Is picrelated just one guy, some omnipresent being, or a race or group of fey or whatever? Any settings...

>i never read anything by terry pratchet

Holy shit Veeky Forums fucked over my smallcaps,
Yeah you can read that one as a standalone. However there is a Death trilogy of books, I think it starts with "Mort", "Reaper Man" as the middle and ends with "Soul Music". Up to you if you want to jump into the middle one

how about answering op questions -.-

I think it's cooler if even they don't know.

>some omnipresent being
Usually took it more like this then any of the others you listed but I don't usually have him be actually a being but more of a force of nature given a personification by society and popular media. So he's not a real person more an image that people see just before they die because it's what they expect.

That moment when I think the theory I just made up might be at least partially accurate irl.

He's one guy who spins his consciousness out into the cosmos and reaps people when their time comes, but he has a ton of servants who actually collect the spirits of the departed because that's something he can't do remotely.

bomp

READ EVERYTHING HE EVER WROTE.

DO SO NOW.

discworld sounds like a really stupid setting though

It's a fucking parody? By the way, do you have a fucking deathwish?

parody on what? discworld always seemed to me like
>haha im trying to be creative xd
by the author

Do you mean in the same way that Tolkien was, like
>haha im trying to be epic xd

and JK Rowling was, like
>haha im trying to be Dickens + Young Adult fantasy xd

It's literally just one guy.
He is last remaining cleric of what used to be a world spanning death religion, one of the very first religions.
His God created the afterlifes, long before it died itself.
The clerics used the God's body to craft artifacts of great power to continue the God's work in sending spirits to the their final destination.
The clerics, imbued with immortality but not eternal youth, aged and grew weary over the centuries.
Many succumbed and gave in to death.
Many ages passed this way.
The religion is all but forgotten.
There is just one reaping cleric left collecting all the world's souls, his work unending, his determination never faltering.
He continues although everything he ever cared about has long ago turned to dust.
He will do so forever.
He is Death.

NOW SHUT UP AND GET IN THE FUCKING BAG!

This actually is a pretty cool idea.
What kind of setting could pull this off the best? Standard fantasy with a more grim dark twist, or something like Spawn- and/or Hellboy-esque perhaps?

imo best settings for grim reaper are modern ones

I think it could be interesting.
I've been thinking about this sort of plot idea for a game inspired by The Shadowman video game, Spawn and Hellboy.
My initial idea is that you have the world of the living and the realm of the dead along with some kind of bridging dimension between the two. And deadside is governed by some kind of reaper figure who ensures that the dead stay dead, and that the living dont screw it up.
So the plot would revolve around the succession of reapers, where the reaper is not 'in office' forever, and so the players would be caught up in these otherworldly scheme with differnet spirits and demons, whom all vie for control of the reaper. In the interregnum of the reaper, the dead can cross between the worlds which is where the plot begins and the players get introduced into it. Any critique or ideas?

The whole thing is actually canon in my setting.
I have a short story written up about the mythology of the Death God and a major plot hook regarding the second to last reaper to fall.
Plus other undeveloped stuff, like a dungeon centered around the artifact weapon that killed the Death God.

This has potential.
It's an interesting idea with different avenues for the players to get involved with.

Thanks!

>What kind of companions would he have on a quest?

His steed. Perhaps also some kind of raven familiars. Seems pretty symbolic, but could become cliché.
How about some sort of henchman - some poor soul who commited some crime against death, and is then bound to follow along to serve his sentence. He could be a bruiser, or he could be more like the henchmen of Gabriel in the Prophecy movies, where Christopher Walken resurrects dead humans to drive him around, since he doesn't know how to himself.
youtube.com/watch?v=06YE_KsedfQ

Yeah.

It was one of the first ones I read. The side characters from the other books don't appear much at all, so it can be easily read standalone.

Before him, there was nothing, only oblivion. Every soul doomed to vanish.

Then came the loss of his beloved. Railing against the unbearable grief he made his bold statement. He declared his war on death.

His proclamation struck the hearts of countless others, for all mortals must know loss. A vast army gathered around his tower. From every corner of the world came the grieving, the abandoned and the desparate.

And so they waged war on death. Carving a realm out of the emptiness. Wresting space from the abyss. Forging an afterlife with their very souls.

Thus he sits on his throne, surrounded by the few survivors. Victorious. Alone.

He's a psychopomp. Duh.

this is ok. some reapers could abuse their owers i guess and then you could have reaper on reaper action. only thing i dont like is that they are basically witch hunters. would play though

boring

sounds outlandish. whats the difference between the governing reaper and the others? how does one ascend? they pick their leaders by kill Kills, Deaths, Assists? lol

i meant companions that players could play as, not mounts lol. yeah
>some sort of henchman
obviously. maybe they are in the process of becoming reapers as well?

>his beloved
?
>the grieving, the abandoned and the desperate
>they waged war on death
?

Death, also known as the Grim Reaper, is a common element in culture and history. As a personified force it has been imagined in many different ways. In some mythologies, the Grim Reaper causes the victim's death by coming to collect him. In turn, people in some stories try to hold on to life by avoiding Death's visit, or by fending Death off with bribery or tricks. Other beliefs hold that the Spectre of Death is only a psychopomp, serving to sever the last ties between the soul and the body, and to guide the deceased to the afterlife, without having any control over when or how the victim dies. In many mythologies, Death is personified in male form, while in others, Death is perceived as female (for instance, Marzanna in Slavic mythology).
-wikipedia intro paragraph on grim reaper

I really like PFs take on Death and its role in shepherding souls to the afterlife. There is a death god named Pharasma who judges all souls (though my own setting has a death god for each race) before sending them to their appropriate afterlife, but she has an army of "angels" called psychopomps that serve her and act as the reapers. They range from little songbirds and ravens with masks for faces called nosoi, to the skeletal vanth who look like naked raven winged skeletons, to the Memitim who look like goth valkyrie, to the bright and colorful but skeletal catrinas, to the powerful raven feathered dragons the Yamaraj, and many others.

