Death and Memories

OOC Information: This information is being provided in goodwill by the admin at the onset of this game. This is not known in-character information and will see revelation through the plot. Consult the Codex system entry on death for the status of public information.

Premise

As this is a world of MMORPG, death is not permanent for most, though the initial fallout of the Apocalypse would certainly prove that there are many nuances around this matter. When a character dies, they return to their associated respawn locations; Their allegiant Kingdom, or the Town of Beginnings at the base of Aincrad Tower. However, death is not without cost.

Death

Physical Expiration

Items, People of the Land and Monsters all behave roughly in the same way when it comes to their ultimate destruction. Adventurers are generally considered special, due to their Auto-Resurrect ability. For all others, when their 'health' rating goes to zero, they generally shatter and then disappear - usually leaving an item behind.

Certain special People of the Land, such as Heroes, may linger for a little longer. This allows rare things, such as a Resurrection Item, to pull them back from the brink.

Common Death

Each time a character dies, they lose a bit of their memory. Sometimes, these are important and defining moments in their past, like the marriage to a loved one. Other times, these are minor memories, like the name of their pet cat.

The importance of the memory lost tends to scale with the mental or emotional strain in a moment or state of a character upon loss.

As death usually only comes at the hand of Combat, we have added a feature to the Combat System that allows you to 'wager' your memories during such an event - or choose to retreat safely, placing this choice in the player's hands.

What happens when all memories are lost, or much of it, will be revealed before it should become relevant for most characters.

Ultimate Death

It must be noted that there are paths to 'true death' for a character. Suicide is one such path, though the results there-off are met with some measure of skepticism by those in the world due to various strange in-world artifacts that surround such a deed. The topic of some of these ways is dark, and generally something that consent-wise, is fully in the players' hands. However, further exploration of what these other paths are, and what this means, is left to be found out in-game.

Memories

Summary

As a character loses the memories that made them who they are, they become changed in many ways. Often, the basis of their personality isn't so quick to change; but to those who are haunted or urged on by a defining moment can change their entire outlook on life if they lost that memory. There are other important facts that will be revealed over time in regards to the effects of such losses.