Death & Respawn¶

Death is a setback, not a wipe. It costs future momentum while the grave chill thaws, but you keep your level, permanent experience, skills, gear, and learned workings.

What kills you¶

HP reaching 0 from damage, a bleeding wound, or a trap.
A grade-6 critical to the head, neck, or eyes — instant death regardless of remaining HP (see Combat).
A high-difficulty trap triggered at low HP.

On death: the death-rest¶

You do not respawn instantly — you lie where you fell, able only to speak and use resonance, while a decay timer (about 5 minutes) runs:

Choice	Consequence
Be raised (a Cleric casts 2353 Rekindle the Fallen)	Wake where you fell at quarter Health, with only half the chill
The temple road (friends `DRAG` your body to a temple cleric, you say `CONFIRM`)	Same half-chill mercy, bought with silver — see below
Lie still	When the timer lapses, the world reclaims you gently — the normal grave-chill
`DEPART CONFIRM`	Go to your region's resting place now, with half again the normal chill (`DEPART` alone shows the time left)

The mercy ladder: raised < reclaimed < departed. Without a raise, you wake at your region's resting place — the chapel in Coldhollow (room 1021), the Temple of the Dawnflame in Emberford, or the Kettle hot spring in the Highreach; death never carries you across a region's border:

Consequence	Detail
HP	Half your maximum HP
Spirit	You return at 1 spirit
Posture	Standing; recovery cleared
Gear	Fully intact — nothing drops or is lost
Skills & spells	Fully intact

The grave-chill¶

Death takes no permanent experience. A grave chill settles in; while it lingers, one quarter of every new experience award thaws the chill and three quarters advance you.

You work it off by doing anything that teaches: hunting, care, boxwork, writs, or craft. A Cleric's 2353 Rekindle the Fallen halves it; departing early adds half again; and a banked embermark burns away two thirds of the respawn chill (HELP EMBERMARKS). EXPERIENCE shows both the chill and any marks you carry.

Embermarks¶

At an ember shrine, lay an offering of real value before the chime and RING CHIME once. If the gift is weighty enough, it burns away and leaves an embermark in your name; if it is not, it stays where you put it. The asking value rises with your level and with the marks you already hold. One mark is spent automatically on your next ordinary or early respawn, leaving one third of the chill that death would otherwise give you.

Through the first twenty levels, the first mark costs about the silver paid by one ordinary settlement writ. Keeping several marks in reserve costs progressively more, so the first safeguard is accessible while a deep reserve remains a deliberate sacrifice.

The temple road: the pay-for-cleric¶

The classic rescue when no player cleric is at hand: drag the dead to the temple.

A friend takes the body — DRAG <name>, and hauls it room by room (heavy work; the body trails like freight).
The moment the body lies in a temple cleric's room, the Flame keeps vigil: the decay clock stops, and the priest makes the offer once — the fee, and one word.
The dead player's spirit must consent: say CONFIRM. No spirit is compelled back unwillingly.
The temple takes its due — 100 + 30 × level silver, from your purse first, your bank account for the rest. If coin is short, the Flame keeps honest books, and you keep lying there.

The raise itself grants the same half-chill mercy as Rekindle the Fallen: quarter Health, one Spirit, and waking where the body lies. Father Hollis keeps the vigil at the Coldhollow chapel; a GM can consecrate other priests (/MAKECLERIC).

The shaken debuff¶

For 45 seconds after respawning you are shaken: −10 Attack and −10 Guard, applied as a timed effect (source shaken). It expires on its own; there is no way to shorten it.

Do not run straight back into a fight after dying. Rest in town, let the shaken effect lapse, heal to full, then return.

Bleeding out¶

A bleed that drains faster than you recover will eventually kill you even after you escape combat — common after fleeing a fight wounded, or from a trap sprung while lockpicking. Counter it with TEND, POSTURE prone (fastest regen), or a recovery node. If it wins, normal death rules apply.

The REROLL command¶

Distinct from death, REROLL sends an existing character back through character creation as a fresh level 1, keeping only the name. It is destructive: it wipes all carried and worn items and zeroes silver (a carried pet is spared), and is blocked while dead or in combat.

REROLL            preview what you would lose
REROLL CONFIRM    perform it (irreversible)

A disconnect mid-reroll rolls back cleanly — nothing is saved until creation completes.

GM note¶

A GM can /heal (/revive, /raise) a player to full with no exp penalty and no forced respawn, or run the real death path on themselves with /killself for testing. See the GM Guide.