What Happens After You Die

For many characters, the afterlife is just a temporary destination. Allies are often available with raise dead or resurrection spells to restore your character to his or her living, breathing, adventuring self, often within a matter of minutes.
But sometimes characters stay dead for an extended period of time. And sometimes they don’t come back at all, passing beyond the realm of adventurers forever.

The Moment of Death

When characters die, their souls—the intrinsic “self” and life force that transcends whatever body they happen to occupy—linger in the body for a few seconds. If the corpse was completely destroyed, they linger at the location of death. The last breath spell works the way it does because the soul of the deceased hasn’t gone anywhere yet.
The dead character doesn’t perceive anything at all, doesn’t think, and has no notion or memory of events beyond the moment of death. The soul is beyond magic’s power to detect or affect. It’s not incorporeal, it’s not a ghost, and it is not a creature of any kind with measurable statistics.
The magic jar spell separates a character’s soul from body without killing the body. Souls separated from their bodies by magic jar die whenever they don’t have an appropriate receptacle (the gem or an available body). Just as the souls of dead characters do, souls deprived of a host body feel the inexorable tug of the afterlife after a round or two, so they pass on to their fi nal destination. Likewise, the trap the soul spell does exactly that, preventing a soul from leaving a gem until the spell is completed or someone picks up the trigger object.
Some creature types don’t have souls and simply cease to exist when they die. Constructs just fall apart, for example. Undead creatures likewise cease to exist, although destroying an undead creature sometimes frees a soul trapped within it.

Making the Passage

After a few rounds spent lingering at the point of death, one of several things can happen to the soul.

• For the vast majority of dead characters, the soul travels to an outer plane affi liated with the alignment or deity of the deceased. The journey requires no spell or portal; your soul just leaves the spot where you died and appears somewhere on another plane.

• Some souls gather incorporeal ectoplasm around themselves and become ghosts. This process often takes days or months. No one knows why some souls pass on to the Outer Plane and others are “stuck” where they die, but a typical ghost has an instinctive sense of why it specifi cally exists as a ghost rather than passing on. Usually there’s an unresolved situation that prevents the soul from resting in peace, such as a lover who hasn’t returned from a far-off war or a killer who hasn’t been brought to justice.

• The souls of characters who die in specific ways sometimes become undead. Those driven to suicide by madness become allips, while humanoids destroyed by absolute evil become bodaks. As with ghosts, the soul creates a new body, whether it’s incorporeal such as an allip’s or corporeal such as a bodak’s. The soul is twisted toward evil if it wasn’t already. The new undead creature retains some general memories of its former life, but doesn’t necessarily have the same mental ability scores, skills, feats, or other abilities. Not every suicide victim becomes an allip, and not everyone destroyed by absolute evil becomes a bodak; as with ghosts, the exact nature of the transformation is unknown. Similarly, liches are characters who’ve voluntarily transformed themselves into undead, trapping their souls in skeletal bodies.

• Some undead such as vampires and wights create spawn out of a character they kill, trapping the soul of the deceased in a body animated by negative energy and controlled by a malign intelligence. Sometimes the undead creature can access the memories of the deceased (vampires, spectres, ghouls, and ghasts can), and sometimes they can’t (as with shadows, wights, and wraiths).

• The barghest can feed on a recently slain character, consuming the corpse and part of the soul as well. Part of the soul is forever destroyed, while the rest passes on to the outer planes. Half of the time, the surviving remnant of the soul is too badly damaged to ever return to life.

• Certain artifact- and deity-level effects can destroy the soul—a sphere of annihilation does so, for example. Regardless of what happens to the soul, the intact corpse (if there is one) retains an echo of the character’s soul and personality. It is this imprint that clerics connect to when they cast speak with dead. The imprint has the basic personality and memories of the deceased, but it doesn’t think for itself other than to answer questions. It has no capacity to measure the passage of time or learn anything new; if you cast speak with dead a second time, the soul-imprint won’t remember your fi rst set of questions. Each time you contact the soul-imprint, it responds as if it had died only recently—from the perspective of the soul, no time has passed.