>death god for each race
was just thinking about this, lol.
are gods in your setting real? are all of those dead gods of each race real? is it one god after all? because i think its pretty stupid to have numerous gods (that exist) of x for every race. was thinking of what could be some reasons that a god decides to appear in various forms to different cultures

death gods*

In my setting they're a bunch of semi-divine entities theorically ruled by the God of Death (a primordial, half-dead god himself,whose first priest invented necromancy and made undeath possible by fuckin' up too much). They're basically the most powerful agents of Death,sent to deal with the passing of important characters (emperors,great religious leaders,demigods and such),keeping order in the Afterlife (as buroucrats of sorts), and sometimes as martial champions.

There are just a few of them,with their own personalities,agendas and such,so they mostly delegate on minor psychopomps. Also,being half-dead and chained to a throne in Hell,their boss doesn't pronounce himself much,except in absolutely important occasions.
Every religion has its Heaven and Hell,so to speak,so when deciding where to sent the souls of dead mortals they simply apply a set of Rules given to them by their god;these rules are followed by the minor psychopomps (judges of death) charged with dealing with common people and their fate; Grim Reapers only act personally when dealing with the important people cited above.

>this is ok. some reapers could abuse their owers i guess and then you could have reaper on reaper action. only thing i dont like is that they are basically witch hunters. would play though
>would play though
This is best thing you could say about my idea, i love you user.
So much worldbuilders are focusing on writing overly elaborate and complicated lore, instead of focusing on what the actual adventure is going to be about.
I like that, so i am going to brainstorm some more ideas.
>Death God interacts very rarely with his reapers, apart from those important times where he is checking your soul quota
>So, sometimes you're going to have a free time
>The setting is a gothic fantasy by the way
>Humans can't see you, only priests, some gifted individuals and magical beings
>Faeries are offering side jobs in exchange for some useful trinkets and teaching their magic
>Because the Death God are so rarely seen sitting at your shoulder, they're exists factions amongst the reapers
>Secret rebels who want to escape and fear their unknown fate after paying the debt, obeyers who are enjoying their unlifes, guys who want to reverse their undeath and interact with the livings a lot and the filthy moderates. There is more of course.
>The group of notorious villains escaped Hell. You need to bring them back.
>Another fraud involving devils and soul bargaining, you're going to check this
>Some poor shmuck become the chosen one of your god, you need to help him with his new job.

>are gods in your setting real?
Yes, very much so. During the Age of Creation they walked the world, building empires, making races, warring, loving, and setting up the future. This stopped of course when the Age of Darkness ended the Age of Creation. When one pantheon gets together and decides to pull down a few asteroids to kill another pantheon in an act of utter evil and stupidity, some rules have to be established and enforced. Thankfully it only killed half of both pantheons, and didnt result in the utter destruction of most life, just a nuclear winter scenario for a a few hundred years. Now everyone sits in their afterlives in a deific version of MAD enacted by powerful artifacts and world ending spells.

>are all of those death gods of each race real?
Yes, they form the Boneyard Tribunal. They deliberate amongst themselves when it comes to particularly tough cases of where a soul should go, proper maintenance of the cycle of death and life and rebirth, monitoring of the creation of undead and making sure they remain as little of a threat as possible via their destruction and such, and other responsibilities. Being dead or having been dead at some point really tends to mellow out your attitude when it comes to the accumulation of power in the form of god stuff. Besides, more souls coming in means more work, and more work ensures less boredom.

>is it one god after all?
I hate this idea so much, I went the opposite and made as many gods as make sense for each race.

>was thinking of what could be some reasons that a god decides to appear in various forms to different cultures
Boredom, lack of care when it comes to how it's represented by the culture, malicious sowing of intentional differences, etc. It can be many reasons.

are the various pantheons related? where did they all come from? do gods have gods?

>are the various pantheons related?
Yes and no. Some are related, the Azlanti pantheon gave rise to the human and orc pantheons for example, but most are separate from each other. Some gods are personifications and are thus worshipped by all races and don't actually belong to any one pantheon. Gozreh, he/she of the sky and ocean is one example.

>where did they all come from?
Many arose spontaneously, arising from the world whole and complete. The gnoll pantheon is a good example of this, the core group arose from the grasslands of their home region and formed what they call First Tribe. Many pantheons though are filled or formed of ascended beings, or powerful spirits turned gods, or birthed by other gods. The Ratfolk pantheon is a good representation of this, where all of their gods are made from the original crew members of their crashed space vessels along with the main AI of their main ship (yes they are aliens from another solar system and are a relatively new race for the world).

>do gods have gods?
No. There are only a couple beings more powerful than a god, and those are not worshipped by anything. The Primordial Serpents are entities of untold power who give birth to whole universes, flowing through the Cerulean Void that surrounds each egg of a multiverse. Only the most knowledgeable of gods, or the ones filled with mad visions of their place in the grand scheme of all realities, even know of these beings.