Life, death and heirs

Death is permanent

Lose a solo fight, or make the wrong choice at an event, and your character dies. There's no revive, no insurance and no undo. The next life starts from level 1 in Ashsquare, at full HP.

When a character dies

A death plays out as five short screens, in this order. Everything is already settled when the first one appears, so a slow click can't change anything. Press Continue to move on.

1. The kill shot. The final blow in plain words, such as "The Forest Wolf's Bite hit Brannoc for 23", with the killer's portrait and one line of commentary from the System.
2. The obituary. The card and the epitaph, described below.
3. The ledger. What the family keeps and what went into the ground, in numbers. See The ledger.
4. The hook. One or two reasons to go again, then a line counting the kin who have come to Ashsquare. The reasons, when they apply: the death left a ghost on the road, the life went further than any before it in your family, or the killer has now taken 10 or more of your server's heroes.
5. The graveyard post. The obituary goes up in the server's graveyard channel for everyone else.

Open the game on the web after dying in Discord, or the other way round, and you get the same screens. Meet your heir then takes you to the heir offer.

The ledger

The ledger has two halves. When you continue, Mother Sorrel speaks at the graveside, with her portrait and her voice, before the hook. The narrator reads the remark under the kill shot.

• What the family keeps: the Echoes this life earned, the Echoes the obituary paid at the end, and the total you now have to spend. Your crafting skill levels. The family treasure, if you marked an heirloom, and what it will be when the heir gets it. Your Records: the monsters, recipes and items this life added to your account's Codex.
• What stays with the dead: level, gold, items, moves, talents and curses, counted one last time before they go.

Obituaries

Every death gets an obituary: the name, class, level, generation, where they fell, what killed them, days survived and an epitaph the narrator has clearly enjoyed writing. "Generation 7" means the seventh hero your family has sent. It's posted to the server's graveyard channel (an admin sets it with /setup graveyard), where anyone can pay respects. Deaths on the web go to your home server, the last Discord server you played in.

When a ghost landed the blow, the obituary page follows the trail: "Killed by the ghost of Tobbin, who fell to the ghost of Mira, who fell to a Forest Wolf in Cornerfax." It names up to 3 ghosts, then stops. Older obituaries show no generation and no trail.

Every obituary also gets its own page here, with a card for sharing. The latest are on Obituaries.

Your own family's dead are under More → Graveyard in the game, newest first: each hero's class, level, how far they got, what killed them, the Echoes they banked and the date. Tap one for its card and epitaph. The Legends tab there lists the lives that kept the oath, for everyone or your home server, as on Legends.

Echoes

Echoes are the currency that survives death. They're banked the moment you earn them, so dying never takes any away.

• Each level gained: 1, or 3 for every fifth level.
• Each gate boss, the first time in a life: 5 plus the city's place on the road, so Ashsquare's pays 6 and later bosses pay more.
• The first elite you kill in each city, once a life: 3. Ghosts don't count.
• The obituary, paid when you die: 2 per full day survived (counting up to 30 days), 3 for every city on the road up to and including the one you died in, and your level divided by 2, rounded down.

For example, a level 12 character who dies in Birchfall after 3 full days banks 18 Echoes from the obituary alone.

The legacy tree

Echoes buy nodes in the legacy tree, and each node helps every life after. Some nodes need others first. Spend them with /legacy or the Legacy tab (under Hero in the app). Every node players have bought is on the Legacy page.

The Codex nodes (Read the room and Spoilers) show elite and boss intents several turns ahead in every fight. See Seeing further ahead.

The Family resemblance I to Family resemblance V nodes raise max HP, attack, magic, defense and speed by up to 7% in total. The bonus applies after gear, curses and traits, in every fight your hero takes and to their max HP. Crit chance doesn't change.

Heirs

After a death, the family sends someone new. You're offered 3 heirs, each with a name, a class and a trait, and a 40% chance of a second trait. Classes are drawn from the ones your account has unlocked. The traits range from useful to embarrassing; Legacy lists the ones players have seen.

With the Nepotism node, you choose each heir's class before you pick: a Class menu on each heir in the app, or one class menu under the heirs in Discord. Any class you have unlocked works. The heir keeps their name and traits and gets a face from the new class.

Pick one with /start or on the web. Until you do, there's nobody to play. Each heir is shown beside their painted face, and has a grey Rename button that swaps their name for one from the name packs you've unlocked. Faces come from a pool per class; men come up ×4 as often as women, as a group, whatever the size of each pool.

Heroes are numbered by how many your family has sent. On a new account, the veteran from the cold open counts as the first, so your first hero is generation 2.

The new heir arrives in Ashsquare, where somebody has been keeping count. Thecast remember every heir your family has sent and how each one died, and they'll mention it. It's flavour only: /settings story makes them brief or quiet.

What traits do

• Stats (max HP, attack, magic, defense, speed) scale your stats after gear and curses. Crit is added to your crit chance.
• In a fight: healing done and healing taken scale every heal, including potions. The first-hit bonus applies to your first hit that lands in each fight. A flee chance adds to the flee roll. See Combat for acting first, skipping the first turn and refusing to flee.
• No potions: healing potions stay in your pack, in fights and in town. Bombs and tonics still come along.
• Gold found scales gold from fights, loot and events. XP gained scales XP from fights and events. Neither touches what you spend or lose.
• Shop prices move every price at the general store and the inn, up or down.

Echo of past lives

Every life starts in Ashsquare, but the family remembers the way. While you're more than 5 levels below the best level any earlier life reached, you gain ×1.5 XP.

Heirlooms

An heirloom is a piece of gear that passes to the next life. In town you can mark one item, worn or in the pack: use the heirloom select on /inventory, or the crown button in the Pack (under the Hero tab) on the web. You can move the mark as often as you like until you die, but not while an expedition is under way. With one slot, marking another item moves the mark to it.

• On death the marked item passes to the next life at level 1 and one rarity lower (Common stays Common).
• It's soulbound: it can never go on the market or be traded. It also gains a history line, such as "Worn by Brannoc, eaten by a bear in Cornerfax on day 11."
• An inherited heirloom stays marked, so it keeps passing down until you mark something else. The heir offer shows what's coming.
• The legacy node Deep pockets lets you keep another heirloom, and Built to last stops heirlooms losing rarity.

Name and epitaph packs

Heir names and epitaphs come from curated lists called packs. Nobody types free text. You start with one pack of each, and the rest unlock as your family plays. A new name pack shows up in heir offers soon after it unlocks.

Name packs

To pick a name yourself, press Rename on an heir, choose a pack you've unlocked, then a name from it. Only names that suit the heir's face are listed. You can't take the name of the life that just ended.

Epitaph packs

The narrator writes every epitaph. It picks from all the epitaph packs your account has unlocked, so each new pack adds lines the narrator can reach for. Nobody picks one in advance.

The epitaphs themselves stay a surprise. Every one names the cause of death.

Class unlocks

Every account starts with Warrior. The others unlock the first time any of your lives beats a particular gate boss (one comes from the legacy tree instead).

• Unlocks are account-wide and permanent.
• They count the moment the boss falls. A life that dies straight afterwards still unlocks the class for every life after it.
• New classes show up in your heir offers from the next death on.

1 class is still waiting for someone to unlock it. The wiki adds each one the first time anyone does.