Character Death - Dying to know
What happens when you die?
Mechanically, the player puts their hand/soul bound sword over their head and WALKS (not runs) to the resurrection point. But what is on the other side? What does it look like? If the world is all in color when you’re living, as a soul, the world is a faded gray (similar to how the lord of the rings movies portray Frodo putting the one ring on). Resurrection points are glowing surges of power that you can see over great distances. They are a pulling force... a vacuum...a beacon...
When your soul sees the resurrection point-whether it is a circle, a graveyard, or a tree, your soul can walk to that location. Your soul has the same travel time that you do. If the resurrection point is close, your soul may come out of that resurrection point sooner than a resurrection point you need to travel to... for example a Aeldirminian dying in Sudomir, and returning to a tree in Aeldirmann, they may do so with the same travel time as the living.
Some spirits ~may~ take longer than the required travel time to pop out of a resurrection point but only if it is for out of play reasons.
You must head in the most direct manner to the resurrection point, unless you are going to an out of play function like sleeping, monstering or such. Your soul may not just wander around site: if you intend to monster, sleep, or eat etc. then go out of play where you died, and return to play by exiting the resurrection point.
If you are waiting until next event to resurrect, for example your character dies in August, and cannot attend September, but then you return at the October event, you may choose to start the event as if you have already come out of the resurrection point or physically at the resurrection point (if you wish to RP coming out of it), but you may not start an event wandering around site as soul.
As a player, if you know that you are getting low lives, you may choose to go monster to gain experience to level and regain a life at certain level increments instead of immediately resurrecting (please see the rule book leveling chart to determine your closest increment with a new life). While a character with a low number of lives left is not required to resurrect immediately, they may not wander around as a soul, they must monster or go out of play.
Note: IN PLAY your character does not know the exact number of lives they have, but they can feel a weakening of the spirit when they get low and also when they are on their last life. This is more of a feeling or intuition than actual solid knowledge. You may roleplay accordingly.
There are some characters that can see souls, undead (like wraiths), and shepherds of the dead (like Valkyrie and haggs) across the veil. Some of these characters can also speak with those that are across the veil. Your spirit could communicate with one of these characters IF THEY Approach you.(Out of play, veil speech is very much a tool for the game to check in with characters who may have been the target of abusive PvP actions: for example hunting newbies, griefing, going after orange banded players, etc)
Your soul cannot distinguish one living being from another, they kinda look like grey blobs with piercing eyes, and therefore a soul cannot search for someone with veil sight/ speech etc. This also means that you cannot shout out hoping for someone with veil speech to hear you as you walk to the tree.
When you reach an official resurrection point, touch it and count yourself back in play with a five count (coming out of the tree 1, coming out of the tree 2, coming out of the tree 3, coming out of the tree 4, coming out of the tree 5).
It is well known that a character coming out of a resurrection point, does not remember the last hour before they were dropped. This is because Entropy removes that hour before your death as a gift to help ease the burden on your soul.
You may role-play any number of reactions coming out of the tree. Some will role-play confusion, not understanding why they are suddenly in the woods. Some will role-play anger because the last thing they remember being combat. Some may role-play anxiety or sorrow, feeling a lightness of their spirit (having one less portion of their souls/ having less lives), but these emotions should all be based on the hour BEFORE you dropped. Not the emotional state immediately proceeding being dropped.
Note: Noble houses/groups/characters do not each have their own respawn points in their hearth or home, unless they have cast the appropriate rituals and spent the materials and time/ effort to create a resurrection point there.