#death bed

[anim-ttrpgs]

Something that I think is going to be a hurdle in advertising Death Bed: An Impenetrably Medieval Dungeon Game is making people read “historically accurate” and not think of, like, F.A.T.A.L. Not because F.A.T.A.L. is historically accurate, it isn't, or that people are going to think specifically of F.A.T.A.L., but because "it's historically accurate" is a common phrase for the kind of people who make particularly nasty grimdark-in-a-racist-way stuff in the TTRPG scene.

[luna-azzurra]

Deathbed confessions!!

⟡ "I need to tell you something," she said, and the heart monitor beeped steadily and outside the window it was an ordinary day , "I need to tell you something and I need you to not say anything until I'm finished."

⟡ "I wasn't who you thought I was," he said. She squeezed his hand. "I know," she told him. "I loved who you actually were." He cried then, first time in thirty years, and she held his hand until the crying stopped and then kept holding it after.

⟡ She told him about the night she almost left. Twenty-three years ago, the bag she'd packed, the door she'd stood at. He listened and then he said, very quietly, "I know. I found the bag." They looked at each other across thirty years of not saying it. "I'm glad you stayed," he said. "Me too," she said. "Me too."

⟡ "I lied to you," he said, "about where I was that summer." She already knew. She'd known for years. But she let him tell it, let him have the unburdening of it, because some confessions aren't about the listener. Some confessions are about dying clean.

⟡ "I was so angry at you," she said, "for so long, and I wasted so much of it being angry and now there's no time and I'm still a little angry and I love you so much and I don't know what to do with either of those things."

⟡ He told her about the money. About where it came from, all those years ago, how he'd built everything they had on something he'd never been able to say out loud. She was quiet for a long time. Then she said, "Did you do it for us?" "Yes," he said. "Then stop," she said. "Just stop. I already know the rest."

⟡ She asked him if he was scared. He thought about lying. He'd spent his whole life not admitting to things like that. "Yeah," he said, "yeah, I'm scared." She moved closer. "Me too," she said, even though she was the one who was fine, even though she'd be walking out of here.

⟡ "There's a letter," he said, "in the left drawer of the desk, behind the insurance papers." She told him she'd find it. She did. She has read it so many times the paper is soft at the folds. She keeps meaning to write back. She hasn't figured out the address yet.

⟡ She told him she'd loved someone else once. Before him. Right up until him. He thought about how to feel about that and decided it didn't matter, decided the only thing that mattered was the hand in his and the time they'd had and that she was here now, telling him, because she trusted him with all of it, even the parts that weren't his. Especially those parts.

⟡ She said I love you seventeen times in the last hour. He counted. He counted because he needed something to do with his hands and his brain and the terror of it all. Seventeen. He will never in his life hear those words without hearing her voice saying them, stacking them up, spending them like she finally had permission.

[389]

[transcribepaige]

@anim-ttrpgs just put their historically-accurate souls-like ttrpg Death Bed: An Impenetrably Medieval Dungeon Game into playable beta, so after reading through the book and rolling up a few strugglers, I was inspired to try and draw one of them;

this is Aoife The Rat, a left-handed, red-haired peasant-woman who is a known thief, liar, knave, cur, etc.

I also want to talk about how Death Bed's rules and mechanics inspired me to make this character, and how I've been able to flesh her out from just reading the rules of Death Bed;

Part of character creation is to write a 'Truth' for your struggler, a word or sentence which represents an aspect of their personality that they get bonuses for following. Aoife's Truth is Never More Than A Rat, representing that she sees herself as trapped into the role of a lowly vagabond, never allowed to reach a higher status by those above her. If they call her a rat, regardless of how hard she tries to get their approval, she might as well reap the benefits of actually being one, right?

Death Bed also has an important and fascinating mechanic where every character has a Social Status score, which directly affects how two strugglers are likely to interact. A struggler can pull rank on other strugglers with lower social statuses, telling them what to do or face consequences. If the difference in social status is high enough, it is even within the higher-ranking struggler's right to strike the lower ranking struggler whensoever they please, and are in fact encouraged to in situations like when Aoife's sharp tongue and arrogant manner drive her to insult those high above her station.

