Death Protection

Death Protection involves any form of setup where a character dying will not result in Permadeath, regardless of whether the mechanism is magical or not.

This can more accurately be termed "Death Reversal" or "Revival".

## Trigger Methods

Trigger methods are ways of detecting what criteria can be used to declare a character truly dead. The worst way to fumble in Death Protection is to accidentally create clones of yourself, that you will either need to agree that one dies or accept the complications it will bring. Fortunately, with Proto Magic, it is far easier to test whether the spell triggers when expected.

### **Life Signature "Heartbeat" via Proto Magic**

Enchanting an item with Proto Magic to occasionally trigger a spell that checks whether the "soul" of the owner is still there at specified intervals. If the soul is not there, the Restoration Mechanism is triggered. This has the advantage of being easy to test, one can design the proto magic device to be have a "test mode" that doesn't trigger the restoration mechanism, and to feign a death by hiding one's own life signature.

Katie uses this mechanism, as it is the most easy to maintain and least costly in terms of energy. However, she used MagiProgramming to execute this in the form of the complex, energy-hungry Pillar of Life.

### **"Check in" via Proto Magic**

Enchanting an item or structure with Proto Magic to require the user to send a signal of their existence every now and then. If the user does not send the signal, it will assume the user to be dead and trigger the restoration mechanism.

While this is cumbersome, because forgetting to check in can cause unnecessary clones and a very strange moral dilemma, this method is perfect for sidestepping entrapment, because a clone can be deployed to free the original caster.

To prevent false positives, it is also possible to rig the Proto Magical device to inform and require authorization from another person to trigger the restoration mechanism.

### **Manual**

A completely manual method would be triggered by one of the friends, once they find out that the user has died.

### **Delayed Spell**

A magical spell can be cast using MagiProgramming to give it some logic. This has the benefit of being usable in combat to quickly come back from the dead, by surrounding oneself by a concentrated form of energy in the form of a floating orb that is powered by the user's Life Signature. Using the MagiProgramming, program the spell to trigger if the life signature fades, or dispel itself after some time. This is an extremely taxing form of revival, and is unlikely to be possible to use more than 3 times in a row.

### **Zero Velocity Trigger**

Wearing a Proto Magical device or casting a spell with automacity that triggers the restoration mechanism when the caster is at zero velocity for a long time, such as a minute.

## Restoration Mechanism

### **Soul Backup**

By taking a soul backup, the personality, memories and ultimately the magical abilities of someone can be essentially re-created in a perfect replica of the original body. This requires the body to be "scanned".

### **Backup Clone**

This works by using the DNA of the original life form and growing an identical clone from it, keeping it in stasis. This is the form of Death Protection that Scott secretly has.

### **Mortal Struggle**

This works by getting the dead body of the user and enacting several changes to get them as close to being back alive as possible, such as regenerating tissue, bone and even muscle until they are back to being alive. Binary uses this mode of restoration by persisting even through death. The only way to truly kill someone with Mortal Struggle is to either do it enough times, or to perform an overkill on them.

### **Dimensional Rescue**

When the restoration is triggered, if a magic user is powerful enough to sustain a personal dimension, they will be automatically dragged into it and prepared for healing by bending their own dimension's rules. For example, in the event that Dianna is mortally wounded, killed or even if overkilled, she will dissolve into black goop and the remains will be transported into her personal dimension, where Psy will cry and use its tears in a ritual to bring her back. Because of the sheer power one can have in a personal dimension, restoration can happen in a variety of ways - because in their dimension, the caster makes the rules so long as they understand how to create a stable dimension.