Death
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What follows is a brief description of a proposed method for handling death in game. The idea is to make death a significant ordeal. Further, it is designed to make permanent death both possible and significant.
If you die in game your body will begin to decompose and your spirit will be transported to the domain of the dead. This realm is exactly the same as the real world, though sight distance is limited and everything appears greyscale.
Return to the real world is only possible through a limited number of methods described below.
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Decomposition
When you die and your character enters the domain of the dead. The body left behind in the "material world" will begin to decompose. This has several effects. The first is that it acts as a natural timer. If you fail to use one of the available methods of being revived then your body will eventually reach a stage where it cannot be revived. At this point you are no longer able to return to the realm of the living with the same character. The second effect that will become apparent is that your ability to communicate via talking and shouting will decrease.
Chat Distortion
As stated above, as your material body decomposes your ability to communicate with people whom are still living fades. This only affects the people in the living realm that hear you. Other characters in the domain of the dead with be able to hear you normally. The distortion will be done on a character by character basis. When you begin to decompose your body's integrity will start at 100% and slowly decrease until it reaches zero. Each text character will have a .75 * body_integrity chance of being transmitted. This means initially each character has a 75% chance of being seen. Eventually, the body integrity will reach zero. At this point /say and /shout will no longer have any ability to reach the realm of the living.
A character who uses /shout is heard with accuracy equal to body_integrity.
/whisper and other chat channels will always continue to function as normal.
Staving off Decay
Certain spells can slow or reverse the rate with which a body decays.
Similarly, if a body has been properly buried then the rate of decay slows significantly. This can buy you some additional time to be resurrected.
Returning from the domain of the dead
Life Magic
Characters that have died will have a certain period of time during which it will be possible to use life giving magic in order to resurrect them. The resurrection will be subject to conditions which include (the level of the magic caster times the character's body_integrity%) vs the level of the fallen character. If the level of magic is not sufficient to revive the character then the character will remain in the domain of the dead.
Life Scroll
One option for keeping your character safe are items known as Life Scrolls. These are items with the ability to revive a dead character into a weakened state. As with all life magic, the scrolls can only resurrect characters up to a certain level. Beyond that more expensive and more rare Life Scrolls are needed.
Using Life Scrolls
Life Scrolls do not work automatically. If you have one available at the time of your demise you will be able to right click your body at any time and simply hit "Revive". Thus you can wait until an apparent danger passes before resurrecting yourself. However, the ongoing degridation of your body limits the time that you can wait and successfully be restored.
Quests
Certain NPCs and events can restore even characters that have been "completely trapped." However, obtaining such passage is neither easy nor quick. The rarity of such occurrences cannot be overlooked.
Reincarnation
There are rumors of a location within the domain of the dead from which a character can be reborn. While the character born into a new body, and possibly even a new race, their old skills are simply treated as if they degraded.
Such characters cannot have the same name as their previous incarnation, or even significant parts of that name.
Death within Death
While the domain of the dead is a far less threatening place than the material world, it is still possible for characters to be attacked. Similarly, there is an area where the dead are "supposed" to be, and from which guardians will not let them escape. A character who dies again finds themselves within this place. Sometimes the guardians come seeking those whose bodies have completely decomposed and have not found their own way to rest.
Aging
To prevent players from getting upset with a radical version of aging we decided aging will be a mild importance to the game. Characters will gradually age over a period of 12 years. 1 year being 4 years in-game. The player will start out as a 20 year old person. At age 60 the character will have reached the maximum reachable age.
Advantages and disadvantages
With aging come both benefits and downsides. As the character grows to the age of 40 basic statistics and skills will increase mildly. From age 40 to 60 the character's physichal features and skills such as woodcutting or fighting will decrease, but mental health will increase.
Change in looks
It may be possible to implement the changing of looks of the character while he or she ages in the future. It is something that should be looked into more closely though as it is hard to both code and design.
Death or life
When the character reaches age 60 dying would become a logical result. Though in order to not upset the player too much and go too far to the extreme with realism the character will stop aging at this point and live on. Whether the player wishes to go on with his character or kill him off is up to him or herself.
