Refuses to Stay Dead

Your natural end has already passed. Something intervened — a bargain struck at the threshold, an obligation powerful enough to hold the body past its time, or simply a refusal so complete it bent the terms of mortality. You are difficult to damage permanently, recover from wounds that should be terminal, and perceive the dead as clearly as the living. The creditor who holds your note will call eventually.

Connection: Choose one of the following.

1. Pick one other PC. They were present when you came back. They may not know exactly what they witnessed, but they were there.
2. Pick one other PC. The creditor who holds your continuation has expressed an interest in them. You do not know yet if this is protective or something else.
3. Pick one other PC. They are entirely certain you were dead once — they may have attended the funeral — and they have not fully reconciled your continued existence.
4. Pick one other PC. Something about their presence makes you harder to damage. When they are within immediate range, you gain +1 Armour.

Additional Equipment: A small marker of your deferred death — a healed wound that should have killed you, a burial item you kept, or an object given to you by whatever holds your note.

GM Intrusion: The creditor calls in a service at an inconvenient moment. The deferral slips and you feel the full weight of what is being held back. Something about you unsettles living creatures in ways you cannot fully control.

Geas: Death has been deferred, not cancelled. Something holds the note on your continued existence — a creditor with terms. That creditor can call in a service at any time, and refusal means the deferral ends immediately. You do not always know in advance what will be asked of you; you know only that the terms were accepted and the debt is real. You have an inability on tasks involving deceiving or evading the entity that holds your continuation.

Minor Effect Suggestion: The wound closes faster than it should, and anyone watching understands instinctively that something about this person is not entirely natural.

Major Effect Suggestion: Your refusal to yield is so absolute that an opponent is briefly terrified of you, losing their next action.

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Tier 1

Improved Recovery: Your ten-minute recovery roll takes only one action instead, so your first two recovery rolls are each one action, your third takes one hour, and your fourth takes ten hours. Enabler.

Push on Through (2 Might points): You ignore the effects of difficult terrain while moving for one hour. Enabler.

Liminal Form: Your partial distance from ordinary biological life grants you certain immunities. You are immune to disease and to poisons that operate by biological mechanism. You are also trained in tasks involving resisting effects that specifically target the living, such as abilities that exploit biological vulnerabilities or that require a living target as a condition. Enabler.

Tier 2

Ignore the Pain: You ignore the hindrance imposed by your final moderate wound. Each major wound still hinders your actions as normal. Enabler.

Death Sense: You perceive the dead, spirits, and places of death as clearly as you perceive the living. You are trained in tasks involving navigating spaces associated with death, identifying the presence of spirits, and communicating with the recently deceased. Enabler.

Tier 3

Ability Choice. Choose either Blood Fever or Hidden Reserves as your tier 3 ability.

Blood Fever: When you have no points in one or two of your Pools, you gain an asset to attacks or defence rolls (your choice). Enabler.

Hidden Reserves: When you use an action to make a recovery roll, you also gain +1 to both your Might Edge and your Speed Edge for ten minutes. Enabler.

Tier 4

Ability Choice. Choose either Step Across or Outlast the Foe as your tier 4 ability.

Step Across (4 Intellect points): You briefly cross into the space the dead occupy, becoming partially insubstantial. For one round, physical attacks pass through you (you gain an asset to Speed defence tasks but cannot interact with physical objects or make physical attacks). You can perceive and communicate with any spirits present during this time, regardless of other conditions. Action to initiate; lasts until the beginning of your next turn.

Outlast the Foe: After five full rounds of combat, you gain an asset for all tasks in the remainder of that combat and deal 1 additional point of damage per attack. Enabler.

Tier 5

Not Dead Yet: When you would normally be dead, you instead fall unconscious for one round and then awaken. You immediately regain 1d6 + 6 points distributed among your Pools however you wish, and all your actions are hindered by two steps until you rest for ten hours. If you die again before making your ten-hour recovery roll, you are truly dead. If you also have this ability from another source, your healing increases to 1d6 + 12. Enabler.

Tier 6

Ability Choice. Choose either Final Defiance or The Creditor’s Due as your tier 6 ability.

Final Defiance: When you would normally be dead, you instead remain conscious and active for one more round, plus one additional round each time you succeed on a difficulty 5 Might task. During these rounds all your actions are hindered by two steps. If you do not receive healing during your final round(s), you are subject to Not Dead Yet. Enabler.

The Creditor’s Due (7 Intellect points): Once per day, you call in a service from whatever holds your continuation. This takes the form of a specific intervention: a creature of up to level 6 bound to serve you for one hour, an immediate restoration of 10 points distributed among your Pools however you wish, or the reversal of one effect — a death, a binding, a transformation — affecting yourself or a creature you touch. The nature of the intervention is negotiated with the GM, but it is real and immediate. After using this ability, the GM introduces a complication tied to the creditor’s interest. Action.