On Stories Untold

Writing this because...Well because I am. Hold onto your hats folks it's time for a good o'l fashioned wordpress overshare.

One of our D&D group died. He died nearly two weeks ago, but it was announced yesterday, on Facebook, because that's still how folks do these things. My last messages to him were asking him if I'd forgotten him saying that he wasn't coming to the game, which of course he wasn't, being already dead. I convened an emergency discord and told people, because I don't like messaging that sort of news. You can't put black sealing wax on a dm, there's no way of precis-ing it with enough tone of voice to tell someone they need to sit down. You don't know if their in the bath, or on a bus, or in the middle of some important meeting. And it's just shit. So we did it as in person as it gets.

S. used to play camera off, so for the past four or so years, every other (ish) Sunday, they have heard his voice but not seen his face. I have known S. a lot longer, from my old university days, in the closing years of the last century. Sometime in between then and now we would reacquaint ourselves, I demonstrating my usual lack of self-preservation instincts trying out his various magical effects - from being sawn in half with a jigsaw to watching him unstick a guillotine blade so it could continue hurtling towards my neck.

Of the current plot lines in the game, it has become a running joke that at least three players have independently made themselves the Kwisatch Haderach...he was one of them and we were just about to reach an important crossroads in his character's journey. That story is now a wrapped gift that will not be given, but unlike a scarf or a blanket, the act of giving also completes the pattern. Neither he nor I get to see how it would have turned out. I think it would have been good though. Of course there are many things that will go unsaid in 'real life' that I may ponder, as with any sudden (or not so sudden) death, and one might say those are what 'matters'. But still, part of this mourning will be sadness for an act of creation that will now never be.

I have offered to facilitate an in character space for our group, should they wish. We will honour him and the character he created. It's not really something that's mentioned in the DM's Guide, but it seems like the right thing to do. For now, I've simply asked if we can take a break.