100 ways to kill a character

[JamesSavik]

100 Ways to Kill Your Character

Natural Causes

• Acute Illness/Infectious Diseases: an acute disease is a disease with either or both of a rapid onset and a short course
  • influenza
    
  • Lower respiratory infections
    
  • Diarrheal diseases
    
  • Tuberculosis
    
  • Malaria
    
  • Measles
    
  • Pertussis
    
  • Tetanus
    
  • Meningitis
    
  • Hepatitis
    
  • syphilis
    
  • West Nile disease
    
  • Lyme Disease
    

  [*]Chronic Illness; a disease that is long-lasting or recurrent.

  • heart disease
    
  • Cancer
    
  • Liver disease
    
  • Kidney disease
    
  • AIDS
    
  • Parkinston's
    
  • Alzheimer's
    

Accidents- urban:

• Vehicle Crashes
  • Air Crashes
    
  • Ship sinks
    
  • Car Crashes
    
  • Bus Wreak
    

  [*]Structural Failures

  • elevator collapse
    
  • bridge collapse
    
  • building collapse
    

  [*]Fire

  • fire- office
    
  • fire- industrial
    
  • fire- commercial
    

  [*]Energy Related hazards

  • eletrical problems- down power line, malfunctions
    
  • electrical fires
    
  • Nuclear plant accident/incident- radiation release
    
  • natural gas leaks
    
  • Refinery fires
    
  • Storage related incidents (coal, oil, natural gas)
    

  [*]Industrial Accidents

  • industrial/hazardous waste- fumes, fire, poisioning
    
  • industrial accident- refinery fire, chemical release
    
  • Refinery fire/coal, oil or natural gas storage
    
  • Toxic chemical release/ liquid poisioning of groundwater
    

  [*]Urban Crime

  • gang violence (undirected urban violence)
    
  • drive by shooting (undirected urban violence)
    
  • Organized Crime Hit (wrong place/wrong time)
    

Accidents- suburbian/rural:

• hunting accident
  
• injury/shock
  
• recreational vehicle accident (4-wheeler)
  
• Work vehicle accident (tractor, combine)
  
• house fire
  
• Cave ins/sink holes
  
• tainted water
  
• raiders, bandits, rebels
  
• Animals
  • Snake-bite (primary)
    
  • Spider-bite (primary)
    
  • Scorpion sting (primary)
    
  • Allergic reactions to insect stings
    
  • mosquito borne illness
    
  • Predators (Bear, cougar)
    
  • feral animals (dogs, hogs, etc)
    

  [*]Environment

  • exposure
    
  • environmental illness/severe allegy
    
  • terrain related injuries (falls)
    
  • falling trees
    

  [*]Hazards

  • abandoned dangerous equipment
    
  • abandoned toxic materials
    
  • abandoned dangerous structures
    
  • abandoned mines
    

Murder

• robbery/homicide
  
• shot
  
• stabbed
  
• poisoned
  
• beaten to death/head trauma
  
• blunt force trauma
  
• strangulation
  
• hate crime
  
• ritual killing
  
• ritual sacrifice
  
• Murder as a result of a primary crime like arson or sabatogue.
  
• Murder as a result of a terrorist incident
  

Act of War

• Small Arms
  
• Machine gun fire
  
• Grenade, fragmentation
  
• Bombardment/barrage
  • Artillery bombardment
    
  • Aerial bombardment
    
  • Naval Bombardment
    
  • Morter fire
    
  • Missile impact
    
  • precision munition (smart bomb)
    

  [*]Weapons of Mass Destruction

  • WMD- nuclear
    
  • WMD- chemical
    
  • WMD- biological
    
  • WMD- kinetic energy weapon
    

Natural Disaster

• Storm
  • lightning
    
  • high winds
    
  • tornado (regional)
    
  • hurricane or typhoon (regional)
    

  [*]flood

  • hurricane related storm surge
    
  • flash flood
    
  • dam burst
    
  • spring snow melt
    
  • backwater
    

  [*]Fire

  • forest fire
    
  • Wild fire
    
  • fire- seasonal
    

  [*]Earthquake

  [*]Volcano

  [*]tidal Wave

[colinian]

James,

You forgot one, one that almost got me last year:

Falling off a ladder while cleaning the gutters. This could be filed under "stupidity".

Colin

[Tanuki Racoon]

This could be filed under "stupidity".

Stupidity is one of the leading causes of death today.

[JamesSavik]

Stupidity is one of the leading causes of death today.

Sadly, many survive it.

[Trab]

Sadly, except in the case of Colin

[JamesSavik]

Sadly, except in the case of Colin

Well- Colin is by no means stupid. Just the occasional bout of big feet.

The real winners end up with a Darwin award or as a runner up.

Case in point: an airman at a base in New Mexico got a bright idea: every day big jets were taking off using RATO rockets [Rocket Assisted Take Off]. If they worked for B-52s, they ought to make a Chevy Nova run like a bat out of hell right?

More like a bat into hell. Said airman attached RATO rocket to his Nova, rigged an ignition switch and fired it off.

Problem is that a Chevy Nova weighs a ton fully loaded and soaking wet. A B-52 weighs close too a half million pounds.

Next day airman is listed as AWOL.

Days later a National Transportation Safety Bureau investigator is taken to a mysterious air crash site in the New Mexico desert. Nothing left of the aircraft- metal from the frame hit so hard that it fused to the rock. Damndest thing though. Apparently the aircraft had his landing grear down for over fifty miles before the aircraft hit a mountain at over 1750 mph.

Well- if ya gotta go, you might as well leave a crater.

[The Pecman]

Hey, don't forget drowning. You can drown somebody to death.

Even though I was a really strong swimmer as a kid, I did almost drown once, when a canoe capsized in the middle of a lake. I was only 8 or 9 at the time, and the other kid and I were able to swim the two or three miles back to shore. The real trick was waiting for the wind to blow the canoe back to land so we could bring it back in, and I almost got bitten by a snake (a very small one) while trudging through the mud with the canoe.

Somebody once published a list of the Top 10 Reasons to Murder Someone (for mystery writers), and I found that fascinating. One reason was "fear of embarrassment," if somebody knew something bad about you and threatened to reveal it and embarrass you. The easy ones were "Financial Gain" (killing Aunt Mytrtle for her dough), "Romantic Affairs" (killing the wife so the husband could shack up with the floozie), etc.

[Cole Parker]

I read or heard or somehow learned that very small snakes can be more deadly than very large ones. It seems babies aren't sufficiently wise in the ways of venom, and when they strike, they pump out their full allotment. Mature snakes tend to ration it.

So, Pecman, I think it's great for all of us, and you, that that tiny critter slithered away rather than toward.

C

[The Pecman]

I was musing that the other day with a friend of mine, telling him the number of close calls I've had in my life. By all rights, I should've been dead years ago, but miraculously, I've survived (so far). Like the time I flipped and rolled a convertible off a small cliff overlooking the Hollywood Freeway at 2 in the morning. Totalled the car, but I didn't hit anybody, nobody hit me, and I was able to crawl out on my hands and knees through busted glass and lived another day. My first and -- so far -- only serious car wreck. Weird experience.