#thats not to mention their other weird things with bones and skeletons & pulses and blood. mr heartsy predilection. and many other tidbits

[szilverer]

Reisz only exists because of a string of murders. They don't know it, but they were born from a cocoon of corpses. Their very body is a graveyard.

Maybe that's why the concept seems to matter so little for them. Isn't death natural? They intimately cannot understand the fear of death yet, and they intimately know they are the odd one here. (There's a factor at play here that affects them on an instinctual level.)

They have once said with unexpected uncertainty:

It's everywhere, if you stop to pay attention to it.

Reisz' thrill-seeking might be defined as death-seeking by some. That's a fair take.

They have no actual interest in dying – not yet, not when they can still feel alive with simple pleasures, not when feeling their own pulse is enough – but they wouldn't mind if they died as long as the event was worth it. If they are to die, they don't want to be a tree falling silently in a forest. They want it to be meaningful. If not for others, at least to themself: a fun death. An adrenaline-fueled death. A death mid-laughter. A death like an exhausted child finally falling asleep.

What are your character's thoughts on permanent death?

The funny bit is that they don't quite know about the Far-Shore. I don't remember a single explicit explanation about it in-game, so according to my own rules, it's as if they don't fully know! (Kinda have to suspend my disbelief here because of the entire Dilmun Club, but I blame TBI-induced memory loss issues for these bits. They are aware it's a place but not what it means. It's more as if it were an euphemism for them, or another word for the concept of afterlife.)

I think they'd be a lot less nonchalant about death if they were fully aware it's less "eternal unconscious rest" and more "eternal conscious suffering" down here in the Neath. Might experience a twinge of guilt (!) over the ones they've permakilled, even. But as it is they don't feel anything. It barely registers. Sometimes they mistakenly assume to be doing others a favour.

Has your character died before?

They have seen the Boatman three times, so far. Coincidentally (fate, mayhaps) each one had them engulfed by crushing all-encompassing darkness:

⚠️ [ SPOILERS for early LF (coffin) & vaguely alluded evolution below ]

THE FIRST:

here is a blurb I wrote on that very day waiting for my actions to recharge, and an equally old doodle:

They had recently gotten A Bringer Of Death from early Dangerous MYN and were still processing how easy it was to take another life. For no reason other than being asked to. They were also rescuing a lady they didn't care about just because they were asked to. None of these things haunted them. Isn't that strange? Wrong? Doesn't that mean there's something wrong with them?

Does it matter?

They heard death wasn't permanent on the Neath, but it's not like they had seen it (again, this was veeeery early on my account). It's not like they were hoping to come back. They just found it really funny. Something about being in a coffin, being down on the earth-- it was really, really, really funny. The laughter rose from their bones.

THE VELVET-LINED BOX.

They woke up, went kinda insane about it and brutally smashed their skull right away. The entire thing lasted like. 10 minutes total. Maybe 11 or 13.

its kind of a mechanic plot hole, so my HC is that the Boatman personally transported them out of the coffin because he knew Reisz had a major role to play in Evolution & he wouldn't let them stay stuck in a death loop under the earth forever. also got another post gushing about the vivisepulture here :3c

THE SECOND:

I won't go into detail, but if yk ik. Very reminiscent. A surprisingly traumatic experience considering the perceived time they spent sinking? Also very dubious if it counts as a real death or if they reached that place by being plucked by the Boatman again. Either way I count it as a death. It sure felt like one.

THE DIVING BELL.

Regardless, Death is a companion.

THE THIRD:

my (player) first and Only oopsie D: with major repercussions :D

This is already long enough so imma link the post here. TL;DR they got betrayed by their own crew and ended up chomped, brought to the Pillared Sea's zee-depths while being torn to pieces in the process; and then somehow returned perfectly healthy, healed and in one piece on their own bed back in London.

A LACERATING PREDATOR.

Not only had the Boatman plucked them up again, but this time so did the Fathomking beforehand.

Reisz was deeply disturbed by the whole event, infected by a sense of wrongness they couldn't explain. Shouldn't this have been a permadeath? Surely it must have been. Did they have special treatment, for some reason? Three times is a pattern.

Either way, they don't look back, so they've been successfully ignoring all the uncomfortable questions this brought up. (They haven't quite dared zailing back around these waters ever since, though.)

I thoroughly avoid menace areas so if I don't do another oopsie their fourth death shall be another scripted one... 👁 👁 waiting

#14

What is your character's relationship to death? Are they afraid of it? Intrigued? Unbothered? Has your character died before? What are your character's thoughts on permanent death?