The Final Destination

As a pratical matter, it is ok to let a PC decide which plane his dead character's soul goes to. In general alignment and alliegence to a deity in life determine which outer plane a soul travels to after death.
If you were a cleric or devout worshiper of a specifi c deity, your soul goes to the outer home that is home to that deity, even if your alignment doesn’t exactly match your deity’s.
If you were a cleric of an entire pantheon, your soul goes wherever the pantheon designates. This destination might be the same plane the pantheon lives on, or it might be a different “underworld” plane.
If you didn’t worship a deity, or if religion wasn’t an important part of your life (as demonstrated by your behavior, especially right before death), your soul goes to an outer plane that matches your alignment. In some cases, any of a number of planes might be appropriate. For example, a chaotic neutral character’s soul might go to Ysgard, Limbo, or Pandemonium. Decide which plane matches the character’s behavior best, giving extra weight to how the character behaved shortly before death.
If you aren’t sure whether a character was devout enough to be with her deity in the afterlife, err on the side of uniting the soul with the deity that it worshiped. Contact with the deities in the afterlife generally makes for a more memorable D&D afterlife, and the deity can always remove an insufficiently worshipful soul from its presence later if it wants to.
Here’s what the fi nal destination looks like on each plane:
Limbo: Souls who journey to Limbo have a front-row seat for great acts of creation and destruction, as the roiling chaos of the plane extrudes chunks of earth, air, fire, and water. It is said that you can see anything created in Limbo if you wait long enough, and the souls of the dead have nothing but time.
Pandemonium: Souls in Pandemonium become attached to the screams that travel along the wind roaring through the tunnels and caves of the plane.
Abyss: Because infinite layers of the Abyss exist, souls sent there witness an infi nite variety of cruelties, from torture to madness to endless war. Each soul in the Abyss suffers a unique sort of torment, from the Forest of Living Tongues to the March of the Pierced Men.
Souls devoted to Lolth in life find themselves ensnared in the Demonweb Pits after death, where they can see the evil machinations of the spider goddess firsthand.
Hades: In the Gray Waste, souls drift aimlessly as gloom and apathy weigh them with each passing year. There is little to see or do, but few souls would care for a new experience if one were offered.
Nine Hells: As souls descend through the nine layers of the plane, they see everything from lakes of fire to castles that exude icy terror. Those souls who aren’t affiliated with a deity often find themselves affiliated with a particularly powerful devil, silently observing his evil machinations and crafted cruelties firsthand.
In a cave near the Pillar of Skulls on the first layer of Hell lies Tiamat, the chromatic dragon. Souls who worshiped her in life see her guard the entrance to the lower levels, mercilessly slaughtering everything from demon hordes to crusades of holy warriors.
Mechanus: Souls who travel to Mechanus often fi nd themselves fascinated with the endless movements of the clockwork structure of the plane. Each cog turns in concert with its fellows in an orderly pageant witnessed by the silent residents of the plane.
Celestial Mountain Range: Souls who come to the great mountain of Celestia slowly ascend through its Seven Mounting Heavens, some tarrying in the Heavenly City before climbing into the summit that is the Illuminated Heaven.
Bahamut’s Palace is said to be near the base of the mountain, but is forever moving locatoin. It is a glittering wonder built atop a powerful whirlwind, and souls there hear many of the Platinum Dragon’s prophecies, wisdom, and songs.
Yondalla’s Green Fields are predator-free, though moles, badgers, and rabbits are commonplace. Souls here see an endless succession of plentiful harvests and mild weather. Erackinor is where Moradin keeps the Soul Forges, great devices that temper the spirits of the dwarven people. Souls who go there often find themselves shaped into a particular weapon so they can continue to participate in acts of dwarven valor.
Heironeous leads his crusades against evil from the Radiant Arsenal, near the heavenly city of Yetsiraon on the sixth layer of the mountain. Souls there see Heironeous reward his faithful followers, honoring them for their virtue and chivalry.
Bytopia: Bytopian souls have a choice: the pastoral landscape of Dothion, or the wilderness of Shurrock. The choice needn’t be permanent, for souls can travel into the mountains to reach the other layer of the plane.
Souls who worship Garl Glittergold find themselves in a region of Dothion known as the Golden Hills, where celestial gnomes live their traditional, easygoing lifestyle without a care for the larger world.
Elysium: Souls in the Blessed Fields wander among the meadows, forests, and sunny skies of the plane, eventually coming to rest when they fi nd a place that gives them a unique sense of satisfaction and happiness.
Pelor's faithful come to the Fortress of the Sun, a goldplated citadel that forms a beacon on an island. Their souls bask in the sunlight that warms the hearts of the good while illuminating the secret deeds of the evil.
Beastlands: The forests of the Beastlands are home to many animals and other creatures, and souls often find themselves attached to a particular creature that resonated with them in life. Many a brave hunter fi nds himself in the Beastlands after death, running down prey with a pack of celestial wolves.
The Grove of the Unicorns is where souls devoted to Ehlonna come. Beneath the giant sequoias, they peacefully run alongside herds of unicorns, centaurs, and other goodhearted woodland creatures.
Arborea: Many souls who come to Arborea follow a particular rain squall, breeze, or cloud through the beautiful landscapes of the plane.
The Elven Court of Corellon Larethian is here, and souls become part of an idealized elven lifestyle with hunts during the day and campfire tales told at night.
Prime Material Plane: The only souls who have the Material Plane as their final destination are worshipers of Waukeen and Ioun; who never had an outer plane, and who lost theirs respectively. Souls devoted to Waukeen are often stationed at crossroads and public-houses where they contentedly watch the ebb and flow of the living traveling from place to place. After death, the souls of Ioun’s worshipers make their way to one of his many secret citadels. Some souls silently watch the machinations of Ioun’s minions.

