Being reduced to zero hit points causes a brief bout of unconsciousness (Knocked Out). When you are Knocked Out, you lose some Infusion (not Animus). If your Animus pool is 0 at that time, you have a chance of gaining Mortality. While you are Knocked Out, NPC monsters will stop attacking you and you generally have enough time to limp away once you come to your senses. Your stats are penalized by 5 points for a minute following your first KO.

Multiple KOs within a short amount of time (15 minutes) incurs cumulative penalties. This results in a longer recovery time and increasingly severe penalties (including the stat penalty which follows every KO). You can monitor your current KO count with the command [codex → Death. Please note that your KO count decreases slowly by 1 point per 15 minutes – it does not reset entirely. In other words, if you get KO’d more than twice within 15 minutes, it is probably wise to be very careful for a while.

You will incur mortality points by permanently killing other players, by being knocked out by certain hostiles known as Deadly Creatures (identified by Red Names), or by failing a roll when knocked out by any creature while your anima pool is empty. Mortality can also be gained during quests, events and other circumstances. Your mortality level will periodically lower over time at a rate of 1 point per 5 in-game hours.

When you are Knocked Out (0 hp) or suffer fall damage, you have a chance to acquire an injury. Essentially, injuries add debuffs to your character. The chance to be injured increases with your knockout count.

If injured, you should see a player doctor to reduce the healing time (it can get fairly long), but you will eventually heal from most injuries with time alone.

The base chance of incurring an injury from normal knockouts is based on a formula which calculates and stores the total amount of hits that did overkill damage. For example, a player with 25 HP who is hit for 50 points of damage will have a 25% chance to incur an injury.

You can learn more about injuries by checking the List of injuries and the Allopathy Guide.

Your character's chance to suffer Permanent Death upon being knocked out is based upon their current mortality level. Permanent death is essentially what it sounds like. When you suffer Permadeath, it is all over for your current character. You may roll a new character while retaining 75% of the animus you had on your character, plus any unspent animus you had banked at the time of death.

There are three major ways in which Permadeath can touch you:

Firstly, you can be killed by your fellow players. Just like PVP in general, this is an act that is not done lightly, but it remains a possibility. You might get burned for witchcraft or you yourself might kill someone to keep your diabolic arts a secret. Note that not all PVP kills result in permanent death. When killed in PVP, you will roll a PD chance based on your Mortality total. A player may also choose to purposefully kill your character permanently by using a bladed item on your knocked out body, which initiates a Killing process. This process lasts a minute or two and can be canceled at any time before it is complete.

Secondly, your Mortality increases your chance to be Permakilled instead of KO’d when you reach 0 hp. Note that RED mobs have a chance to increase your Mortality if they KO you – this can trigger a roll to PD you even if your Mortality is 0!

Thirdly, you can die due to starvation. Permanently. Best not forget to eat and drink!