A character dies when one's HP drops below zero. If a player character dies, they drop some items and lose 1/3 of their money. The death penalty applies to PCs who are at a high enough level.
The prompt upon a PC's death is shown below:
- "You are about to be buried..."
- Crawl up
- PC is resurrected in Your Home with 1/3 of maximum HP, MP, and SP
- If the Ether Disease caused the death, the last two effects of the disease are cleared.
- Lie on your back
- Leads to a message saying, "You have been buried. Bye...(Hit any key to exit)". Any unsaved progress is lost as the game is closed upon pressing any key.
- This option is not available when playing in Abnormal mode in Elona+.
- Crawl up
Additionally, the majority of the items which you lose upon death will be left at the exact spot of your death. The probability of dropping your equipment dying on the local map is lower. Dropping equipment on maps that respawn (like towns) means that your equipment will be eliminated within a few days of your last visit. Dropping equipment on maps that are not saved at all, and are re-randomized with every visit, like the Puppy Cave, means they are lost forever.
Your score is dropped to 1/10th of what it was every time you die; unless you're going for a high score, this isn't a big deal.
None of these penalties apply if you die during the Hunting, The Harvest Time or Party Time! job Quests, or while in the Arena. Presumably, this is to prevent the problem of losing equipment forever in these always-re-initialized maps, and it was simply never applied to places like the Puppy Cave. Instead, you will lose points of Will and Charisma as a punishment for dying (This was added in version 1.22 to prevent players from abusing death as a means of evading certain negative Status Effects, such as anorexia). There is no such penalty in the Arena, however, where you merely lose Arena Rank and fame.
Death penalty[]
Player characters who are level 6 (level 10 in Elona+) and above receive a penalty when crawling up:
- When karma is below -30, increase it by 10 only if afflicted by death-crest.
- Each of the PC's stats has a 25% chance to be lowered by 0.5 points.
Death messages[]
| Cause of death | Message |
|---|---|
| Character | was killed by [insert character here] |
| Trap | got caught in a trap and died |
| Magic reaction | was completely wiped by magic reaction |
| Starvation | was starved to death |
| Poison | miserably died from poison |
| Curse | died from curse |
| Backpack | was squashed by [insert character here] |
| Falling off stairs | tumbled from stairs and died |
| Burn damage | was burnt and turned into ash |
| "Unseen hand" event | got assassinated by the unseen hand |
| Food poisoning | got killed by food poisoning |
| Bleeding out | died from loss of blood |
| Ether Disease | died of the Ether disease |
| Acid damage | melted down |
| Suicide | committed suicide |
| Nuclear bomb | was killed by an atomic bomb |
| Iron maiden | stepped in an iron maiden and died |
| Guillotine | was guillotined |
| Tight rope | committed suicide by hanging |
| Choking from eating mochi | ate mochi and died |