Death

Version 0.28: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

Death is a common ailment in Dungeon Crawl, and almost invariably lethal.

Like most roguelikes, death in Crawl is permanent. Unless you are playing a felid with extra lives, when your character dies, your save file is deleted and the character is moved to the morgue, at which point a bones file is created for the floor and a player ghost may be generated in order to antagonize you in later games.

Reasons for death include:

• Dropping below 1 HP due to monster attacks, injuring yourself, or lingering effects like poison
• Running out of time on the Zot clock

Here's an example of a quick death by monster damage...

The goblin hits you with an orcish club.
You die...

          18 Bob the Skirmisher (level 1, -2/15 HPs)
             Began as a Human Fighter on Sept 14, 2007.
             Slain by a goblin

...and here's one by falling down stairs.

In your confused state, you trip and fall down the stairs.
Ouch!  That really hurt!
You die...

             Len the Firebug (level 4, 0/20 HPs)
             Began as a Fire Elementalist on Oct 1, 2007.
             Died by falling of an stair

History

Crawl historically had a few other ways of dying; see the Instadeath article for more details.