My more serious character has somewhat archaic mentality, which means he cares alot about survival. So he succeeded in avoiding postmortem trips. He only exprerienced a singular madness attack once.
As for the silly man, he avoided any crisises so far. Fortune seems to favoure the brave as well as the stupid, nay ?
edited by Andrew Astherson on 11/13/2015
This attitude towards the boatman seems dreadfully pedestrian.
Fear of death? Bah. Are we surfacers? No! We are Neathers blessed with limited immortality, and it would be a shame not to use that for the occasional fatal indulgence.
Marina hasn’t died, no. She hasn’t gone to any of the menace areas, in fact, and though it leaves my heart kind of sad to not have the Forger as an acquaintance, doing anything that could even -risk- a criminal record is, way, way out of character.
Well I feel better about a current storyline then. Mr. Savage has an opportunity to battle whatever it is in the heart of the sorrow-spider den. The “this story will end when it, or you, are dead” had me a touch worried. Never been dead before, wasn’t sure he would like it.
Now I can go confidently knowing that death only changes the story :-)
Pssh, I’ve passed the torch so many times, I’m practically BFF’s with the Boatman.
It’s also a wonder how I’ve not yet been shipped permanently to the Colonies, since I’ve been mangled to death, shredded, poisoned, crushed, decapitated aaand of course that one time - impaled to a wall by that nice raggedy fellow, Sir Feducci.
[quote=Curious Foreigner]This attitude towards the boatman seems dreadfully pedestrian.
Fear of death? Bah. Are we surfacers? No! We are Neathers blessed with limited immortality, and it would be a shame not to use that for the occasional fatal indulgence.[/quote]
Ah, but some of us want to return to the Surface one day. Zareen has avoided meeting the Boatman for just that reason. A few of my more careless alts have taken the trip and it’s an interesting one. I like all the menace areas, though I think the Mirror Marches is the most intriguing.
Death and Prison are the two things I do my best to avoid because one day my character needs to return to the surface. He would love to visit Pairs and lets say, have ‘face to face’ with a certain master.
Sestina (and I) are the unhealthily curious sort, so she has died, been to jail, lost her sanity and been exiled many times. In fact, her first death was reckless in the sense that she knew she was close to death, but continued putting herself in Danger regardless.
My alt is very new, and so has not been to any of the menace areas yet. I will probably make them die at least once (perhaps I won’t even have any say in the matter…). That would be very much in-character.
I’m a fan of chess with the Boatman. And a few trips down the River make me feel more welcome in Venderbight.
I haven’t died yet, but maybe that’s just because I keep getting Horsehead Amulets from my Forgotten Quarter expeditions.
Yes, many times, though not recently. Once Lady Taimi met her husband, she stopped being quite so self-destructive (though no less danger-seeking).
My first alt had every intention of returning to the surface one day, and so I was very disappointed to have her be run through like a kebab by Feducci. (I had forgotten that insta-kill was a possibility when duelling him. Whoops.) This is a perfect example of the cognitive dissonance "lalala, didn’t happen!" I was speaking of in this thread; instead of incorporating this death into her character, I completely ignored it, and kept right on roleplaying that returning Upstairs was a completely valid option for her.
My second alt I took the complete opposite route. When she found herself in a terrible situation in the early game that lead to her needing to kill herself to escape, I embraced how much this trauma would have affected her, and it became a huge part of her character arc.
Amusingly, my fourth and probably final alt (I wanted to nose around every Ambition, naturally) is the only one who has yet to actually die in game, but her backstory is much too dangerous to have actually avoided the Boatman all these years, so for RP purposes, she and the Boatman know each other pretty well.
While I understand and appreciate the lack of permanent death for game mechanic purposes, it’s kind of a bummer for RP, since I think it removes a lot of tension from potentially lethal situations. As such, I’ve had to come up with a character-driven reason why each of my ladies prefers not to die in order to keep meaning in the issue of life or death.
Huh. I would say that having not ever triggered my stash of horsehead amulets I have yet to die - I’ve just used M. Feducci as a passage to the boatman. Out of sheer… I’m not even sure what (mostly to get my Watchful up?), I’ve grinded my stat there up to 40.
Somewhat related, I’ve only been to prison once (excluding the initial jailing) but I constantly wish there was a way to remove that criminal mark.
It’s like a stain on my pristine record.
Anatasia hasn’t faced much danger despite her daring personality yet, but I plan to have her die eventually for her brashness in a duel. Makes for good RP topic.
Kelly… probably will die repeatedly. Poor kid.
I hadn’t had many deaths until I first started trying to obtain an Impossible Theorem. Then I died a number of times in a row, and became friends with the Boatman. Thank heaven, compared to a POSI of long standing, he’s not very good at chess. :-)
I’ve died 7 times - in my pursuit to get 7 specific scars…
If not for Mr Eaten, I would have avoided dying as much as possible.
All my fifty deaths have been intentional, so I can impress Master Eaten with even more scars.
That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.
Siana’s only died once - and that was a poorly-prepared duel with Feducci. Of course, she ended up impaled against a wall - and met the Boatman for a lovely game of chess. She isn’t looking forward to repeating the experience, even if the Boatman is a very good chess player!
More than once, even before slipping him certain bribes. nowadays, I have a way to avoid his gaze, but it gets expensive.
The Duke first died in the later stages of the Cheesemonger’s story, battling many and worthy foes. It was unexpected—he’d been pretty careful up to that point—but not entirely, considering the stakes. Such was his devotion that he didn’t think it so heavy a price to pay if it was to ensure her safety; his ultimate failure to do so is what really weighs on his soul.