death of a guardian

[waauthor]

The guardian (impact character) in my story dies in the first act . . . what to do with all those remaining signposts? I realize that the guardian can keep influencing the mc without being alive, but I'm not sure I have scenes that illustrate that explicitly, although we see that the guardian's point of view "wins" in the end because the main character changes. Any thoughts? Thank you!

[Chris Huntley]

Yikes! You'll need some character for the remaining acts. I recommend you have another character (or two) step in to fulfill the Impact Character's role, and the same player or a different player step in and function as the Guardian character. We call that a hand-off, when one character drops out of the story and another adopts its story functions. You can see this in "A Christmas Carol." The ghosts, collectively, function as impact character -- one ghost per signpost.

[waauthor]

Thank you . . . that is helpful. I was just thinking about Star Wars, and how Obi W. dies early on in the story, but he "re-appears" at crucial points. I don't have plans in my story for the guardian's ghost to appear, but I wonder if a memory of him at critical moments might work.