probably want to remove this thing and everything that links here
Each character in the game is not just an individual, but also an immortal soul. Death is not the end, but a part of an endless reincarnation cycle.
Most people in the world of Fallen Empire are not like this. The characters and a few very special NPCs (see Antagonists) are immortal souls, while everyone else has one life and then goes wherever it is their souls go after death.
An immortal soul has no recollection of past lives or knowledge of being an Immortal, and the reincarnation of a soul can live half or even more of a life being completely oblivious to the fact. Until...
When Immortals meet their souls begin to stir. For such a meeting to occur, they must be somewhat close to each other. Being in the same room counts, even if the room is a large tavern or a ballroom. Outdoors, being in the same field or clearing or market square will work. Just being in the same large forest or on the same mountain doesn't.
Once two Immortals are in proximity, fate will bring them towards each other. They might notice the other person and become curious, or bump into each other by chance, but one way or they other, they will come into contact, and they will have a weird feeling about each other. Enough to stick around at least for a bit and try to make sense of it.
If given enough time and proximity, such as a few hours of intense dialog with each other, they will eventually start to remember fragments of their past lives, especially if they knew each other in them.
When three Immortals meet, memories of past lives will start to haunt them, and they will slowly, over a period of a few hours, remember what they are and who they are - and recognize the others.
If four or more Immortals encounter each other, the memories come like freak wave, momentarily overpowering them and bringing all memory and recognition back within minutes or even seconds.
When your character dies, he will be reincarnated. The new character can be similar or very different from the old one - you never know who you will be reincarnated as.
Take a new character sheet and create a new character. The GM will tell you when you will rejoin the party. During short adventures or near the end of one, you will probably join the party during Downtime. If there is still plenty of play time left, the GM will let you join at the next convenient opportunity.
Note that at this point, your new character has spent his life so far oblivious as described above. Yes, that means that for years there were two versions of your Immortal alive at the same time. See The Flow of Time.
In addition to your character, you also fill a character sheet for your soul. Just like your first character, it starts with the default, empty character sheet. Souls do not have 10 free character points, so the sheet remains empty - for now.
You can raise the abilities, stress and mana burnout values on the soul sheet as well as gaining traits and details. Once you do so, these will always be available for free on a new character, before any character points are spent.
For example: If you raise the physical value of your soul to 2, any new character will have 2 physical instantly, and still have 10 character points to spend.
You can only transfer abilities, traits, details, stress and mana burnout that your current character has. If you want your soul to have, say, mental 3, your current character must have mental 3 or higher.
To transfer something to the soul, you need to buy it again at the normal cost +1, and instead of marking an increase on the character sheet, you mark the increase on the soul sheet - for example: The above raising of physical to 2 would cost 3+1 = 4 points
Most things in the game go 1-3-6-10-15 and soul transfer goes 2-4-7-11-16
Your soul has physical 1 (the starting value) and your current character has physical 3.
You could transfer a point of physical by paying 3+1 = 4 character points. This would raise the souls physical ability to 2, the character's ability remains unchanged.
You could then transfer another value for 7 character points to raise the soul's physical to 3.
You could not raise the souls physical to 4 because the character does not have physical at this value. You would first have to raise the character physical value to 4 (cost: 10 character points) and then transfer that to the soul for 11 character points.
The initial 10 character points can not be spent to transfer something to the soul. Only character points gained through adventures or Downtime Activities > Train can be used for this purpose. In other words: You must have spent at least 10 character points on advancing a character before you can transfer points.
This rule prevents players from making characters solely for the purpose of buffing their soul up with the free starting character points.
You CAN spend character points "in the moment of death" to transfer points to your soul.
Once it is determined that your character is definitely gone (beyond healing, resurrection magic has failed, etc) you can spend any remaining character points he has on transfers.
This follows all the usual rules, especially regarding cost and the rule that you have to have spent your beginning 10 character points before being able to transfer. You must have spent the initial points before you died.
You can not spend character points on anything else after death or while dying.