All of which- being forced to obey rules, getting kicked down for disobedience or anything perceived as acting out- has the very real consequence of hollowing.

If you've played Dark Souls, you're already familiar with the idea; a character loses their sense of humanity, they slowly rot into a living corpse until they lose any sense of self and become a violent, shambling husk. A lot of ttrpgs claim to be 'Dark Souls-inspired' by being vaguely gothic fantasy, but Death Bed actually feels like The Dark Souls ttrpg.

The left-most depiction is a fully human Aoife; the right-most is her fully-hollowed self on the brink of becoming a mindless zombie. Each stage of hollowing has mechanical disadvantages (reduced vitality, loss of senses, more distrust from others, as if Aoife needed more of that), and at the worst stage, unable to speak. But it also has a few advantages as well (increasing immunity to bleeding and poison, not needing to breath, etc.)

In Death Bed, hollowing doesn't just occur when your character dies; they slowly hollow whenever they face extreme stress such as watching someone die, retreating from combat, or committing serious social faux-pas. Death Bed is impenetrably medieval; social decorum matters a lot.

The Social Status mechanic was the main inspiration for making Aoife; she was designed to have a social status as close to 0 as I could get, both by aspects of her birth (being red-haired and left-handed) and by her own actions, like being a practiced thief and extremely paranoid. (Though if you asked her, those stemmed from the aspects of her birth as well.)

You can see how, even mechanically, the world has taught Aoife to believe she will truly never be more than a rat. At which points that stops being a pessimistic truth of her life and where it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy and an excuse is difficult to say.

All of this stemming from and directly supported by the rules of the game, and at no point butting heads with or going against the rules for the sake of narrative.

[saqvobase]

Characters in Death Bed

I've been part of the early play-testing of @anim-ttrpgs Death Bed: An Impenetrably Medieval Dungeon Game, and I've been having a lot of fun.

Before Death Bed, I often bounced off of troupe style dungeon crawling because I found it difficult to keep that many characters distinct, but Death Bed does it really well.

Each character chooses from a variety of Traits that incentivize specific behaviors and strategies. From wretched scoundrels to lovely ladies who must be treated as such.

Characters have techniques they can use during combat, and can take Stances depending on the situation. Two characters with the same weapon can use it in very different ways.

The majority of characters controlled by players will often be non-combatants, brought along for their essential skills such as cooking, appraisal, scouting, or negotiation (and more!).

Non-combatants provide an interesting wrinkle in combat, keeping non-combatants safe during combat provides extra XP, which will affect the party's strategy, as well as the strategy of their opponents.

Each Character has their own social standing, informing interesting dynamics of how they think of each other, and who makes the decisions.

All of this contributes to making a character feel mechanically unique before the player's role-playing completes it. No two Strugglers are the same, even if they fulfill similar roles

It's available now in Alpha!!

Death Bed: An Impenetrably Medieval Dungeon Game (Alpha March 23rd 2026) by Agency of Narrative Intrigue and Mystery

[srednod]

Friedrich von Amerling Friedrich (Fritz) Amerling on his deathbed (the artist’s son) 1850

[preraphaelitepaintings]

Dante's Dream

Artist: Dante Gabriel Rossetti (English, 1828=1882)

Date: ca. 1869-1871

Medium: Oil on canvas

Collection: Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, United Kingdom

Description

Rossetti had a life-long interest in the Italian poet Dante. This painting shows an episode from the 'Vita Nuova'. In it Dante dreams that he is led by Love to the death-bed of Beatrice Portinari, the object of his unrequited passion.

[talesfromthecrypts]

A demon residing in a tree, on a whim changed himself into a breeze. While in this state he drifted, one morning, by a young maiden. He circled around and back, surrounding her in his form. Gently he blew through her hair, her mind and her dreams. For her seduction, he decided to create a bed, unique for the occasion.

Death Bed: The Bed That Eats (1977) dir. George Barry