Activities in the Afterlife

Depending on certain factors, several fates can await a soul. How the soul behaved when it was alive, the whims of deities and powerful outsiders, and the fickle nature of fate itself can all play a part in the soul’s destiny. Consider the options below for a default setting; if you want to make a game where all souls become demons and angels, that’s your prerogative as DM.
Become One with the Plane: The vast majority of souls in the afterlife silently experience their fi nal destination, whether it’s a place of great beauty such as Elysium or a place of mad cruelty such as the Abyss. As time passes, they become more like the plane, taking on its qualities and caring less about their time among the living. At some point they cease to have an independent existence and become one with the fabric of the plane itself. Essentially, souls eventually become abstract quanta of the good, evil, law, chaos, or neutrality they lived with when alive.
This process is why every rich individual in the D&D world doesn’t come back from the dead repeatedly. Whether they’re good or evil, most souls find resonance in the afterlife—they have a sense that they are where they’re supposed to be. Only souls with strong force of personality and unfi nished business among the living (which includes many adventuring PCs) respond to the call of a raise dead or resurrection spell.
Get a New Body: Some individual souls come to the attention of the gods and powerful outsiders that inhabit the planes, either because the souls were exceptionally good or wicked in life or because the deity sees great potential in an otherwise unremarkable soul. These souls are granted new bodies and become outsiders called petitioners. Most petitioners are 2 Hit Dice outsiders with abilities similar to those of the outsiders that inhabit their particular plane. Lemure devils and dretch demons are typical petitioners, for example. Petitioners serve gods and outsiders that created them; many are promised promotion to more powerful forms (whether demonic or angelic) if they serve well. In this way, the deities replenish the ranks of their hosts. Sometimes petitioners do well enough to be sent back among the living in response to a planar ally spell or similar conjuration.
Respond to Resurrection Magic: Some souls don’t linger for long in the afterlife, and their fi nal destination turns out to be not so fi nal after all. When someone among the living casts a reincarnation, raise dead, resurrection, or true resurrection spell, the contacted soul knows the name, alignment, and patron deity (if any) of the character attempting to revive it. But the soul doesn’t know—and can’t fi nd out— the circumstances of its return to life. The soul might be coming back in the midst of a great battle, or the caster may be a dupe of the deceased creature’s enemies, for example. The soul has a general sense of how long it’s been dead, but doesn’t keep exact track of time.
The soul also has a sense of which spell is bringing it back to life; it can tell how painful the return journey into a living body will be. It can differentiate between resurrection magic that causes Constitution or level loss and magic that doesn’t.
When you come back to the world of the living, you remember in general terms what the afterlife was like, but your memories have a vague, dreamlike quality and you’re unable to recall the specifi cs of events. Whether the afterlife was torment or bliss to you, you have a good idea of what to expect should you die again—unless you alter your behavior markedly enough to change your alignment.
The souls of outsiders and elementals are so intrinsically tied to the essence of their home planes that they evaporate into the fabric of the plane rather quickly. That’s why it takes a true resurrection spell to bring them back from the dead; the magic must sift through the plane and reconstitute their dispersed souls.
Respond to Divinations: Many deities assign favorite souls the task of responding to divination spells such as contact other plane, divination, and commune. The deities impart the souls with an instinctive sense of the knowledge they can impart to the living spellcasters who seek guidance. It’s possible for a PC spellcaster to wind up conversing with a deceased mentor or ally as part of a commune spell, for example.
Join the Godhead: Some souls become so linked with the deifi c force of a particular deity that they effectively become part of that deity. Depending on the deity, the soul may or may not have a choice in the matter. Good deities sometimes absorb the essence of particularly shining examples of their faith. Evil deities sometimes consume souls as if they were eating ordinary food.

