I would let the total succeed in one or two of them only, they become intangible statues, living their life slowly enough that it will last until the end of the universe. The others end up drained of their life force and or go insane.
My go-to is to always grant immortality and nothing else. “Okay, you can no longer die.” Do they age? Yes. Get sick? Yes. Experience pain? Dismemberment? Senility, malnutrition, atrophy, and dessication? Absolutely. They can do everything they could do previously, except die.
This particular ‘elder god’ is more of a mantle, you see. This entity does wield great powers, but is also beholden to a horrible and cursed collection of duties. During the summoning, they accidentally, somehow, kill this elder god; due to the nature of the summoning they must now assume his mantle and fulfill his obligations, with all that entails, lest the cosmos fall. A Satan Clause, if you will.
As a reference to the Santa clause?
(☞ﾟヮﾟ)☞
This right here actually sounds cool as hell
Well it could eat them, but that’s boring. Instead you could start giving them attributes that seem positive at first, but then start to turn negative, until eventually they start to realize that they’re just being turned into shogoths.
I mean come on, how many times do you have to have to hear “there are worse fates than death” in cosmic horror? You know exactly what to do.
Immortality in a intergalactic void sounds fun. Just because you don’t need to breathe does it mean it doesn’t hurt when you try and fail. Just because you don’t need to eat doesn’t need hunger isn’t a thing, same with thirst.
The bad news: Summoning an entire elder god is hard. They end up summoning one of the innumerable lesser horrors in the elder god’s orbit.
The good news: The summoned entity is going to grant them immortality.
The bad news: The players will experience an eternity of never-ending horror and torment.
The good news: Since it’s just a (relatively) lesser entity, the players actually have a slim chance of ending this curse, returning to blissful mortality.
I like the idea of offering them (instant) mortality as a merciful way out.
They can only become mortal again if they transmit their curse of immortality to a loved one.
This is the kind of ritual that usually ends with 4 missing and 1 insane. Have they ever thought that they might visit Kadath?
Have them come in and roll up new characters, then have the new characters go after their old ones.
The go-to monkey paw scenario could work, where they receive immortality, but have to serve the summoned entity forever as deformed (and perhaps always hurting) “things”? However, that is maybe a bit too predictable. What if they mess up the spell and instead mark themselves for sacrifice?
They slowly realise this due to a symbol appearing on them, which could slowly spread further on their body (maybe hurting too). You could make it more interesting by pitting them against one another by suggesting that only a few have to die for the sacrifice to be complete. If their characters are not that close to one another, it could lead to some interesting decisions on their part, haha.
The process could span a week or more, where their body gets engulfed more and more by the mark. They could use this time to review what went wrong in the summoning process, and how to potentially reverse it. I’ll leave those details to you, if you’re interested in pursuing this idea :D
Some more context: They met the only person currently alive who successfully did a ritual to achieve immortality by summoning the “watcher of doors”.
The ritual was done 100 years ago, required a human sacrifice, and all 12 of the other participants in the ritual died.
The players themselves already tried to repeat the ritual, based on incomplete instructions, and fucked up. 1 died, 1 went deaf, 1 went insane and 2 disappeared. A breech was opened through which “guardians” entered the world who are now killing everyone involved one by one.
Now the summoner they met told them that the only way to get their friends back and save themselves from the guardians is to repeat the ritual. (All info they have comes from the summoner, and she isn’t what you’d call trustworthy)Just let it succeed. But don’t give me any candy-ass “serve the summoned entity forever”. They should be digested forever.
Equivalent exchange? (Plus tax)
Hmm, very interesting! This could definitely go further into the first scenario. Perhaps the summoner is now a “puppet” for the entity, and is trying to trick the more resilient player characters to succumb to the entity’s control. Perhaps the first ritual weeded off the weaker candidates, and now the entity is preparing to give them the full course.
I’m curious what you’re going to go with :D
@superkret @andrew0 An emotional distance from those still mortal, especially those who are going to die soon — even those whose fate they could change through simple measures.
