Life System

The **life system** (referred to in-universe as **life magic** or simply **lives**) is a constant law of this universe. Each sentient living being (player character) has three chances at life- you can die twice before being killed permanently.

## Meta Information

Life magic is a lore explanation for the three canon lives per character rule found on CCSMP. Each player's character can have, at most, three lives and can be killed in lore twice before being killed off permanently for the final time. However, a player's character can have less than three lives at the discretion of their creator, even though the standard is three. In related side SMPs, such as Dust SMP, this rule is changed in favor of the random life assignments found in the rules of that SMP.

## In-Universe Information

Life magic is an extremely nebulous concept that few have a grasp on. What everyone knows, however, is that a person has three chances at life before they're dead for good. This is something that most are taught at a young age, or will find out for themselves as they grow. The only exception to this is death by natural causes- if you die due to old age, you're dead for good.

### History

In the distant past, before the Apocalypse, life magic was more abundant. Residents of each dimension, any dimension, had bountiful lives- twenty, maybe even up to thirty. There was a sense of peace in the air, and life magic flowed freely across the land, intertwining with every living being and bolstering them, gifting them plentiful long lives. However, when the Apocalypse began, the magic was scattered. It became stretched thin across the dimensions, and those who survived the tragedy found that their lives were simply gone- parts of them torn out, scattered into nothing. During this time, life magic became sporadic. Lives were spread out unevenly, but always in fewer quantities than previously. The standard range was three to seven, a dramatic drop from the double digits of life before.

Over time, the magic began to even out. The radiation previously affecting it subsided, and it began to be uniform once again. It took thousands of years, but now in the present day, lives are even once more. Everyone has three lives, and eventually it is hoped that the magic will strengthen, and more lives will be provided. But things like that take time, millenia, and no-one alive now will live to see that day.

### Biology

Life magic, like all magic, seems to behave on a whim of its own. Though no higher power directs it, the magic prefers to congregate in the bodies of sentient life over the bodies of beasts and animals. In the past, non-sentient life may have had more lives given to them, but now with the current drought of life magic, what remains is more centered around sentient beings with few exceptions. Life magic is envigorating, and gives those it resides in a feeling of energy. When a being dies, part of their life magic leaves them, and this feeling slowly deteriorates. One of the main tells that someone has lost a life, if the lost life is ambiguous, is the sudden feeling of emptiness one gets afterward. You will feel like you've lost something, something important, from deep within yourself.

The process of coming back after death, or **reviving**, is relatively swift. The life magic within the dying individual is spent healing whatever it was that killed the individual. For causes of death such as poison, suffocation, or anything of the like that is relatively non-damaging to the body, the revive will only take a couple of seconds. However, the more damaged the body is, the longer the revive takes. Someone who was exploded will be physically knit back together over the span of a few minutes, as their body is reconstructed from the ground up. After someone has been revived, the last of the life magic used on this death will be expelled in order to teleport the individual to a safe place to recover- namely, the last bed that they slept in. If their bed has since been destroyed or has otherwise become unsafe to travel to, they will be teleported to a spot, any spot, that is far away from any hostile life. Usually this is nearby to where the bed was destroyed, but it can be quite far away if that's what it took to find a safe respawn point.

### Uses

Life magic is extremely difficult to harness, although it is possible. So far, the only known group to have been able to move life magic from living beings to something else are the Illagers, with their Totems of Undying. Changing, moving, or using life magic comes at a terrible price- the only source of it in a high enough quantity is sentient life, meaning that someone must first die, maybe even be repeatedly slaughtered, in order to release the life magic inside of them. The more life magic that is stored within a container of any kind, the more people had to die to get it. The process of creating totems is currently unknown, but one thing is sure- it is a very bloody process indeed.