Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer Creatures
Frozen Sick
D&D Beyond Basic Rules
Basic Rules (2014)
Sign in to view your library & saved favorites.
Sign in- Marketplace
Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer CreaturesFrozen SickD&D Beyond Basic RulesBasic Rules (2014)Sign in to view your library & saved favorites.
Sign in
In my one shot, I plan to kill of an NPC that's guiding the party. A monstrous creature will impale her with its leg and attempt to eat her but the party will either prevent it from happening or they fail and she gets eaten( the easy way). If they prevent her from getting eaten by scaring the creature away etc. How do I narrate her death to a party that might use revivify or healing spells on her. Her death is narratively driven
What’s the creature that’s going to kill her? Many different monsters have abilities that render a Revivify ineffective, like Mindflayers, Nightwalkers & Intellect Devourerers.
The best way to narrate her death without these monsters is to just brutalise her body. If the monster kills her, it could easily tear her head off, bisect her or simply ruin her body to such a degree that bringing her back to life would just kill her.
I mean if the monster is supernatural enough it could eat her soul as well. Imo, it feels more threatening to have monstrous creature devour the being of someone instead of just turning them into a snack. Maybe it has some necromatic magic running through its blood, letting it heal itself and wither others? Idk just some ideas
Eg narration : "The monstrosity glares at her as she lies helpless on the ground, stabbed from its powerful talons. In one swift motion, it uses its claws to pick her up, and it bites her head of. As you all watch in horror, you swear you hear the sound of her soul shattering into a thousand pieces from the sheer, necrotic energy that this monster possesses. It turns its head to look you dead in the eyes, with no soul behind the terrifying gaze it possesses"
This was going to be my suggestion as well. Depending on graphic your party wants violence, you can describe how the body has already been mutilated in such a way that it just cannot be revived. A few vital organs lying around in the grass and some limbs up in a tree or sunk in a lake, etc.
And one option is to just narrate it through as a "cut-scene". Maybe have them make a roll for something their character does and just describe how whatever-it-is-they-rolled isn't quite enough (even a nat 20 doesn't have to mean auto-success).
One key thing with all the reviving/resurrecting spells is that the soul has to be willing.
If she gets eaten, then the corpse is chewed up so no going back there.
If the party saves her, when one of them tries to heal her, have her lay a hand on theirs and say "It's ok; I'm ready.". Then she dies, and she doesn't come back.
If she's already dead, then offer the healer a brief vision of her, with a corridor leading to >insert white light, beautiful gardens, or the gates of hell accordingly here<, where she tells them that she thanks them for the effort, hands them back the diamond, and tells them that she does not wish to return to life. You may be able to use this as a moment for the plot - either she tells them something important, or she says something like "I'm not supposed to tell you more, but the treasure is in the abandoned..." as it fades out to whiteness, leaving them to guess at what the whole piece of information would have been.
Check my stuff on DMs Guild!!
DrivethruRPG Releases on This Thread - latest release: My Character is a Dragon - balanced rules for 5e and 5.5e!
I have started discussing/reviewing D&D content on Substack - stay tuned for semi-regular posts!
I'll be a contrarian voice here: Is it necessary that the PC's be unable to revive or heal her? If they save her life, does it screw up some plans later on? If the answer is 'no,' then I would let the choice of whether to save her be left to the PC's. The players know very well the resources they have, and that spending a resource now means it won't be available later.
Also, if your plan requires the character to die, but the players have ways to prevent that, it's not a good plan. Either do it off-stage, so they can't stop it, or accept the possibility that the character won't die.
(Also, be prepared for the players to not react how you think they will. I've killed off an NPC at the very start of a campaign, in order to give the players agency, and had the players immediately make reviving the NPC their goal.)