Death Knell

Traditional American English gives us a definition:

Death Knell
n
1. something that heralds death or destruction
2. (Music, other) a bell rung to announce a death

Dungeons and Dragons 3E gives us another:

Death Knell
Necromancy [Death, Evil]
Level: Clr 2, Death 2
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Touch
Target: Living creature touched
Duration: Instantaneous/10 minutes per HD of subject; see text
Saving Throw: Will negates
Spell Resistance: Yes

You draw forth the ebbing life force of a creature and use it to fuel your own power. Upon casting this spell, you touch a living creature that has -1 or fewer hit points. If the subject fails its saving throw, it dies, and you gain 1d8 temporary hit points and a +2 bonus to Strength. Additionally, your effective caster level goes up by +1, improving spell effects dependent on caster level. (This increase in effective caster level does not grant you access to more spells.) These effects last for 10 minutes per HD of the subject creature.

But the Emperor gives us yet another definition:

Death Knell

How is that a proper definition? Well, in the Emperor's thinking, creating characters for another game is the beginning of the end of an active campaign. It takes the focus off the current fun and steals it to something coming in the future. Ever wonder why games don't seem as exciting when you sit down to play with a character you made months before playing? The point here is that we keep looking forward to the next game, and so our current game suffers.

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So how do we recover from this? How do we re-energize a campaign that is ongoing? Here's three tips, as well as ways to apply them to our current game.

1. Read through your character sheet. Go through and rewrite it, and familiarize yourself with your abilities. Come up with a wishlist and a LAK. (List of Asses to Kick) and put it on the sheet. Share both with your GM.

2. Read books, watch movies or listen to music related to your game, or just the genre in question. Get yourself worked up over how cool the game you're playing is, and put yourself in the same frame of mind as when you were planning your character.

Rogue Trader: Book, Movie and Music

3. Sit down after doing the last two things and write a short story featuring your character. Have it take place before or after the campaign. Try to include stuff your GM uses in his world, and other player characters as well. Show it to your GM.

How to Write Character Backstories

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RIP: Click the pic if you haven't heard