When You Can't Come Back

In general, souls have the choice of whether or not to respond to resurrection magic; D&D is a game, after all, and the player of the deceased character wants to be able to participate. But sometimes a particular character can’t come back, so the player starts playing a new character.
Characters who die of old age can’t come back from the dead, even with true resurrection, wish, or miracle spells. Their souls have grown too fragile to survive the trip back into the body.
Characters who have been granted new bodies as petitioners can’t come back from the dead, because the creation of a petitioner effectively returned them to life. They’re new creatures with at least some memories—but none of the abilities or skills—from their former lives. Of course, as the DM, you can decide that things work differently in your own campaign if you wish.

Oragnized Relgion in the World

From nation-spanning empires of faith to backwoods secret cults, organized religion is a part of nearly every D&D game. Characters who serve a deity undoubtedly look to the deity’s organized clergy for assistance. Characters who don’t have a religious affiliation have to deal with allies and enemies who do. Just as with secular groups, religions can be organized on several scales. Some faiths are dispersed into independent cells, each of which sets its own agenda, develops its own doctrine, and worships as it sees fit. At the other end of the spectrum is a hierarchical church that has ranks, chains of command, and a defined way of doing things that every worshiper knows. Whether a particular religion develops a large hierarchy or remains decentralized depends on the personality of the deity, the secular world that the religion develops within, and the alignments of the faithful. Lawful deities active in the affairs of the world are likely to develop hierarchical religions, while chaotic deities and distant gods tend to have decentralized worshipers. Secular organizations compete for the attention of even the devout. If every able-bodied male is drafted into a national army and sent to the borderlands to fight, that might preclude the growth of a church of the sun goddess even as cults to a war-god emerge everywhere.
Note: For simplicity, “church” refers to the organization of a religion, while “temple” refers to the actual buildings they worship in.

Theocracies

At the largest end of the organization scale are theocracies: nations ruled by the divine right of key worshipers. In essence, the nation exists to further the ideals of the religion and to spread the faith.
Important religious and secular decisions come from either the deity itself or its top-level representatives (often but not always high-level clerics). The directives from the top filter down through a bureaucracy that handles secular affairs and the many local temples that are the center of religious life. Theocracies generally take care to indoctrinate citizens in the tenets of worship from an early age, and religious worship is central to daily life. In an established theocracy, the symbols of a deity are everywhere and many daily life activities such as eating, shopping, and working are infused with an element of worship. Holidays and rituals to that deity are commonplace, but the temples of other gods are usually discouraged if not outlawed.
The Theocracy of the First Admer Empire, for example, is a nation devoted to the worship of Tiamat. A 16th-level cleric held the head of state, and clerics once held almost all government positions. The theocracy suppresses all other religions, but secret cults to most of the other gods exist. The clerics of Waukeen once had a massive bureaucracy that directly controls trade, the courts, and the military of the Mercantile Republic. For more than 200 years, church inquisitors of Waukeen woould root out clerics of other gods wherever they find them. Waukeen worshiping pious templars command military units of any size, and they report directly to high-level clerics. The Theocracy of the Third Admer Empire is largely a closed society, although it sends waves of evangelist knights into its neighbors for crusades, seeking slave labor.
Structure: Theocracies have religious versions of any of the secular government types; absolute authority can rest with a single person or a small group of oligarchs. Clerics dominate the hierarchy, but the expertise of other classes is valued when it’s in the service of the deity. Theocracies generally have complex bureaucracies. Most officials have to answer to two bosses: their superior in the bureaucracy and another boss responsible for religious matters. Because loyalty to the state is connected to loyalty to the deity, the state security agency often takes an inquisitorial bent. The theocracy’s military has far more clerics than you’d expect in an ordinary army.
PC Roles: Low-level PCs who live in a theocracy might be assigned to root out local corruption if they’re believers (or escape the inquisition if they worship a deity other than the theocracy’s deity). Mid-level PCs make good evangelists, sent beyond the theocracy to help grow a community of believers. High-level PCs might take a role in the leadership of the nation themselves, leading armies to fight the hordes of unbelievers that threaten the theocracy.
Important NPCs: If the PCs are traveling in a theocracy, they’ll meet low-level clerics in almost every activity they undertake. Some if not all of the city guards are clerics, the merchants in the bazaar are clerics, and the scribes in the libraries and law-houses are clerics. Monsters affiliated with the deity of the theocracy are far more common than they’d otherwise be.
Adventure Seeds: The nature of a theocracy would be an important part of the following adventures.

