interesting, could you tell us how it works?
Ask and you shall receive:
Death and Favors
Favors are a gift from the your patron God in exchange for a sacrifice you make to him or her in hopes they'll give you the chance to have a cleric resurrect you when you die.
To talk about Favors, you must first understand how death works in Elanthia. When your body is no longer able to sustain life, your physical form 'dies' and you are spiritually turned into a ghost, bound to your body. From here you have several options:
You may DEPART. This will resurrect you at the local temple -- your possessions will remain where you died, in a grave, unless a Paladin placed the Glyph of Warding upon your body. When you die, you automatically loose two ranks in the skills you have field experience in; these 'memories' can be restored by Clerics, however, the longer you are dead before your body decays, the greater the 'memory' loss. If you did not receive a Glyph from a Paladin, you will have to travel back to your gravesite (the location where you departed), and you will have to dig up your grave to reclaim your equipment. If you do receive a Glyph, you would simply touch the glyph upon returning to your gravesite and you will be wearing all of your possessions again.
If you are travelling with friends, or a friendly passer-by happens along, they may drag you to a Cleric who is able to restore your memories and resurrect your body.
In Elanthia, death can be a permanent thing -- if you don't have favors, thus making this a critical part of the game. There's nothing like playing and building a character for months on end, only to "Walk the Starry Road," a term meaning a character who dies permanently and must reroll.
Favors are boons from the gods, obtained by visiting specific shrines and fulfilling a ritual to obtain an orb with the name of the god whom you've chosen as your patron. With this orb, you rub it to transfer memories from skills you are currently learning into the orb -- once you've filled the orb with enough of your experience, you will sense the orb is prepared to be placed on the altar for sacrifice to your patron god. In return, you are granted a single favor -- each time you depart and are not resurrected, you will lose a favor, but you may not walk the starry road. Those whom die favorless do run the risk of walking the starry road.
Clerics have the option of giving a favor of their own to the person to ensure their continued survival. This is something you do not wish to do, as not only can it take some time to gain a favor for an elder Cleric, clerics can see into the past of people whom they are helping and can see if you've died favorless before. Clerics may not be so gracious to those whom have so carelessly thrown away the faith of their gods.
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Three favors is bare minimum. Five and above is preferable. Also note, the more you DEPART the more favors you will eventually need to keep as a minimum to prevent from dying without chance of resurrection.