When killing off an important character, friend, brother or someone important to The MC. How do you feel about it?

CharlesEBrown said:

The curse is that until the three artifacts he created that, together so offended the gods, are once again brought together and destroyed by someone who understands that this act will end his punishment, he cannot die, no matter what happens to him.

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The tricky part seems to be that someone needs to be the one to destroy them, and understand what they're doing. Otherwise, the artifacts would naturally come together from the physics of the universe, even if it took eons. I assume the gods exist outside the universe itself?

If he can't die no matter what, then how does pain work? If he didn't eat forever, or jumped into a volcano, you said he can't heal, but you're nothing without your brain, so how does that work? Seems like if he really wanted to unalive, then it's not insurmountable.

Emotica said:

The tricky part seems to be that someone needs to be the one to destroy them, and understand what they're doing. Otherwise, the artifacts would naturally come together from the physics of the universe, even if it took eons. I assume the gods exist outside the universe itself?

If he can't die no matter what, then how does pain work? If he didn't eat forever, or jumped into a volcano, you said he can't heal, but you're nothing without your brain, so how does that work? Seems like if he really wanted to unalive, then it's not insurmountable.

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He heals VEEERRRRY slowly in cases like that. Once got caught in a spell detonation that laid him up for two months. He doesn't have any special healing ability, but if it can be recovered from, it will... at about half the rate a normal person would take.

CharlesEBrown said:

He heals VEEERRRRY slowly in cases like that. Once got caught in a spell detonation that laid him up for two months. He doesn't have any special healing ability, but if it can be recovered from, it will... at about half the rate a normal person would take.

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Sounds well thought out. I assume that there's reasonable incentive for him not to "hack" the curse, because there definitely seems to be enough ways to temporarily incapacitate himself. Not sure what your jumping into a volcano, or heat death of the universe explanation is, but seems reasonable enough to avoid plot-wise.

I have some deaths planned, and I'm already dreading it.

I almost always have it outlined for which major characters will die, when they will, and roughly how it will happen. It doesn't really feel like I'm condemning them. More like I'm writing the MC's biography and that time period just happens to be where a tragic end took place for their loved one.

The "writing MC's biography, not personally deciding their lives" is a good way to keep your personal biases out of the story. Even characters I love, just like if you were writing about historical figures, you know they died at some point. Such is life; hopefully theirs was worth celebrating.

Emotica said:

Sounds well thought out. I assume that there's reasonable incentive for him not to "hack" the curse, because there definitely seems to be enough ways to temporarily incapacitate himself. Not sure what your jumping into a volcano, or heat death of the universe explanation is, but seems reasonable enough to avoid plot-wise.

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Unless they decide he's already been punished enough, the gods would intervene in the "jump into a volcano" thing and pull him out - his charred skeleton would then begin the years long process of mending itself, painfully.
In a multiverse where magic exists, entropy may not be an absolute.