• The characters must enter a theocracy to deliver a secret message to an underground faith.

• Corruption is rampant in the theocracy’s leadership, and the characters must stamp it out.

• The rivalry between two gods spreads to war between their respective theocracies, and the PCs must bring peace to a religious war.

Global Churches

World-spanning churches have a greater reach than theocracies, but they don’t wield control over secular aspects of life such as agriculture, trade, and the military. They may have great power, but they exist in a particular place because the government permits their worship. Because their organization stretches across national boundaries, they can coordinate efforts in several nations to bring about a desired end.
Worshipers of Pelor, for example, exist in every nation, and they share a worship of the sun god regardless of their nationality. The head priests of powerful temples are in contact with one another and with the religion’s overall leadership. If the secular leaders of one nation place an onerous tax on Pelor’s temples, word will spread through Pelor’s hierarchy. Other nations might be persuaded by their Pelorites to apply diplomatic pressure to get the tax repealed.
Structure: In many ways, a global church functions like a nation, but it doesn’t have any territory other than its temples. It treats its worshipers (whether well or poorly) as citizens, and the collections from temples function as tax revenue. Some global churches even maintain standing armies ready for the next crusade against enemies of the faith, although the soldiers are often dispersed so secular nations don’t see the church as a military rival. The leaders of a global church are often a council composed of the highest-ranking priest of each nation. When the council makes a decision—or they’re given a directive from the deity—each council member is responsible for giving orders to the clergy in his or her nation.
PC Roles: Even a global church isn’t all-powerful, so it might ask PCs to undertake a quest that takes them to a far-off land. High-level PCs might be key troubleshooters sent from place to place to shepherd the faith through tough times.
Important NPCs: Because they worship a particular deity, even low-level PCs can sometimes get assistance from a local branch of a global church when the average resident would look askance at strangers. Global churches have to maintain a global communication network among their member temples, so many characters connected with the church travel from place to place. The upper ranks of the church hierarchy are almost all clerics, and many aren’t native to the lands where they preach.
Adventure Seeds: Global churches figure prominently in the following adventures.

• A visiting cleric comes from a far-off land and hires the PCs to be local guides on his quest.

• The characters sign up for a crusade that promises to bring together worshipers from many lands into a single massive army. The PCs must deal with their strange comrades as they fight the church’s enemies.

• A deity commands the PCs to unify its disparate national churches into a single community of worshipers—a global church.

Sects and Schims

Even within theocracies and global churches, not every believer shares the same opinions on every topic. Most churches of any size have factions that come into confl ict, whether genteel or bitter, over matters esoteric or mundane. These factions are called sects, and their confl icts are called schisms.
The church of Heironeous, for example has a sect called the Lawgivers that believes that a codified set of laws is the highest ideal and that no one is above the law. The Justicebringer sect, on the other hand, believes that justice itself is the highest good and that formal laws are useful only as long as they facilitate bringing punishment to the guilty. The two factions don’t fight openly in a well-organized church such as that of Heironeous, but their clerics are rivals who strive to keep each other out ofinfl uential positions in the hierarchy.
Structure: Sects are often unofficial, describing a shared set of beliefs rather than formal membership in an organization. Unofficial sects use the same hierarchy that the church as a whole does; the member of a sect with the highest rank in the larger church issues orders to subordinates who also happen to be of that sect. When sects are more formal, it’s because the split emerged along organizational lines in the first place. St. Cuthbert's Evangelism Ministry often comes into conflict with its Congregational Ministry, because one sect wants to seek new converts while the other sect wants to care for the worshipers it already has.
Few large churches exist for long without at least a minor schism developing. Even when one sect completely dominates a church, one of two things soon happens. Either the dominant sect splits in half over a different issue, or a new sect arises to challenge the dominant one.
PC Roles: Low-level PCs who worship a particular deity might be recruited into a specific sect of their faith, while mid-level PCs might have to fend off the machinations of a rival sect. High-level PCs can be responsible for a schism of their own if they come into conflict with the church leaders. If the PCs’ followers flock to them, a new sect will be born.
Important NPCs: It’s not always obvious which NPC worshipers are affi liated with which sect of a particular faith. While some sects have their own symbols, dress, or other obvious identifiers, others only reveal their sect affiliation after a long conversation on matters of faith. If the schism is particularly severe, the sects involved might be rife with secret members and double agents.
Adventure Seeds: Schisms and sects are important to the following adventure ideas:

• A schism erupts in the church, and both sides want the PCs to declare their affiliation. Once they’ve done so, they’ve earned the enmity of the sect and must fend off attacks and attempts at skullduggery.

