Death
From Neverend
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[edit] Death
Players have a certain number of lives. When killed, the player may use one life to revive at 25% health at the location their corpse is located.
Players may attach to a home point by being a citizen of a town, or gaining access to a home point. When dead, the player has the option to revive at the location of their corpse, or have their corpse revived at the selected home point. Players may have up to five home points saved. Players with no home point or a home point set to "none" do not have the option to revive at a home point.
When a player has zero lives, they enter the afterlife, and must exit in order to return to the normal world.
Player lives replenish over time, and the maximum number of lives can be raised with some skills, such as medium cleric or monk skills. Items may also add, subtract, or sacrifice lives. Some spells may add or subtract lives. Instant death spells, death traps, and death effects will subtract one life if successful.
Players who can continue playing with zero lives are considered undead, and require a special set of circumstances to bring this status. The most common is the afterlife ghost form, which ends when the player leaves the afterlife. Some quests in the afterlife may allow the player to return as a ghost. Quests, items, spells, artifacts, traps and curses can leave players as zombies, liches, wraiths, ghosts, spectres, wights, spirits, death knights, etc. These situations can be reversed under specific circumstances.
New players start with 4 lives, and through experience can earn up to 5, 6 or 7, with a maximum of 9 for highly skilled characters.
[edit] Avoiding Death
Bandits, thieves, and rogues will patrol the outskirts of town and inside towns where there is low police or guard influence. Like Sim City, a high police influence will reduce the appearance of thieving NPCs.
Thieving NPCs prefer to threaten you than attack you, and will ask for money or other valuables. If you don't have money, you can offer sex, assuming you are compatible with the thief's interests. You could also try to gain the upper hand during sex and use it to attack the thief, or to flee.
The use of bribing, sex, and fleeing are three methods of avoiding death by combat. They apply to NPCs other than thieves, but thieves are the most likely to offer death around town. A pissed off gaurd or merchant can be dealt with in the same way.
A player can offer money to avoid repurcussions, but this requires charisma and influence by the player if the NPC is not normally prone to bribing. If the NPC can easily be bribed, then the bribe will be successful- this includes beggars, thieves, orc like creatures, etc. NPCs who do not feel any need for money will not respond well to bribing. This includes the very humble and the very noble, and also those who are too stupid to understand money, such as most animals and monsters.
Sex is a similar offer, and may have no effect on one who has a high sense of honor or virtue, such as a knight. The chance of resisting a sex offer increases with somespells, clothing, armor, enchantments, psychic effects, potions, drugs, and persuasion skill. Some NPCs have no need for sex, and will not respond period. Although there are many NPCs who don't look like they would need sex, but actually do.
Fleeing is based on run speed and stamina to gain distance from a pursuer. Fleeing is also based on visibility, which is anything that blocks a direct line of site from the pursuer. If there is low visibility, the pursuer will go to or past the area that was most visible. This can work against a pursuer by zig zagging through thick trees and bushes, as a pursuer may be looking in the wrong place when the player has long run off. NPCs can become confused and pursue the wrong area, the wrong direction, or spend too much time tracking in dense cover. If the NPC does spot the player again, there will be more pursuit. NPCs will eventually give up based on distance, and return to their usual spot.
Hiding works the same as fleeing, as visibility is reduced drastically by hiding in something or behind something, or using a spell or ability. Since the NPC will go to the last visible spot, the NPC can still find a hiding player. Players should go to a new hiding spot to give the NPC no direction for pursuit, causing the NPC to give up.
Sneaking doesn't work when actively being pursued or attacked. It works to prevent being spotted or seen, as long as the player makes use of shadows and low visibility cover, such as walls and bushes. All NPCs have an angle of sight, and players must be outside of or behind this angle to sneak with no cover, or be behind cover when directly within the angle of sight. Sneaking in the open and in broad daylight will cause NPCs to comment on the player sneaking. They will specifically point out a player to make fun of them, laugh at them, tell them to stop, look or act confused, or get angry, based on the type of NPC. Sneaking visibly in front of monsters will have no effect.
[edit] NPC Death
There are randomly generated NPCs, and there are characters. Characters have written dialogue, personality, and other traits that make them unique. Think of KOS-MOS from Xenosaga, or someone with their own traits that make them unique. Gods and mythological figures are also characters.
When characters die, they go to the underworld, and attempt to journey out of it. They may find an exit, or they may be trapped or unable to exit. Trapped characters can be freed by players, either by using an item, leading them to an exit, fulfilling a task in the underworld or in the realm, or offering money, sex, or servitute in exchange for being released from the underworld. Some trapped conditions are associated with specific characters, who may need something specific to happen do events in their life, such as attachment to a loved one, personal actions or crimes, or strong emotional ties to something.
