In most respects and situations, dying on Dark Age II is the same as dying on other UO shards. You become a ghost, will be resurrected by healers and will revive where the healer resurrected you. (Note that you may need to approach a healer twice: once to “wake him up”, and once for him to resurrect you). Yet, it is not true that you can never die forever. When you take your last breath, is up to fate. For players in Dark Age II, a strange curse is present in all those that come to Denshy..

In the Age of Demons, there were those who bound the service and souls of demons to themselves and to others to increase their powers and attempt to become as the Gods. Said demons have since been exiled from this plane, but the taint upon the souls of those who were bound to them– “The Demonstruck” remain.

These people and their ancestors have paid a price for their dabbling in the Demon Arts, it is said. While not every descendant is cursed, it is known to skip generations and pick individual offspring seemingly at a whim, those who are learn it upon their first death to any cause. They find, simply, that instead of reaching the promised land of their God, they continue to exist. Their soul wanders, and soon it finds means to regenerate it’s body, despite the fate of it’s previous one. And, even within an hour of even the most gruesome death, a person may once again live and be well.

Such might not set well with a superstitious and God-fearing populace, and one might suspect such people would be hunted and called foul for their traits. Had such a tradition ever existed, it would of been quickly dismissed for two reasons. The first being that such a number of people display these traits, and that it can exist so randomly in any number of people, that to kill all who had it would be nothing short of a massacre. Added to that, the only common way to determine whether the trait exists with a soul is to have the person killed – such a test could reveal a “grave” mistake. The final reason is, there are few who would want to make enemies with a people who, upon death, simply returned. And so, these people as they have appeared have been accepted begrudgingly, some with a hint of jealousy, some spoken of with foul whispers behind their back, but most, simply, noted as one who has yet to fulfill their destiny. There are some who shun the entire superstition of demons being involved in the equation as being just that – superstition.

Superstition or no, Destiny completed or not, these people are not Immortal nor Gods. They are limited, for those who are similarly ‘Demonstruck’ can taketh what has been given. That is to say, the Demonstruck are vulnerable to that which is also Demonstruck. Their souls are mutually strong, and no one death from even their equal will bring about their end. But with each passing death, the taint of their soul weakens, and they grow closer to leaving this realm, and being sent to whichever realm the demon of their past now resides.

The fate they have waiting for them there is not likely a pleasant one.

Many young demonstruck become engrossed in their own apparent immortality, but eventually they grow old, sick and feeble like any mortal, and realize the fate that awaits them. Most turn to Gods for salvation, believing that a deity is strong enough to save their souls from torment and banishment like that of any other mortal’s.

There are those of the struck who have noted, upon dying a death unlike the others, they have felt their soul slip from their bodies, and their hold on this realm being incomplete. Yet, something prevented their loss, and gave them one more chance. Be it fate or Godly favor, such instances are accepted as fact and known to occur at least once before the Final Death of one who has been Struck.

Firstly, when you are reduced to 0 hitpoints (IE: an OSI death), your character begins to bleed out. After 2 minutes, you will suffer a full death. During this time, you will be bound to your corpse. While you may move around and even manifest, you will be unable to speak at all while your corpse grows cold. If you move more than 2 squares away from your corpse, you will be summoned back after a short period. A friend or enemy, may wish to revive you, and they may do so in one of three ways. If they have healing and anatomy skills of above 30, they may use a bandage to try and stop the bleeding. Using a healing spell or feeding someone a healing potion with the .feed command, will work as well. (Note that potions have a 10 second delay) If you think no one will come to save you, you may give up on your life with the .bleedout command and not have to wait the full 2 minutes to die.

While you are unconscious, there is a remote possibility of regaining consciousness by yourself, dependant on two things: your Survival skill, and how long you have been unconscious. This works passively, which means that you may automatically recover your senses.

Each starting character is demonstruck and begins with a variable number of fate points, this number will never be known to the player. Fate is a mystery and cannot be measured. These Fate Points determine how soon your character will take the Final Death. When a character suffers final death, they may no longer be resurrected, and must remain a ghost for eternity! Effectively your character is gone, as you cannot use any skills or use any item. You are forever stuck in the colorless gray, awaiting the pains of your destiny.

Not all deaths contribute to your chances of taking the Final Death. In fact, all PvE (Player vs. Environment) deaths do not add to your death count. Only PvP (Player vs. Player and in some cases Player vs. GM controlled creature) increase your death count. Nowhere will you find your total number of deaths listed, that is something for you to keep track. The following table shows what the chances of losing a fate point are based on the number of deaths taken. After you run out of fate points, you take Final Death.

Death counts decay at a rate of 1 every four weeks. Your first two death counts will always haunt you.

We have found that the threat of final death, rare though it is, compels characters to treat danger and death as real, rather than the minor “I go to rez now” incoveniences that it is usually treated as on most MMORPGs.

Yes. Though special events will have a Fate Point as a reward to the player who best role-plays during the events of that particular plot. These will be very rare and the plot that they will be awarded at will generally be world-shattering and very important. This is not the only way. By using Experience Points, you may save up enough to eventually buy a Fate Point (see Experience section for more information).

Demonstruck people can recognize other demonstruck people. This means you will be able to RP the knowledge that killing a player won’t kill him permamently usually. This means that you will be able to issue bounties for the ‘final death’ of players if you so desire, and that you do not have to be suprised when a player you have killed returns from the dead. I urge everyone to be very selective on who you decide to kill repeatedly though.. Having an enemy FD is rarely as good RP as having to deal with an enemy repeatedly, particularly with our lower playerbase which must be recycled.