• The PCs must acquire a particular relic as an initiation rite into a particularly prestigious sect.

• The head of a sect declares herself a demigod, and the characters must fi nd out whether or not she’s truly divine and what her plans are.

REGIONAL AND

Dispersed Churches

Regional churches function just like global churches, only their reach doesn’t extend beyond a particular province or nation. Dispersed churches are technically global concerns, but their sphere of influence is so limited that they aren’t found everywhere. Lolth has a regional church, because temples to her are found only among the drow. Ioun has a dispersed church. His library-temples can be found in many of the major cities of the world, but they don’t stretch into the countryside and they don’t concern themselves with affairs other than the accumulation of lore.
Structure: Regional and dispersed churches tend to put most authority in the hands of the high priest of the local temple. While such churches may have higher-ranking leaders, they can’t be everywhere at once and only set overall goals for the church. The day-to-day decisions are all made at the temple level.
PC Roles: Because the temples can’t rely on outside help, they’ll often hire low-level and mid-level PCs to undertake quests and missions important to the church. High-level PCs are certainly capable of running a temple themselves. Important NPCs: Regional and dispersed churches tend to have more nonclerics in their ranks, because the church hierarchy is less vertical and cleric training is harder to come by. However, the high priest in each temple is almost always a cleric.
Adventure Seeds: The following adventure ideas rely on regional and dispersed churches.

• A sea-god wants to establish a network of independent shrines up and down a particularly dangerous stretch of coast, and the characters must patrol the seas to keep the shrines safe.

• A group of sky-god pilgrims hire the characters to take them from a nearby temple to a monastery high in the mountains.

• The PCs learn that two temples of the same deity are bitter rivals, eager to subvert each other at every available opportunity. The characters must figure out the origin of the rivalry and bring peace to the church.

Cults

While the word “cult” conjures up images of black-robed clerics summoning evil creatures in a forest clearing, it really describes any small, secret group of like-minded believers. Many of them are indeed the evil summoners most believe them to be. In a tyrannical nation, however, the secret rebels who worship Pelor and Heironeous are the cultists, trying to evade the notice of the Orange Dragon inquisitors. Cults to Beshaba, for example, gather for illicit rituals devoted to deceit and treachery—Beshaba is the god of secrets, after all. They plot intrigues against local leaders and especially the clergy of other gods.
Structure: Cults are generally small, with fewer than a hundred members. Most have a single high priest or similar figure as their leader, although sometimes the high priest is just a figurehead and another character—often a monster—is pulling the strings. Cultists often take elaborate precautions to maintain security, including secret temples, passwords, codes, and other tools of espionage.
PC Roles: Cults are more often working against the PCs than with them, because worshipers of good gods rarely need to worship in secret. However, in an evil land (and for higher-level PCs, on an evil plane), the PCs might be revolutionaries who worship their gods in secret and plot against their evil overlords.
Important NPCs: Cultists are staple D&D antagonists—most are low-level clerics, but arcane spellcasters (especially conjurers) are reasonably common. The cult is often led by a high-level cleric, an outsider (such as a demon or devil), or an aberration (such as a beholder or mind flayer). Sometimes the rank-and-file members of the cult have been misled about who their true masters are.
Adventure Seeds: Cults figure prominently in the following adventures.

• Unmarried women are disappearing from small fi shing villages. The PCs must fi nd the cult that’s kidnapping them for its strange rites.

• The court of the king is increasingly strident in its rhetoric against a neighboring nation. The PCs learn that a secret cult among some of the king’s inner circle is trying to manufacture a war, and they must fi gure out which courtiers are cultists and which aren’t.

• The characters thwart a cult several times, only to have it bounce back stronger from each defeat. To end its menace, the PCs must infiltrate the cult from within, pretending to be cultists themselves.