OK, I can see some pretty reasonable if uncomplicated conclusions being reached. First it seems that nobody has a problem with the idea of playing afterlife per se, but that generally there's the problem of making sure that there's something fun for the player to play through there. For some this means finding a way to keep the character largely in contact with the mundane world and the other PCs perhaps. For others there's some scant reference to some source material for ideas about what dealing with the afterlife might be like.
I think that the worry that the source material doesn't have many actually dead characters isn't all that pertinent. I mean, dead or alive, I can see a Dante-esque quest into hell being interesting to play through. The other sources seem just as good to me as well. That's not to say that we have an abundance, but just that I think that one could develop one's own ideas from the sorts of sources discussed. Not to mention all of the voluminous Glorantha references about heroquests in general. That is, since the character is now on the other side, it seems like he's free to do a lot of investigation of it, whatever is there.
That's actually one point I wanted to get to - do you think the characters are limited in the afterlife in terms of the otherworlds? My assumption is that, when a very faithful Orlanthi dies, he goes to Orlanth's Hall (or whatever it's called, I don't know the mythology precisely). Or to some place in the otherworld that corresponds with the god the character most strongly associated with. Isn't that the reason behind much of worship, that you can avoid permenant death, and gain an afterlife with your diety if you worship enough? Where do you go when you die?
Interestingly, it seems to me that if you really need to get to the appropriate otherworld desperately that you can do so by killing yourself. That said, I'm also as sure that most gods have rules against this in order to keep their worshippers doing honest work in the mundane world instead of all just coming and crashing with the god (please remember that my facetiousness is simply an attempt at dealing with the subject matter humorously, and that in actual play this would all be handled very sombrely and deeply). Even Humakti only ritually kill themselves, right? Only Humakt is allowed to decide when it's time for his worshipper to pass, no?
The point being that this gives the character a whole new environment from which to exist. From Orlanth's Stead, can he range out and see the rest of the god world? Or do souls that rest there find such relief and joy that they never leave? Even restless PC souls? Can they go to otherworlds besides the one of their afterlife? The heroplane? Anywhere else?
And, without being crass about it, can the character fight his way back to life? Actually we know that Ganval Shamans can do something about it. What happens there, really? I'm thinking that the secret that they know is something that anyone could learn in theory - just that it's rare, rare, rare. In any case, if a soul of a character does return to the Mundane World, what happens then? Are they Ghosts? If it's only communicative, then isn't this really just talking from the god world to the mundane world, and not really being there?
This leads me to a question that's really sorta deep, and has been plaguing me lately. Is a mundane world spirit really in the mundane world? If so, then it has to have a body, right? Well, I've seen examples of "incorporeal spirits." Are these really in the mundane world? Or just "helping" across the barriers between the world, instead existing in the spirit world in a place parallel to an associated place in the mundane world?
Please think about the question twice before answering, because it may not be as simple as it seems.
Then there's the "problem" of enumeration. Here's what I'm thinking: Complete Defeats don't precisely add mechanical difficulties to a character, they transform them. A dead character essentially is now a soul (spirit, whathaveyou) dissociated with it's previous body, and sent to the appropriate otherworld in most cases. As such, it can no longer use it's abilities to affect the mundane world, since it needed that body to do so. But the abilities in question, just as when the character could heroquest, are still just as useful on the other side. So you really don't change the character sheet at all, except to note that the abilities are now only useful in the otherworlds.
Meaing that, yeah, there's little that the character can do to interact with the mundane world. Unless somebody puts him in a fetish or something. I mean, at this point the character has potentially become an "ancestor" per the definitions of ancestor worship and the like. That is, it seems that a lot of magic, animism most obviously, has to do with dealing with folks who have passed. As such, like other ancestor practices, I'd assume that they could be brought back into a fetish. Wherupon the character would have the same ability to interact with the world that any spirit in a fetish would. Spirit Ally? Even more fully interactive.
I believe that it says somewhere that ressurection is still possible. Seems likely to me that this is simply a quest to the appropriate otherworld to bring the character's soul back. Since it doesn't happen a lot, I'd imaging that the gods or whomever make this more than a bit difficult, with a likely repercussion of failure that the questers never make it back themselves. Hence the rarity of the occurance.
Then there's undeath...seems similar to ressurection with the key difference being that the character returns to animate a dead body (which probably tends to make you insane - or do you have to be insane in the first place to even think about it - chicken/egg).
So it seems to me that there's lots of potential for stuff to do after death with characters. I've probably only scratched the surface.
Generally, for me, I think that the principle is simply to ask the player if he's content to let the character go at this point, or if he thinks there's anything to do post-life that might make for interesting play. But this is generally no different than my opinion overall of how this should be handled - that is, at any sensible climax in the action I always ask if players want to end playing their current character and move on to another.
Thoughts?
Mike
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