Death

What happens when you fall, what the Underworld charges to let you go, and what a dropped connection costs you.

You die when your health falls below 1. Rogue does not take your equipment, it does not drop your coins on the floor, and it does not leave a lootable corpse behind for someone else to pick over. What it takes is your progress, and it takes all of it.

Before any of that happens, three things can save you.

Being saved#

The Training Grounds. Death is disabled throughout the Explorer's Training Grounds in Aurin. Fall there and a golden light catches you: every enemy forgets you, you are healed to half your maximum health, and you are set down in the Main Hall with Master Toren, who explains in no uncertain terms what would have happened anywhere else. Nothing is lost, nothing is logged, and the protection has no level limit, no cooldown and no cap on how often it fires. This is where new characters are meant to learn to fight.

Blessed Rebirth. A cleric of level 49 or above simply does not die the first time it happens in any given hour. Golden fire takes them instead and they rise again at a quarter of their maximum health. They are still in the fight, and nothing has cleared their enemies, so it buys a recovery rather than an escape. It costs nothing and needs no activation. Typing blessedrebirth only explains the passive.

Being resurrected in place. A cleric with Mass Resurrection can raise every fallen character in the room at once, and Miracle can raise one. Both restore the target to full health with no penalty of any kind. A cleric willing to walk to the Gates of the Underworld can free the dead there for nothing.

Dying properly#

Everything else follows the same sequence. The world dims, your body shimmers and fades from the room, and your death is announced on the death channel to everyone listening. Any quest you were running that forbade death fails immediately. You lose a random portion of your current spell points, up to half. You are restored to half your maximum health, turned into a ghost, and moved to the Gates of the Underworld.

Your inventory, your worn equipment and your coins all come with you. Nothing is left behind and no corpse is created.

The Gates of the Underworld#

The Gates are a single room of shadow and bone at the threshold of Morbis' realm, and they have no exits. You cannot walk out, and wandering is not an option. Verathos, Gatekeeper of the Underworld, is waiting for you, and he cannot be attacked.

The only way through is pray. Any form of the word works. Verathos hears you, tells you the thread of your life is not yet cut, and begins a ritual that runs for a little over a minute. He is explicit throughout about what he is taking, and he takes it in two instalments:

All of your experience points. Not a percentage and not a debt to be worked off. The entire current total is claimed. See progression for what that means for your next level.
Two items chosen at random from your possessions. Currency, quest items and items that cannot be dropped are all skipped. If you are carrying only one eligible item he takes that, and if you are carrying nothing of value he notes that the Underworld will remember the debt.

When the ritual completes you are returned to Cirelle's shrine in Aurin and rooted in place for 60 seconds while you get your bearings. You come back at roughly 30 percent health, 30 percent endurance and almost no spell points, and you will want to rest before you go anywhere. Your level does not change, and nothing lingers afterwards.

Leaving the room part-way through the ritual cancels it. If some other effect removes you from the Underworld entirely - a summons, a teleport, another character's resurrection - you are revived on the spot at no cost whatsoever. Getting a friend to come and fetch you is by far the cheapest way home.

If you log out while dead you will log back in at the Gates, still a ghost, with Verathos still waiting.

What death does not cost#

No equipment is dropped and no coins are taken by dying.
Your gear does not lose durability from dying. Condition is worn down by fighting, not by falling.
You do not lose a level.
There is no lasting debuff, sickness or recovery penalty after you return.

Leaving a fight, and leaving badly#

You cannot quit while anything hostile is in the room with you, and it does not matter whether you have swung back. There is no timer and no grace period: the moment nothing present has you on its enemy list, quitting works again. This applies to everyone.

Dropping your connection is not a way around that. When your link goes, your body slumps to the ground unconscious and stays exactly where it was. It is still a valid target, and it will not fight back or recover, because its heartbeat is switched off. Anything that was attacking you carries on attacking you.

That body remains in the world for five minutes. If you reconnect within that window you wake up where you fell, and the room is told you have regained consciousness. If you do not, the body fades to safety - but the damage it took while you were away is saved first, so pulling the plug is never an undo for a beating.

If your unconscious body is killed, you die exactly as if you had been there. You will reconnect as a ghost at the Gates of the Underworld with Verathos' price still to pay. flee before you disconnect, or finish the fight.

Combat covers fleeing and the mitigation that keeps you alive.
Vitals covers recovering afterwards.
Conditions covers the effects that stop you running away.
Durability covers gear wear, which dying does not cause.
Quests covers the objectives a death can fail.