I was looking at this old blog post and realized I didn’t like it.

Let’s try it again.

D&D

Adventurer, when your comrade dies and your party, posse or fellowship gathers to send them off, pray to the Death Deity that best helps you make sense of existence:

The Raven Queen: If it is during the Winter, you can speak to them one last time to confer and get wisdom from their ghost. If it is not during winter, the ghost can offer you a sign that you will have to figure out (dead character’s player decides on the sign).

Vecna, Lich-God of Death and Secrets: If you lost your hand or eye during the same battle, you can bind their ghost to the weapon you used during that battle for the price of one secret of Vecna’s choosing. If you did not, then you can ask the ghost for a secret, knowing that the Lich-God is listening (player decides if ghosts offer a secret from beyond the grave).

Elvish Pantheon: If you face west and sing a dirge in the elf tongue, you will take some of their knowledge with you. You can gain advantage (1 for every level of the dead character) on rolls in which they were proficient).

Dwarvish Pantheon: If you pay proper respects to the Deities of Anvils, Axes and Deep Places and cut a lock of your beard off to send off with the body, you can ask the dead two of the following:

• Where is your greatest treasure?
• What is is your finest piece of craftsmanship?
• Who among your people would you like me to feast and tell of your greatest deeds?

The Gnomish Deep Gods: If you pray to the Gnomish Deep Gods in Undertongue and show your face to all waking without fakery or facade of any kind, you will be able to create an illusion that gives the mourners peace in their grief (player of the dead character decides).

The Halfling Saints: If you pray to the Halfling Saints and serve the mourners the dead’s favorite dish, you will be able to talk to the ghost of the dead for as long as it takes to smoke a single pipe and wish them well on their journey.

Dragon Gods: If you pray to Tiamat and Bahamut, offering them appropriate treasures (1000 GP for every level of the dead character) you can tell a tale of the dead character in the form of an epic poem and when you are done as the sun rises, a magic item will be found among the mourners, commemorating the life of the fallen (created by the DM and the player of the dead character).

Apocalypse World

When someone you know dies and you want to deal with your grief as a community, lay their stuff out in a circle around whatever’s left of their body. If there’s nothing left, folks can offer remembrances. If the body is gruesome to gaze upon, maybe don’t lay it out or put a sheet over it if you think there isn’t a lesson to be learned from it.

Everyone who know them gets to have a say. Roll +appropriate stat based on what you say. If it fits into more than one, choose the one you like better. Add +1 to your Hx with that character or -1, whichever you choose.

If you have some pleasant platitudes and bullshit to share about the dead because you feel bad, say it.

If you have something true to share about the dead, say it and roll +Sharp

If you have something nasty to say about the dead, set the record straight say it and roll +Aggro

If you have something strange to recall about the dead, say it out loud and try to make sense of it all, roll +Weird

If you have something beautiful to share about the dead that will teach us all something about ourselves, roll +Hot

On a 10+, choose 3

On a 7-9, choose 1

On a miss, you feel the void of nothingness and that no one ever really knows anyone and you’ll probably die alone. Buckle up for a rough grieving process. Take -1 forward until you get that straightened out.

• Claim a piece of their gear
• If you are 1 shy of getting XP from your Hx with them, check it off and get your advance
• Take +1 forward the next time you do something that reminds you of them and you do it the way they’d do it
• Take an XP the next time you live your life the way they’d want you to live it
• Take +1 forward the next time you reach out to the psychic maelstrom

Art

General Research Division, The New York Public Library. “A funeral procession to a tomb beneath the western mountain of Thebes.” The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1837 – 1841. http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47e2-6fd5-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99