Death

Play

Tal has been spotted sneaking into a tower. Her SPI has already been depleted on the journey, and now her Guard has been depleted by a volley of arrows. Moss ducks out of sight but Tal runs for the tower.

The sentries roll high and Tal has no choice but to take the Damage reducing her VIG to 0, meaning she is Slain.

Ref: Oh, wow. One of the arrows flies straight into Tal’s throat… she falls to the ground, a pool of blood forming. She’s slain.

Moss: What!?

Tal: Argh, I knew that was a dumb thing to do. Is there anything else I can do?

Ref: I mean you’re out of Guard, Spirit, and Vigour, so I think that’s it for Tal.

Tal sighs and folds up the character sheet.

Ref: Well we have less than an hour left tonight, so I’d recommend we sort your new character at the start of the next session, or you can do it at home. You can make a brand new Knight or you could take on a successor. You had that Squire who was injured, maybe they could get Knighted for themselves.

Tal: Yeah. Urgh, I should have ran away.

Moss: Hey we’ve both been taking risks, this could have happened to me. Can I recover the body? Tal deserves a proper funeral after all.

Ref: Oh definitely, we’ll get to that. In the meantime I’ll get Tal a character for now. Moss, what’s your plan after recovering Tal?

Moss: Well I need to get to safety for the night. Oh, and I look for Tal’s raven!

Ref: Sure. Tal, you okay?

Tal: Yeah, I guess I was just getting attached to this character.

Ref sets up Tal with a character for the rest of the session, using a prompt to get a new character to meet Moss as quickly as possible. Between sessions Tal rolls a new Knight to join the company, the Riddle Knight.

Thoughts

Death can be a shocking presence, but I believe that it’s an important element to have in a game based around Knights.

It’s usually considered a sort of “fail state” of the game, and Mythic Bastionland embraces the more unpredictable side of death instead of great sacrifices scripted ahead of time. If your Guard, Spirit, and Vigour are all getting low then it’s advisable to do everything you can to avoid taking further Damage.

Although it’s a failure of that character, who would surely rather be alive, it’s not a failure of the ongoing story of the game. All Knights die in the end. This is why they seek successors, heirs, Squires.

Many Referees would be tempted to find a way to keep Tal alive. Dying to the arrow of a nameless sentry feels like an ignoble end for a protagonist, but we can see that Tal had opportunities to avoid this. As a Referee, if in doubt, make sure players understand this risk when they take such an action.

Of course, it still feels bad. The player might feel embarrassed that they let it happen, or sad that they won’t get to continue using their character. It’s perfectly fine to take a moment to acknowledge these feelings, and make sure that the player doesn’t feel the death was somehow unfair or unwarranted. Here I prefer an impartial approach. If the rules say they’re slain, then they’re slain.

The Referee didn’t kill Tal, the arrows did.

Ref does the right thing here by getting Tal right back into the game with a new character, in this case a temporary one. Elevating an existing NPC to become Tal’s new character would be great, but sometimes none of the existing characters fit, so it makes sense to just introduce a new Knight.

In most cases I’d start the new Knight as a Young Knight-Errant, but if the Company is well-established then it might make sense to start them with some Glory.