When Ugorcil, the god of death, established the courts of the afterlife, he established a series of mandates, which became the unbreakable rules for the death, dying, and the dead. One of these rules was that no one would be returned to life with their memories of the other side fully intact. Before leaving the court of Ugorcil, one of the beings there removes the memories from the mind of the person being resurrected. Tragically, this process is not perfect, and usually results in either damage to the person’s life force, body, or mind. Also possible is the lingering remnants of memories buried in the subconscious, which nonetheless cause lingering psychological effects.
When a PC returns to life in my game (through Reincarnate, Raise Dead, Resurrection, etc) they do not suffer the normal ill effects (no loss of Con, no level loss) Instead, they must roll upon this table, the Resurrection Mishap Table. Also called the ‘How Do I Get Screwed Table’ and ‘The Ground’s Gone Sour Table’ as well as my favorite, the ‘Come Back Wrong’ table. The rules are simple: the player rolls once (or the DM rolls if the player has access to this table) and the DM looks up the result. If it is appropriate, he fills in the player. If it needs to be kept secret, he does so. The effects of this table should be nigh onto impossible to remove. (Although they might be counteracted. A roll that results in a lost feat doesn’t mean the player is forbidden from ever retaking that feat at a later level) Removing effects like this should require a major undertaking for a church or clergy of a god of at least greater status, and not listed as an enemy to any of Ugorcil’s children.
And for those interested, yes, this table is based on the one found in ‘Heroes of Horror’ although I have expanded mine from twenty-five entries to one hundred, and only use twenty-three of the original ones in the HoH supplement.
Since I can’t figure out how to post the file to this page, I provide a link to it here.
OOOOO, I’m gonna get to see this secret table? I’ve been very troubled with the fact that I have no idea “what went wrong” with Beta after he was resurrected, since he seems perfectly fine and you won’t tell me…but I KNOW something’s different. I’m just wondering when I’ll find out.
And let me know what you’re needing help with, babe. Are you needing an actual table with columns and rows? Because I don’t think WordPress gets you that option via a button, but I can hand-code that for you, if you need.
What type of difficulties?
Can’t figure out how to attach the file to this page. No worries though, I found a way around it. I’m just going to post it to Spring’s webpage, cause she owns her own domain, and then link to it.
[...] Stilldale. The cleric then (thankfully!) resurrects Natalia. And, oh joy, I get to roll on the Shit Went Wrong table. I roll. Jim looks it up. He then tells me that when Natalia comes back, she comes back [...]