Death & recovery

Death on Sunday Market has weight, but isn't ruinous. You drop your inventory, you respawn at your bed or at spawn. A Recovery Chest spawns at the death spot to hold your inventory for a 5-minute window. Recover the chest, you're back in business.

This page covers the death side of combat — what dies, what survives, how to come back.

What happens when you die

1. Damage drops you to 0 HP
2. Your inventory (hotbar, main inventory, armor, off-hand, pack contents) is captured
3. A Recovery Chest spawns at the death location, locked to you
4. You respawn — at your bed (vanilla rule, if intact and accessible) or at spawn
5. You see a death message in chat

What dies vs what survives

The headline: your ender chest survives. Everything you were carrying is in the Recovery Chest, on a timer.

The recovery flow

Detailed on Recovery Chests. Quick summary:

Walk back to the death spot and right-click the chest to claim everything inside. The window is 5 minutes, and you can have up to 3 active chests — die again before recovering and the oldest is the first to expire.

Where you respawn

• Slept in a bed recently — you respawn at the bed (vanilla rule)
• No bed, or bed broken/blocked — you respawn at world spawn

The bed mechanic is the only respawn anchor. Travel itself is in-world — Astral runes, Nether portals, beds, ender pearls, and lapis elevators. See Travel.

Practical death recovery

Solo death (e.g., creeper while mining)

1. Respawn at your bed (or spawn if no bed)
2. /aclist to see where the chest is
3. Walk back to the chest
4. Right-click to loot it
5. Head home — on foot, by pearl, or by rune

A quick round trip if you're on top of it.

Bad fight death

1. Respawn at your bed (or spawn)
2. Heal up (eat, regen)
3. Re-equip backup gear from your ender chest
4. Decide: fight back or take the L
5. If fighting back: walk back to recover, then engage
6. If taking the L: walk back when it's safe

Stuck in a loop death (e.g., respawning into the trap that killed you)

1. Catch your breath before charging back in
2. Re-kit from your ender chest at a safe location
3. Approach the death spot carefully — from a different angle if the trap is still live

Multiple recent deaths

/aclist shows all of them. Recover the most-recent first (most loot is usually there). The older chests' contents may already have expired or be near-expiry.

When recovery fails

Cases where you might not get your stuff back:

• You waited too long — past the window, contents released or despawned
• Multiple deaths over the cap — the oldest chest's contents released early to make room
• You died in a place you can't safely return (deep void, etc.) — the chest will expire; rely on your ender chest for critical gear

Most players never lose loot to the recovery system. The window is workable; the flow is simple.

Why death has any weight at all

The system could be keep-inventory (vanilla flag) — death drops nothing, no penalty. We chose not to because:

• Death without weight is meaningless — vanilla design assumes death has a cost
• The Recovery Chest is fair — the window is enough for most situations, and the walk back is the cost
• Ender chest storage — your most precious gear stays safe regardless

This is the "death has weight, not punishment" balance. Mistakes cost something. Actual loss is rare.

Mob deaths vs PvP deaths

The mechanics are identical. Whether you died to a creeper or a player, the Recovery Chest spawns the same way, locked to you either way — the killer can't open it — and the respawn process is the same.

See also

• Recovery Chests (storage side) — the storage perspective
• Combat — combat mechanics overview
• PvP — PvP-specific combat
• Pack — what the pack carries (also drops on death)
• Ender chest — what survives death