Murder

In-Game Text
"I haven't seen my brother lately. Why do you ask?"

Murder gives you the ability to kill other player characters.

Description
With the Rage skill, you may attack another player in some fashion and knock the other player out the same way animals do, reducing their soft hit points (SHP for short) to 0. The knocked out player is shown on the ground with little stars circling the head (the cartoon K.O. animation). Without the murder skill, no further attack is allowed. The attacked player will recover. This is battery, adding the Stink of Battery to the Smell of Assault left behind on claimed land with the first attack. As SHP are very easy to regenerate, neither assault nor battery make you a capital criminal.

With the murder skill, you may attack the K.O.-d hearthling again, dealing damage to his hard hit points (HHP for short). Reducing said HHP close to 0 will not kill the player, as there is no "bleeding" or "open wounds" mechanic in the game. As HHP regeneration is long and tedious, this will cause significant rage and revenge desires, if unprovoked.

You may attack even further, now reducing the HHP of the player to 0. This will kill the hearthling, leaving behind a corpse lootable by thieves, and a Stench of Murder on claimed land. As death is final in H&H, expect significant rage and revenge attempts.

The ability to kill other players can be and is easily used for outright griefing. Together with Ranging you can use it to kill thieves and murderers that have stolen from your land or killed your friends. There are no effective punishments for thieves beyond the obvious: take back everything stolen and more or less everything of value the thief happens to own. Many villages and the less peaceful individuals will kill thieves upon tracking their hearth fires down and force-summoning them, to make sure they never steal again.

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