My first D&D character, Taggert Stark (This was in the days before Winter Is Coming and men of iron was a thing.), died flinging gemstones at a Dragon Turtle. In retrospect, he deserved it. And sure, he got better, but not all of my RPG characters can say that, but every death was memorable.
Josh Trujillo (The Provider, Unlawful Good: An Anthology of Crime) has taken that truth and run with it by creating a comic anthology called Death Saves: Fallen Heroes of the Kitchen Table about RPG characters and their deaths (many of them based on true stories) and launching a Kickstarter campaign for the book. Planned as a 132-page, full-color comic, Death Saves collects 16 stories and involves over 30 creators to make it happen, including Adam Koebel, the award-winning game designer behind Dungeon World.
As Trujillo describes it, “Some of the tales in Death Saves are funny, others tragic, others something else entirely. Every gaming table is different; however, one constant is that the real relationships between players impact the fantasy characters’ fate as much as the dice.”
Death Saves has already reached its initial Kickstarter goal, and even its first few stretch goals, but there is still plenty of room to contribute. Backer levels are set as a level and class starting as a Level 1 Commoner at $5. At $5 you gain a PC class as a Level 2 Barbarian where you or a beloved RPG character of your choice will have their name and level (based on backer level) included in the pages of the book as an epitaph. Once you’ve leveled up to $10 as a Level 4 Illusionist, you gain access to the PDF copy of the book, with the $25 Level 5 Rogue swiping the physical version. (The first few were sold at $20 as a Level 5 Thief. Ha! Get it?) The $30 Level 6 Bard gains poster prints, while $35 Level 7 Clerics get a 400+ page digital bundle of comics from Death Saves‘creators.
Do you yearn for high-level play? At $100 a Level 7 Ranger has editor Josh Trujillo edit your comic script or gaming adventure, providing a full list of notes and suggestions plus all previous rewards. And, at the $500 Level 20 Demigod level, you could have yourself or a fantasy character killed in the actual Death Saves book.
Visit the Death Saves Kickstarter page for more details on the project and to check out the gorgeous art they have up on the site. The campaign runs until March 12th, so you have plenty of time. Who knows, maybe your character will die in the most epic way possible before then (but you’ll probably be steamed to death by a Dragon Turtle you pelted with gemstones).
