I am a new dm, and through a convoluted series of events, one of my players is in the material plane trying to resecure a vault, two have just been teleported to the shadowfell, one died, and in doing so killed a god, and one of them is somewhere in the ethereal plane, they are all level 8, The wizard is in the material plane, the barbarian and celestial warlock are in the shadowfell, and the wild magic sorcerer is dead. My current plan is to put the sorcerer in front of a divine council. What do I do now?
Work to reunify the party? Have the Wizard research some ritual that can open a gate to where their friends are Dr. Strange style? Have the "Divine Council" re-order the universe to reunite the party and patch up the issue of a dead god?
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"The mongoose blew out its candle and was asleep in bed before the room went dark." —Llanowar fable
So, this can be really great. For the dead character I'd actually have either a Warlock Patron, or a Cleric Divinity (celestial or god) approach the Sorcerer and offer to resurrect them - for a price. This of course should be discussed with the player, but it can work really well.
I literally did this a couple of session back where one player died due to three losses of death saving throws. I had a Great Old One offer them a deal - become a part warlock, be raised from the dead, but you've got to do this thing for the new patron. The player agreed it was fun, and even made some cosmetic changes to their character as a result of the encounter. They're back but very different. They've gone from a Paladin Lv6 to a Paladin 5/Warlock 1 in a game where multiclassing isn't otherwise allowed.
It can really fun to discuss this stuff in secret with the player whose character died. Especially if you give the character a secret mission as well.
As for the two in Shadowfell, I'd suggest retconning however that happened...maybe the 'portal' through which they stepped was a variant of the Banishment spell...time expires and they find themselves thrust back onto their home plane. The reason I suggest this is because there's not a lot of spells that can fix this kind of problem. Contact Other Plane can be helpful, but Plane Shift is a 7th level spell. Until that's an option for the player characters, moving between planes should never just randomly happen.
The other way I would potentially do this is find a being of the shadowfell who does have plane shift abilities and let the two characters see the NPC using those abilities. Maybe they can stake out the NPCs lair, wait for them to return and then bride, persuade or intimidate the NPC into giving them a lift home.
I am a new dm, and through a convoluted series of events, one of my players is in the material plane trying to resecure a vault, two have just been teleported to the shadowfell, one died, and in doing so killed a god, and one of them is somewhere in the ethereal plane, they are all level 8, The wizard is in the material plane, the barbarian and celestial warlock are in the shadowfell, and the wild magic sorcerer is dead. My current plan is to put the sorcerer in front of a divine council. What do I do now?
Work to reunify the party? Have the Wizard research some ritual that can open a gate to where their friends are Dr. Strange style? Have the "Divine Council" re-order the universe to reunite the party and patch up the issue of a dead god?
So, this can be really great. For the dead character I'd actually have either a Warlock Patron, or a Cleric Divinity (celestial or god) approach the Sorcerer and offer to resurrect them - for a price. This of course should be discussed with the player, but it can work really well.
I literally did this a couple of session back where one player died due to three losses of death saving throws. I had a Great Old One offer them a deal - become a part warlock, be raised from the dead, but you've got to do this thing for the new patron. The player agreed it was fun, and even made some cosmetic changes to their character as a result of the encounter. They're back but very different. They've gone from a Paladin Lv6 to a Paladin 5/Warlock 1 in a game where multiclassing isn't otherwise allowed.
It can really fun to discuss this stuff in secret with the player whose character died. Especially if you give the character a secret mission as well.
As for the two in Shadowfell, I'd suggest retconning however that happened...maybe the 'portal' through which they stepped was a variant of the Banishment spell...time expires and they find themselves thrust back onto their home plane. The reason I suggest this is because there's not a lot of spells that can fix this kind of problem. Contact Other Plane can be helpful, but Plane Shift is a 7th level spell. Until that's an option for the player characters, moving between planes should never just randomly happen.
The other way I would potentially do this is find a being of the shadowfell who does have plane shift abilities and let the two characters see the NPC using those abilities. Maybe they can stake out the NPCs lair, wait for them to return and then bride, persuade or intimidate the NPC into giving them a lift home.
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