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Most horrible self-execution


PhilHibbs

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Warning: unpleasant content ahead!

I have a character in a game who is determined to set an example. He has committed what he considers to be an unforgivable crime, but no-one else sees it that way, the other players and the GM seem to think it is no big deal and they are determined to smooth it all over and carry on. My character is a member of a fanatical order with very strict rules (Legend of the Five Rings, Kuni Tsugai-Sagasu to be specific), but he has been forced to break those rules, and as soon as certain obligations (i.e. the current campaign) are resolved, he is going to set an example to the world and reinforce the rules by executing himself in a gruesome manner. One of the characters has already vowed to "assist with the consequences", which the player thinks involves helping to reconcile him with his order, but in fact will mean guarding his dying body and cutting it down afterwards.

I'm after suggestions or feedback on the manner of execution. The intention is to appall the rest of the group to the maximum extent.

My initial idea is for him to to get his hands bound up somehow and hang himself from a hook through his chin, under his jawbone and out through his mouth, but I'm concerned that his jawbone would rip out and he'd fall to the ground in a messy heap, certainly it would kill him unless some spoilsport runs up and casts healing, but it would be more dramatic and shocking for him to hang there and choke on his own blood. Maybe some kind of hood and strap that attaches to the hook and prevents too much force being applied.

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I've always found the Catherine Wheel to be particularly gruesome. The victim's bones are broken by the wheel. Then his limbs are woven between the spokes and he's left out to dry.

post-569-140468075059_thumb.jpg

"Tell me what you found, not what you lost" Mesopotamian proverb

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Yeah, I was thinking that he would pay someone or use his assistant. I can think of several gruesome ways of killing another, but not as many that involve killing oneself. You could look at slow acting poisons, maybe, or exposing oneself to haematite dust to induce siderosis, or such things. These are not so visually gruesome, but you could act out the symptoms gruesomely, I suppose.

I find slitting your wrists and bleeding out to be pretty gruesome mainly because it's bloody and time consuming.

"Tell me what you found, not what you lost" Mesopotamian proverb

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I want something that will be talked about (in the game world) for a hundred years, something that will set an example that will reinforce the importance and meaning of the rules of the order for generations. Sepuku is honourable, and wrist-slitting is just committing suicide. It has to be done in the style of an execution. Punishing oneself by death is one thing. Deliberately heaping dishonour on it will create a legend.

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He cut remove one small piece of his body each day and feed it to the pigs,

beginning with his toes, then his ears, his tongue, his family jewels, his eyes

... you get the idea, a slow and humiliating death "of a thousand cuts".

"Mind like parachute, function only when open."

(Charlie Chan)

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He cut remove one small piece of his body each day and feed it to the pigs,

beginning with his toes, then his ears, his tongue, his family jewels, his eyes

... you get the idea, a slow and humiliating death "of a thousand cuts".

Nice. But I'd have to put up with the other players and GM trying to talk me out of it incessantly. Something that is pretty much irreversible once it's begun would avoid that, and avoid the GM making me roll Willpower over and over again.

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Slow but impossible to stop ... it seems this leaves some poison with no known

antidote as the best choice, but I doubt that this would make a good legend.

Voluntarily stepping into a cauldron filled with boiling oil once was a suicide me-

thod used in ancient China by scholars who disagreed with a ruler and wanted

their death to become a symbol remembered for a long time, but although this

is certainly most painful, it is a rather quick way to die.

A famous Japanese example of this execution method would be Ishikawa Goemon:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishikawa_Goemon

Edited by rust

"Mind like parachute, function only when open."

(Charlie Chan)

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Two variations on the same theme of exposing oneself to a horrible corrosive in a location which prevents inteference from others:

Stand in a pit of quicklime and get slowly causticed away

Stand in a volcano from which sulphur is mined

Does it have to be slow? Self-immolation is widely regarded as horrific and must take an enormous* strength of will to see through

Does it have to be a done deal? If you want dishonour (and potential redemption) are you not removing a more satisfying story possibility from the other players if your character can be rescued and then instructed by superior to do something undignified to atone (like a Samurai being instructed to shave his head and go to a monastery)?

* and in my mind unnecessary but we are talking here let's pretend and fantasy not real world so my opinion probably counts for even less than usual

Rule Zero: Don't be on fire

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Voluntarily stepping into a cauldron filled with boiling oil once was a suicide me-

thod used in ancient China by scholars who disagreed with a ruler and wanted

their death to become a symbol remembered for a long time, but although this

is certainly most painful, it is a rather quick way to die.

Depends on the starting temperature... But that leaves open the possibility of interference. Caustic substances would be hard to obtain and I want it to be as much a shock and surprise to the GM as the others players.

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Or you could use something like the torture device from Blackadder I (Last episode):

Wait! I have|a more...amusing method.

Amusing for whom, I wonder?

Gentlemen!

(All gasp in wonder)

- Bravo!|- Well done!

In precisely one minute,

the spike will go up your nethers.|(Cheering)

The shears will cut off your ears!

- Both of them?|- Yes.

These axes will chop off your hands.

I do not think we need go into the attributes of the codling grinder!

These feathers here will tickle you under what's left of your arms.

And that is the amusing part!

(Cheering)

Simon Phipp - Caldmore Chameleon - Wallowing in my elitism since 1982. Many Systems, One Family. Just a fanboy. 

www.soltakss.com/index.html

Jonstown Compendium author. Find my contributions here

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Scaphism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is my favorite ... well maybe that's not the right word, but it's frakking horrible and attested to in historical sources.

And after a few days, in a Medieval setting, it is probably irreversible, just slow death from infection and gangrene while being eaten alive by insect larvae. The other character who swore to stand by him would really have to stand by him because any interference would actually prolong the agony because no medical treatment would save the suicide, just prolong the suffering. Lots of room for dramatic roleplaying :D

Edited by HeirophantX
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Lots of room for dramatic roleplaying :D

Obligatory reference:

The Dead Body That Claims It Isn't: I'm not dead.

The Dead Collector: 'Ere, he says he's not dead.

Large Man with Dead Body: Yes he is.

The Dead Body That Claims It Isn't: I'm not.

The Dead Collector: He isn't.

Large Man with Dead Body: Well, he will be soon, he's very ill.

The Dead Body That Claims It Isn't: I'm getting better.

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