Life Essence & Permadeath
This Guide goes over the Life Essence System and Permadeath in Vassal.
This Guide goes over the Life Essence System and Permadeath in Vassal.
Life Essence is one of the most important resources in Vassal, as it directly relates to how long you can play as your character for. You will start with 3 Life Essence stored, essentially 3 Lives. You can check your current Life Essence by pressing the O Key.
You can obtain more life essence through a variety of means, such as as a rare drop for defeating special mobs, taking part in Events, and rarely from Essence Merchants, who will sometimes appear in towns for a short period of time with a limited supply of Essence.
You can only Store 3 Essence at a time, and in it's item form, Essence is quite unstable and will slowly start to fade, until the item dissappears after about 20 IRL Minutes. This means you cannot store or stockpile essence, you simply must to seek it out when you're lacking it; you can't hold onto life forever.
Well, it's not hard to guess what happens.
If you Respawn with No Life Essence Left, you will lose your Character Permanently.
There is no way to bring a character back (at least, for you to play as) once this happens.
When this happens, you'll have all of your Player Data Cleared, and you'll be prompted to start the Character Creation process over. Your player Data includes your inventory (which should be empty, as all your items will be in your character's corpse), your Magic Progress, and any other Information Stored in your Player, such as your Influence.
There are only 2 Special Cases for clearing Player Data.
Firstly, you won't lose your pets, since they are attached to your Account and not your Player Data.
Secondly, and less positively, you will lose ALL Money that was stored in your character at the time of your Death, so if you're close to dying and want to keep your money with you after Death, make sure to get yourself a Piggy Bank.
Character Death is part of the Vassal Experience. There is ways to slow the process and hold on for longer, but in the end Death will come for all characters in Vassal.
So, I suggest you take some time after your Character's Death. If you were playing them long enough, it can be a very intense experience. When you feel you're ready, simply go through Character Creation again, and Create a New Character Post in #characters to be Reviewed. We suggest you try something New with your Character, choose a different kingdom, a different race, a different profession. Vassal has a LOT to offer, so take this opportunity to explore every bit of it.
Most People in S1 had Funerals held for their Character, which can be a great roleplay opportunity to introduce your New Character, and a good way to solidify this transition.
Now, there are some special cases in this System. Notably, some ways of Dying that are considered "Common Accidents" are not counted to reduce frustration. These include Fall Damage (though only Falling by itself, not being Doomed to Fall by another Player), Suffocation (Dying in a Block), or Starvation.
However, there is one more secret to Vassal... Eternal Life.
It's a dark and dangerous path, one that takes away the very thing that makes you a person. However, those with "The Pact" will no longer die, at the cost of their humanity.
We will not explain how to get it here, that's simply something you will have to figure out for yourself.