You pull from the death bag whenever you are revived from death. This is a bag that has 20 white stones, 10 red stones, and 3 black stones in it. How many stones you pull depends on how many times you've died since your last long rest. The first time you die and are revived, you pull 10 stones. Each additional death, you pull 1 additional stone up to a maximum of 30. You then experience consequences depending on the number of black stones you've pulled.
Forgotten Death
If you pull at least 1 black stone, you forget the immediate circumstances of your death and have a shaky recollection of the 24 hours leading up to it. The first time you try and recall something from this time, you must make a DC 10 INT feat save. On a success, you can recollect the vague outline of what you're trying to remember. On a failure, you are unable to recall anything. On a critical success, you actually do remember the details of what you're trying to remember. And on a critical failure, you have an inaccurate memory given to you by the GM. You can only attempt this recollection once for any time you have forgotten. If you have multiple deaths with at least 1 black stone pulled and overlapping forgotten time frames, you can still only attempt this once.
Death Scars
If you pull 2 or more black stones from the death bag, you gain a death scar. This is a permanently lost memory or spiritual or personality change. This is also a physical scar, as whatever it was that caused your death does not fully heal (although this has no mechanical consequences). Death scars are chosen by the GM but are not typically crippling. Instead, they should provide a new narrative hook and may be fine tuned in collaboration with the player. The GM may take into account the history of your character, the circumstances of their death, or other factors when writing a death scar. They may also roll or pick one of the example death scars.
| Name | Description | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | A Forgotten Face | You lose the memory of one important person from your past. You recognize their name, but not their significance. |
| 2 | A Broken Promise | You forget a promise or vow you once made. The world may still expect you to keep it. |
| 3 | A Mystery Talent | You forget how you learned an ability, fluency, or formative lesson. You are still able to perform it, but have no memory of its origin, training, or teacher. |
| 4 | A Severed Bond | An emotional tie such as friendship, love, or loyalty feels muted or absent, though you know it used to be stronger. |
| 5 | A Faded Triumph | A great personal victory or achievement becomes foggy, as if it happened to someone else. |
| 6 | A Blurry Past | A whole period of your life becomes a blur of sensation without detail. This period could span months or even years. |
| 7 | An Emotional Scar | You lose the ability to fully feel one specific emotion. |
| 8 | A Shattered Conviction | A belief that once shaped a core aspect of your identity (religious, philosophical, political, etc.) becomes uncertain or hollow. |
| 9 | A Meaningless Word | A specific word or concept ("mercy", "honor", "home", etc.) becomes difficult to interpret, feel, or relate to. |
| 10 | An Unanchored Dream | You forgot your reason for pursuing a some dream or life goal. The aspiration itself remains, although you no longer know why you pursue it. |
| 11 | An Unsteady Hand | Something you once performed with pride (calligraphy, an instrument, a spiritual practice, etc.) now feels "off" in a way you have trouble describing. This may or may not be noticeable by others. |
| 12 | An Unfinished Story | A key moment in your backstory (your first love, first battle, first Elder Sorcery, etc.) is lost. There is no vague memory of it. It is a completely blank page. |
| 13 | A Recurring Nightmare | You gain a new recurring nightmare or dream and may attempt to uncover its meaning or follow its instructions. |
| 14 | A Phantom Pain | You forget the cause of an old wound or trauma but not the emotional weight of it. It lingers without context. |
| 15 | A Lost Secret | You forget a secret you were keeping. It may be one that others were relying on you to hold. |
| 16 | A Displaced Memory | You gain a vivid but false memory that feels real, replacing a true one. |
| 17 | An Unanswered Question | Something existing mystery or question becomes an obsession. |
| 18 | A Misaligned Compass | You sense of some moral, practical, or metaphysical direction (right/wrong, trustworthy/untrustworthy, finite/infinite, etc.) is lost. You are unable to fully distinguish whatever this is. |
| 19 | An Unopened Letter | A specific memory that once provided closure becomes locked away. You may vaguely remember the event, but not how it ended. |
| 20 | An Untethered Identity | You forget your place in a social structure or group. It could be your rank, your role, or even why you left. |
Permanent Death
If you pull all 3 black stones from the death bag then you "permanently die" (or "PD"). This is where the red stones come into play. The first time you PD, you have a chance to receive "divine intervention" (or "DI"). This means some powerful supernatural being has intervened in the events of the world to spare you from your fate. So long as you pull at least 1 red stone, you have a divine intervention of some sort. But the strength of the intervention varies by how many red stones you pull. Minor divine interventions may change very little about you, and major ones can give powerful new abilities and obligations as determined by the GM. The GM will take into account the strength of your character's faith, their actions in life, the power of different divine beings in the area, and perhaps other aspects in determining what exactly your divine intervention is. You may not know everything about your divine intervention from the moment you are offered it, but will likely have some sense of what you're gaining and what may be expected of you. You can always turn down a divine intervention that you don't want to receive, but you may not have any other options. At GM discretion, it is occasionally possible to get more than one offer of divine intervention at once as well as offers from deities you may not have a great history with in the past. An intervention may be from magnanimous deities you have strong ties to. Or it could be from one hoping to use you to gain power in this world. Interventions are not to be taken lightly.
| 0 Red Stones | No divine being intervenes. You permanently die. |
| 1 Red Stone | You experience some minor intervention such as a wound being less severe than first thought. You do not permanently die, but little else occurs. |
| 2 Red Stones | The intervention is still minor, but the divine being has taken some vested interest in you. They have some ongoing stake in your life, but the purpose of this may not be known. You may gain some minor power, but could also have some obligation the divine being expects you to fulfill. |
| 3-4 Red Stones | The divine being that intervenes does so with purpose. They have some clear vision for why they're keeping you alive and will give you some new power or ability and likely some new flaw in order to help you achieve their goal. |
| 5-6 Red Stones | A substantial amount of divine power is put into the intervention. You may gain multiple abilities and take on traits of whatever being saved you. |
| 7-8 Red Stones | The intervention leaves you flowing with divine power. You gain abilities and traits on the scale of an entire rank and are also recognizably divine in nature. You may gain wings, a divine glow, or some other feature relating you to either divinity or to the particular being that intervened. |
| 9 Red Stones | The divine being wields you as an instrument of theirs in the mortal world. You gain immense power, but are also intimately tied to the being that saved you. Their will always takes priority over yours. |
| 10 Red Stones | You become a walking symbol of the deity that spared you, likely becoming some important figure within their faith. You are a vessel for the divine and may be the subject of mortals' sacrifices and prayers. But you may also draw the personal ire of rival divine beings and their worshippers. |
When to Pull
You pull from the death bag immediately upon being revived. However, the full extent of what happens doesn't manifest right away. The consequences from pulling 1 stone applies immediately. But death scars, the effects of divine intervention, and permanent death often take a little time to appear. If the GM has aspects they know immediately, they might tell you something right away. But the full details of a death doesn't typically arrive until the next short rest, long rest, or other period of relative downtime. Nevertheless, you have immediately knowledge of what you pulled. This includes if you are about to permanently die. You are free to go out in a blaze of glory.
Your GM may also have you pull from the death bag for circumstances beyond a typical death. These are usually cases where you are still somehow permanently incapacitated such as being rendered unconscious by morganti damage.