about this just yet. Also interplanar travel may be rather limited in this cosmology. I'm still figuring things out.

Any ideas, comments, suggestions, or observations would be much appreciated.

[Axel]

I did include a short segment on the afterlife at the end of every netbook chapter....

Does this system incorporate Ressurect, Raise Dead, Reincarnate, and all those related spells?

[Raven Bloodmoon]

Not entirely certain yet. Ressurect and what not may only work until you reach yoru afterlife plane. Maybe it will only work until you reach teh gates of teh city of the dead. Not entirely sure just yet.

[Jexl]

Raven Bloodmoon, on Mar 27 2006, 10:18 PM, said:

At the place of judgement, you will pass some sort of test and then be sent to the appropriate "afterlife" plane. That's where you'll wait for the world to end and begin anew. After everything starts over again, you'll be reincarnated and get to try ot do better than last time through.

I think the overall concept is great.

Perhaps this test would be the "Unfinished Business" that the players might have, and they would have to travel back to the Material Plane, and perhaps get other people - NPC's to help them in completing thier task. This would be a great Roleplaying opportunity. Having to Haunt people, and try to get them to communicate with you, so you can direct them / assist them, in helping you get your task done.

Just a suggestion... =)

[Raven Bloodmoon]

Cool suggestion. Test-wise, I was thinking more of a situational test where the person's decisions guide them to their afterlife. I am definitely trying to avoid the classic examples like having a heart lighter than a feather and what not.

My only worry with the "Unfinished Business" would be that suddenly we have more ghosts than people in the world. Even if a person can linger after death, I don't plan on that being the norm. It should also be a situation where people tend to be extremely cautious because if it is a malevolent or undead ghost, there'd not be a way to distinguish it at a distance from a benign or benificent ghost until they'd abserved their actions.

[Dthclaw]

Or, as a variant on what Jexl suggested, they have to do a quest in their spirit form, except that they don't actually go anywhere to do it - it's all inside their own microcosm, and their actions/inactions/success/failure determines afterlife/rebirth/resurrection/whatever.

[Raven Bloodmoon]

Ooh! Jexl + Dthclaw = Awesome. There's some math for you! Thank you. I like that idea. That way whoever is doing the judging can see how the spirit behaves during its trial and place it accordingly.

Perhaps here is another monkey wrench to toss in because we don't like easy things. What about the idea of Karma? Anyone think it'd be a good idea to use this final trial as a last chacne to save yourself sort of thing? Maybe if you do really well on your final, you may not get an A in the class but you can at least pass the course? Otherwise a person's life will be the entire trial and we don't have need for this nifty little adventure.

As a side note, this entire idea is intended to provide a way for people to keep gaming after they do something less than wise and end up on the wrong side of the ground. It also should add some flavor to the cosmos.

As a side note to the side note, I may still have "outter planes" but these are not destinatiosn for souls after death but rather realms created by powerful creatures, deities, and Genesis spells. Those will generally require very powerful magic, magic devices, artifacts, or portals to visit. I don't plan on making the afterlife accessable except through death.

[Dthclaw]

Good. No more of:

"Hey, I remember killing that guy! Let's get him again!"

How would you measure a character's karma? I know it ain't quite the same thing, but the Fallout games measured karma as being either a positive or negative number, with good deeds adding and bad deeds subtracting karma points. Course, there were also some fun special "karma titles" you could get. Some of them rather hilarious, like Graverobber.

[Axel]

I remember in one Discworld book, The Truth, a conversation between Death and a thug that seems appliccable:
Thug: So is this the part where I see my life flash before my eyes?
Death: No, that was the part that just ended. This is where you watch your life from other people's eyes.

[Raven Bloodmoon]

I was toying with something similar. Good deeds increase your karma and bad deeds decrease your karma. Perhaps your final test is weighted higher than usual to see if you learned anything from life. The higher the karma, the nicer the afterlife, and the inverse would also be true. Now, in the afterlife, I don't see why you would not necessarily have some very powerful people, as they would have all of eternity to do their thing. Most of the dangerous ones would be in the bad karma afterlives, though. That is where I was toying with the idea of letting a player who accumulates enough power and does something special in hsi afterlife cash in some class levels for a ascending to a higher level of existance (or lower in the case of becoming an evil creature). Perhaps this is where angels, archons, devils, and demons partly come from? Perhaps I will need to create an entire branch of outsiders to deal with this. Either way, seems like a possibility.

Mind you, places like the home of the demons would not be part of the afterlife, and to end up there is to be eliminated from reality for all intensive purposes. It would also be a great place for an epic campaign.

Given a point system, how much weight do you all think the final test should comprise? Do you think that there should be a lawful <-> chaotic version of the karma scale also? Do you think the afterlives should be able to contact or (with great difficulty) gain access to each other? Perhaps coterminous planes that form the afterlife? Do you even think any of this makes sense?

[Jexl]

In regards to Karma points,

Maybe it can be based on Reputation points, I recall seeing in some book, a chart about reputation, and if you do good stuff, your reputation goes up positively, and if you do bad stuff, your reputation goes down.

I think it was almost like the ADND AC, where + was good, and - was better...

Good reputation, higher Positive number
Bad reputation, higher Negative number.

Then based on a set scale, you can determine the persons Karma....

Just a thought

[Axel]

You could borrow Dark Side points from Star Wars. So that every evil act increases the number of Dark Side points, while time and truly heroic deeds removes some. Thus when you surpase a certain point you are permanently corrupted by your deeds and must do serious attonement for them, or face the consequences in the next life. Of course, if you accumulate enough then you've reached the point where complete evil is just the way to go, be the most powerful, evil thing in all nine hells, Lord Sidious.

[Raven Bloodmoon]

I'll probably put something along that in, although being particularly good or evil won't give you special power. It will just mean you are really screwed in the afterlife.

[Dthclaw]

I would have thought that being extremely good/evil would be a boon in the afterlife. After all, if you were a powerful servant of good in life, I would imagine that good deities would really want you to serve them in the afterlife, too. Ditto with evil gods.

[Raven Bloodmoon]

Good gods might grant boons to particularly faithful followers, but the afterlife is not about deities. It is about waiting, contemplation, and reflection until the next incarnation. Deities are living things, too, remember? They are just more powerful than mortals. Then again, so is the Tarrasque. Hmm....The god of the Tarrasque....~shudders~

ANYWAY, the afterlife is where you go when you die. Gods are concerned with you while you are alive. Once you die, you are judged and end up in one of a few planes where you get to think about how you lived. Then you get to try to do it right next time. Good luck! Heck, to be honest, I am still trying to figure out just how the world of the dead relates to the world of the living.