Death & Item Loss

What you lose depends on where you die. The prison, the Forgotten Polis, the Erebus Pit and the Sacred Way each have their own rules. "Everything except your pickaxe" only describes part of the prison rule, not the whole server.

This guide describes the rules on Map 4 (Asphodel). The old public Polis used alignments; those rules are gone.

Quick reference

The details below explain the exceptions. An area being guarded or PvP-protected does not, by itself, mean every item is protected from death.

The prison: tools survive, their contents do not

On a normal full-loot death:

• Ancient pickaxes are kept, including their upgrades. Their stored energy is emptied and dropped as Ancient Energy after the applicable extraction tax. The tax depends on your rank and modifiers; it is zero in safe zones.
• Shard, contraband, and dust satchels are kept, but their contents spill out. Keeping the container does not protect what is inside it.
• Other carried items and equipment can drop, including loose valuables, weapons, and armour.

Protected tools return on respawn. These extraction and spilling rules do not apply to ordinary keep-inventory deaths such as boss arenas.

Prison guards confiscate the drops from a guard death. Do not expect to run back and recover the gear, energy, or contents they confiscated. Pickaxes and satchel containers already protected by the tool rule are still kept. Erebus Guards in the pit follow the pit's own death rules.

Forgotten Polis: private runs

You keep your entire inventory and XP when you die in a private Polis run, including loot collected during the run. You respawn at server spawn.

Private Polis has no Pilgrim, Wanderer, or Defiler choice and no player-versus-player combat. The old 25% gear-loss rolls, farmed-loot death drops, and 5-minute alignment deathban do not apply. Mobs can still kill you outside the protected entry area.

Older guides may describe public Polis and its alignment system. Those are legacy rules, not the rules for private runs.

Erebus Pit: keep what you brought, escape with what you find

The Erebus Pit has no deathban. It records what you carry when you enter the pit world. If you die, you keep your gear and everything you brought in, and drop only what you picked up since you entered. This applies to deaths to players, guards and elites, everywhere in the pit: the ring, the guardhouses, the Lower Pit and the fight with Erebus, the Unlit.

Leave the pit alive to secure your haul. Leaving any way (a warp, /spawn, switching servers) makes everything you carry yours, and on your next visit it counts as something you brought in. Logging out leaves a combat logger behind; if it is killed, it drops the same farmed items.

• Pickaxe energy, satchel contents and money credited straight to your balance are not tracked.
• Loot that doesn't fit in a full inventory drops at your feet instead of going to /stash. Only you can pick it up for 30 seconds.
• A jewel and crafting item on the Confluence altar are not protected. If you die they drop with your items, and if you log out in combat they drop where you stood. Any other logout sends them to /stash.

The Sacred Way: carry the haul back to the meadow

The North Meadows at the start of the Sacred Way are safe. Past the first neck everyone can fight.

• Your gear is always safe. A death keeps your inventory.
• Ichor and fragments you carry past the first neck drop if you die, including any you brought with you.
• Leaving past the first neck any other way (a warp, /spawn, logging out, switching servers) also drops what you carry where you stand. Warps ask first.
• Walk back into the meadow to bank your haul in your vault. Banked Ichor and fragments are safe.

This is different from the pit: the Sacred Way only checks carried Ichor and fragments, not every new inventory item.

Events and special fights

• Boss arenas: death keeps your inventory and XP. This protection belongs to the boss arena; fighting a dangerous mob elsewhere follows that area's rules.
• KOTH: gear stays with you, but KOTH Lootbags drop. Dying locks you out until the next KOTH starts.
• Duels: check the confirmation settings. The winner receives the agreed wagers. With inventory risk enabled, the winner also receives the loser's entry inventory. Without it, each player gets their own entry inventory back. Collect your items with /duel collect.
• Cell raids: deaths inside the raid instance allow personal gear and ordinary items to drop. Stolen raid loot is handled separately during the attacker's escape phase rather than becoming ordinary death drops. Do not treat a raid as a keep-inventory event.
• Skywars: your normal inventory is stored before the round and restored afterward. Elimination concerns the temporary arena inventory.

The tutorial and new players

• You can't die in the tutorial.
• Players new to the server can't attack or be attacked by other players for their first 30 minutes of play. Time in the tutorial does not count. Duels, Skywars, KOTH and raids ignore the protection. /pvp shows how long you have left, and /pvp on ends it early.

Jewels, XP, and logging out

Socketed jewels are kept through every death, everywhere, including guard kills and combat logger deaths. A loose jewel or Mystery Jewel carried as an inventory item still follows the area's item-loss rules.

Normal deaths preserve XP under the current server settings; keeping XP does not imply keeping your inventory. Special activities manage their own inventory and respawn flow.

Logging out is not a safe escape. Outside safe zones, you can leave a vulnerable combat logger for about 20 seconds, even without an active combat tag. If it dies, you can lose items under the area's rules. Duels have their own disconnect-forfeit rules. Past the first neck of the Sacred Way, logging out drops your carried haul.

Before entering danger, store valuables you do not need, check the area rules and any duel settings, and know how that area's loot becomes safe.