Before he met his tragic end, Vørpé the Magic-User suffered just about every negative non-death setback a PC in my campaign could experience.
I use death and dismemberment rules similar to this and a mutation table similar to probably every other one you've seen. I have a boutique list of curses and diseases—which for practical purposes are treated almost the same in the world of Nevelorn—and for consequences of a cosmic variety I have a rough outline of dooms (for chaotic characters) and damnations (for their lawful counterparts).
Vørpé, starting life as a gene freak, entered the game with two mutations:
Furnace gut. Your stomach radiates light as a candle. You only gain sustenance from wood, coal, oil, and alcohol.
Stench. A distinct, horrible smell follows you wherever you go. -2 to Charisma; hiding is difficult.
He only became more freaky over the course of his adventures. Tampering with an alchemical engine left him with
Horns. Come out of your forehead. Deal d3 damage if used as a weapon. Headgear must be specially made. Roll d6 or choose the appearance: 1. Ram 2. Bull 3. Unicorn 4. Devil 5. Antlers 6. Beetle
(he rolled Devil).
And when he drank the melted remains of a mutant frog, his lower extremities morphed into
Bird legs. Great for perching. Cannot wear boots.
Later, an unfortunately well-aimed hobgoblin firebomb left one of those legs charred and worthless.
A failed save to avoid an acid trap almost turned Vørpé into a steaming puddle. As he lay melting on the dungeon floor, he called out to whatever chaotic god or overfiend was listening to spare his life. The odds were slim, but due to his history of erratic behavior and physical alterations, he attracted the attention of the Faceless God Juiblex, demon lord of ooze and mutation. Vørpé suffered a vision of the Great Glistener's infinite roiling non-countenance and was saved. His body reconstituted itself with a fifth mutation (Serpent neck. Long and slithery. Good for peeping around corners and creeping people out.), but this favor marked him for doom: when next he would be reduced to 0 hp, he was to erupt in a torrent of green slime and become one with Juiblex, taking whoever was nearby along with him.
Vørpé met an untimely end in an appropriately anticlimactic manner: standing in the blast radius of the first and only fireball he fired from a new magic wand. His death offered an important lesson about the risks of using magic items willy-nilly before identifying them, a lesson dutifully recorded by the party note-taker and ignored repeatedly from then on. Fortunately the rest of the party was spared, as the only other creature in the blast radius was the undead monstrosity Vørpé intended to hit, and double fortunately the fire immediately incinerated the green slime which would otherwise have caused one or more major problems for the surviving party members.
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| 6d6 points of regret |
Vørpé's passing was tragic and his player was bummed, though to his credit he took it in good spirit. The party held a funeral for Vørpé back in town and a new draft horse was named in his honor. Out of the game, the players and I refilled our drinks and toasted to the fallen PC.
***
What makes death and dismemberment, mutations, and lingering afflictions work so well in OSR games are that they make tangible a character's foibles. If magic items and precious treasure serve as records of a PC's triumphs, a missing leg and a tentacle arm serve as records of their defeats, which are often as entertaining if not more than victory.
The obstacles imposed by a missing leg become an engaging aspect of the character. Even when one can't do something as well because however many sessions ago they took too much damage or failed a save, there's satisfaction in knowing your guy has been through more than most and has the scars to prove it. A movement penalty sounds unambiguously annoying on paper, but every time it becomes relevant it's a fun little reminder of a nail-biting escapade.
There's nothing wrong with death at 0 (trve kvlt), but you don't get these kinds of characters when there's little ground between linear progress and total death. Higher level PCs have died in our campaign, but none are remembered like Vørpé.