When it comes to pen-and-paper role-playing games, one of things that causes the most consternation for non-gamers is the concept of character death and the effect this has on players in the campaign. While bible-thumpers may focus on the spell-casting and pantheonic aspects of games like Dungeons and Dragons, I've found that most mainstream concerns focus character death, and the alleged effect this has on players.

The logic goes like this: an individual plays a character, and over the course of several months, becomes so emotionally invested in said character than when he or she shrugs of this mortal coil, the player can't handle it. He or she becomes unhinged with results running from suicide to murder to pacts with the devil.

The mountain dwarf Torthan of Clan Urtcheck, follower of Luc, dwarven hero of the Grand Duchy of Geoff, died at the hands of a vile undead shadow on Friday, Nov. 24. He was momentarily survived by himself, having risen from the grave as another of the undead creatures to threaten his fellow adventurers. They defeated him and his shadow progenitors, as well as the master they all served: the Mad Marquee of Sterich. His ashes remain lost to the world in the dungeons beneath the Marquee's castle.

It was not the first time death touched him. During an earlier expedition to the Lair of the Eyebiter in Geoff, the barbaric bard fought and was killed by the evil followers of a rebel noble. His spirit could not be bound to the afterlife however, and he willingly allowed himself to be reincarnated by a druid. This resulted in his return to the land of the living in the form of a human.