Players will eventually die once their spirit is weakened enough that they cannot make it back to their bodies. The higher the fame of the character, the higher the spirit loss with each death.

Here is a good developer journal on this. click here

It will give you everything you need to know on Incapacitation, Near Death, and Perma Death.

In short every near death experience shaves 2 days of play time (multiplied by a fame multiplier) off your 52 weeks of life.

An example of the multiplier would be, Kings are legendary existence and get a 32x multiplier applied, so a King that gets a near death experience gets 2 months (64 days) shaved off their 12 month play time.

A quick answer is a person will almost always wake up from a 'Knock Out' or return to their body (and respawn) after a soul walk caused by an enemy 'Coup De Grace'.

The only way for the permanent death of a character, besides some exceptional circumstances like falling in lava, is to attack them enough in their old age. Permanent death is caused by aging. Aging can be sped up by attacking the character, which is amplified by fame.

Hopefully that answers your question.

Yes and No.

You can Coup De Grace someone after you've incapacitated them which will send them to the Astral Plane for them to 'Spirit Walk'.

During this time, for you, their body is laying wherever they fell, lifeless and motionless. For them, they are doing whatever they can to follow their chord back to their body to regain consciousness.

Now, there's different factors that may affect how well that person can follow their chord within the astral plane. The more famous you are means your death has more of an impact in the world, thus a multiplier is given based on your fame. Also, the number of times you've already been CDG'd and your age plays a factor. I believe if you commit criminal acts and are found guilty that punishment will be time taken from your 'Spirit Walk.' (Not entirely sure on that part)

And of course, anything drastic like drowning in the ocean 1,000 miles from shore will force you to skip the astral plane and immediately perma-death.

So if the person you CDG'd happens to have a weak chord during their sprit walk in the astral plane, and fail to reach their body in time then they will not return, marking an end to that character.

...on the contrary, if they do return, they will seek vengeance.