Randomly generated NPCs are NPCs who wander cities and wilderness, usually associated by their class name or job title only. Peasants gather in slums, merchants run stores, bandits lurk in the shadows, gaurds patrol posts or watch, craftsmen craft items, nobles and politicians walk around and act important, jesters entertain, etc.
Random NPCs do not go to the underworld, as new ones are always created (OR, there is a static number of NPCs, so they do go to the underworld, but this reduces the amount in the realms until they manage to get out of the underworld. It would be possible to send nearly all NPCs to the underworld since new ones would not be generated).
What happens to bodies of players and NPCs? How long does a corpse exist? Or do they dissapear Star Wars style upon being killed?
If a player's body still existed, and he had to make the journey back, it would most likely be desecrated or rotten by then, and be of little use. Corpses could decay quickly so that they would not exist after a few minutes.
Either way, if corpses exist for hours or minutes or seconds after death, they can be manipulated by NPCs and players who use corpses. Necromancers, shamans, sorcerors, warlocks, liches, death knights, wizards, skeleton lords, zombie lords, ghosts, poltergeists, wights, spirits, demons, and some gods can interract with a body in the area, especially if it rests in a graveyard, tomb, dungeon, temple, or other area where the creature tends to reside or own. The body would act as an alarm signal, sending creatures towards it to turn it into a zombie, skeleton, or spirit.
In the hub, some NPCs might run to bodies in order to harvest organs and parts.
Animals and insects would eat corpses, rapidly decaying the corpse but making the creature stronger, with bonuses to strength, stamina, dexterity, etc.
What remains on a corpse? Clothing? Jewelry? Armor? Weapons? gold? inventory? It would be great if these things were bound to a spirit when it goes to the underworld. If not, it would be scavenged by players and NPCs alike, and scattered throughout the world. The player should have some form of insurance, such as a spirit inventory, or placing the items in a spirit graveyard that the player can access on the way out of the underworld.
What else can you do with a corpse? Why, you can always butcher it like any other animal, put its head on a stick, or skin it and keep the bones, collect and sell organs, make human leather and stew, perform obscene rituals with human body parts, or find your perfect match through necrophilia.
Death is also a "status" that NPCs have. If you were asked to save a girl from a group of bandits, and she was killed during the rescue attempt, then the person who asked you to save her would know the girl is dead, or you would let her know as your dialogue option would change to inform her, tell her, or lie to her.
In any dialogue where an NPC is referred to as living, an alternate dialogue exists for if they are dead. If you have slain a bandit leader, NPCs will know and stop asking people to slay him. If you killed a famous dragon, people would know as soon as you killed him. If someone died and you talk to an NPC who normally asks you to give her a letter, she wouldn't ask you anymore and instead mourn her loss.
Death affects the following NPC conversations-
Hail or worship NPC Fear or respect NPC Kill or defeat NPC Find NPC Talk to NPC Give this to NPC Get this from NPC Praise or glorify NPC NPC is well known NPC is celebrated NPC is famous NPC has a reputation
Instead, an opposite, alternate message will declare mourning, loss, sadness, sorrow, regret, dismay, bitterness, or depression. Hated NPCs will have their name cheered, celebrated, joked at, laughed at, and mentioned with relief, upon death.
[edit] Death effects
Class abilities have effects that activate on death, and after death. These range from auto-resurrection, corpse protection, reviving as undead, summoning a protective guardian, fighting as a spirit, magical protection, and other methods to defend the corpse from attack and attack others. Some effects "cheat" death by having a different effect than death when HP reaches 0, and setting HP to 1, not counting as a death for the player. This includes fake death, turning to dust, turning to smoke, turning to wind, turning to leaves, turning to flowers, transport away, turn invisible and invincible for a short time, and instantly warping behind attacker. These are one time effects that must be learned and prepared. Other effects transport the corpse away, hide the corpse, protect the corpse, temporarily bury the corpse, petrify the corpse, encase the corpse in metal or thick vines, protect the corpse with a magic field, turn into a controllable spirit or ghost or wisp, trap corpse, curse corpse, and make corpse invisible. These effects hinder looters but allow others to use revival spells if possible. Dead players must still traverse the afterlife unless the death effect is based on being a spirit, where the player does not have to go to the afterlife if the corpse can be reactivated, but will go to the afterlife if the body is destroyed. Undead effects on death come in the form of uncontrollable undead creature while the player traverses the afterlife, controllable undead creature that remains in undead form but goes to the afterlife when killed, and lich form which is only available to high level necromancers.
Protection effects: Hiding effects: Teleportation effects: Undead effects:
