Every hero falls eventually. What happens next depends on whether fate still has a hand to play. With Destiny left, you get one more chance somewhere else. Without it, your hero dies, but their body, their gear, and the dungeon they died in all stay in the world for the next hero to find.
Destiny is your lifeline
Destiny is one of your Ten Measures, and each point of it is one extra life. When your Health reaches zero and you have Destiny left, a point is spent and you do not die.
Instead, some of your Health returns: a quarter of your maximum, or 20, whichever is higher. Passing illnesses and conditions are cleared away, though permanent ones and your wounds remain. Then fate carries you somewhere new.
Only one point can be spent in a single turn. Die twice before the turn ends and the second death is final.
Survive the Destiny Trial
A Destiny Trial drops you into a dangerous place far from where you fell. You might wake as a captive in a laboratory of the dead, or be dragged into a cave as something's supper. A stranger might have pulled you to safety, or a paladin might have spared your life. You keep everything you were carrying.
Treat it as a new dungeon with you already hurt. Read the room, look for the way out, and do not start fights you do not need. Heal and eat as soon as it is safe. Survive and your run goes on.
When there is no Destiny left
With no Destiny to spend, your hero dies. The defeat screen records how it happened and what they achieved. Any home bases they claimed are abandoned.
Your hero's body stays behind as a corpse in the room where they fell, and it holds everything they carried: weapons, armour, potions, tools, keys. The dungeon itself is saved just as it was, and the region's history remembers that your hero fell there.
Go back for your gear
Every dungeon you have entered stays marked on the region map. Your next hero cannot start in one of them, because the three starting sites are always somewhere new. To go back, travel there.
Once your new hero has survived their first dungeon and reached the surface, use an exit that leads out to the region map and choose the old dungeon's hex. Travel range is 30, plus 30 for every Food Ration you carry, so bring rations for a long road. You arrive at the old dungeon's entrance instead of a new dungeon.
The dungeon is as your last hero left it. Whatever killed them is probably still there, and every creature grows stronger for each turn it stays alive.
Recover the corpse
Find your fallen hero's corpse and Search it to take back what they carried. A starting hero with a veteran's gear is a strong start, but weapons and armour still need the right training to use well.
Plan the recovery like a raid. Remember where the corpse lies and what stood in the way. Sneak in, take what matters most first, and leave before the creature that killed you notices.
Or start somewhere new
You do not have to go back straight away. The old dungeon stays on the map, with the corpse inside, for whenever you are ready and well enough supplied to reach it.