https://www.fantasynamegenerators.com
I can build whole nations and esoteric cults, and the complex interplay between them without issue. But if you ask me to name a character or city I devolve into a disaster. This site has saved me countless times. Its generators aren’t always brilliant, but they suffice well enough for most stuff and occasionally turn out absolute gems.
I had an Undead bloodline sorcerer of mine die, my only character to ever do so. She died at a rather narratively unsatisfying moment (random encounter while traveling) to a critical hit, and even though I was disappointed I was content to be like “shit happens, she dead”. My DM though, he came to me with an idea hooked up to my backstory and the origin of my powers to bring her back. I played a secondary character for the next few sessions before my sorceress tracked the party down, angry that “those cheap bastards didn’t even try to give me a proper burial”.
I had kind of accepted her death, but hadn’t been playing my backup character enough to get invested in them, so I was happy to welcome her back. And the DM did a really good job of balancing her pseudo-immunity to death with narrative consequences so I wouldn’t be tempted to face-tank into fights. The developments to her personal quest were building to a really creepy peak, with things getting worse each time I dropped past a certain HP threshold in a fight, before the group had to disband because of scheduling conflicts (the pains of international DND groups). I’ve always wondered what entity had brought her back twice (once in her backstory to give her her powers, and then the time a bandit exploded me with a crossbow bolt), the growing dread every time I dropped to single digit HP and the DM was like “roll a charisma save”, scribbling down some notes for each one I failed…
God I hope we can continue that campaign at some point. It completely turned me about on my view of death in DND. I used to be very much “the rules are necessary and death must mean something” camp, but that campaign switched me completely to “dying should only be as permanent as is narratively satisfying”.
God I love this type of conspiracy. It’s pure art how combinations of numbers and letters can be sculpted into evidence of sinister cabals.