Permadeath and revival

The original Fantums had a real permadeath mechanic — lose a duel, get burned to 0x...dEaD, gone forever. Of the 10,860 minted, 8 actually died in duels (~0.07%). The threat existed but the friction killed engagement. Players stopped dueling once they understood the cost.

Reborn keeps the threat. We just stop punishing the duelers who show up.

The Graveyard

When a Fantum loses a duel and the duel is in stake mode, the token transfers to the Graveyard.sol contract. It is not burned to a dead address — it's escrowed.

While in the Graveyard, the Fantum:

• Cannot duel
• Cannot be listed on the marketplace by the previous owner
• Can be resurrected by anyone who pays the resurrection fee
• Retains all stats, OG status, traits, legacy DNA — every on-chain property is preserved

The Graveyard is a holding zone, not a black hole. A dead Fantum is dormant, not destroyed.

Resurrection costs

The cost to resurrect a Fantum is tier-scaled and capped per tier:

Tier	Base cost (in sFUM)	Hard cap
Common	low	per-tier max
Uncommon	low-mid	per-tier max
Rare	mid	per-tier max
Epic	mid-high	per-tier max
Legendary	high	per-tier max

Exact values are owner-tunable and visible via Graveyard.costFor(tokenId). The hard caps mean no Fantum is ever locked away by an unreachable price.

OG discounts

If the dead Fantum is OG (isOG[tokenId] == true):

• 50% off paid resurrections, lifetime, every time. Graveyard.ogResurrectDiscountBps = 5000.
• One free first resurrection per OG Fantum, ever. Graveyard.ogHasUsedFreeResurrect[tokenId] tracks usage.

Stacking rules:

• Founder 100 (tokenId 1..100) + OG → the free resurrection stacks. An OG founder gets two free revives total (one from each track). Use them wisely.
• The 50% paid discount applies to every revive after the freebie is consumed.

The insurance pool

A small premium per duel (typically 5%, owner-tunable) routes into an on-contract insurance pool. When a Fantum dies and the pool has balance, the pool covers their first revive automatically — no transaction required from the owner.

The pool is self-funding from active duelers. The more duels happen, the larger the pool, the more dead Fantums get a free pass.

This solves the original Fantums problem — death felt punishing because every revive was an out-of-pocket expense. The insurance pool spreads the cost across the active player base.

Trophy DNAs (proposed)

When an OG Fantum kills another Fantum in a duel, the dead Fantum's legacyDna gets appended to the killer's trophyDnas[] array. Permadeath becomes a status hunt — killing OGs is a collectible action.

The trophy DNA mechanism:

• Stored as mapping(uint256 => bytes32[]) trophyDnas; on Fantums.sol
• Appended only when both: killer is OG, dead Fantum was actually transferred to Graveyard (stake mode)
• Visible in metadata via the on-chain renderer
• Off by default, opt-in at mint via the stake-or-vanity flag

This is proposed, not shipped. Pre-launch tuning may turn it on by default; pre-launch tuning may keep it opt-in. The flag exists in the contract; the policy is configurable.

Opt-in stake-or-vanity

Each mint declares one of two modes:

Mode	What it means
Duel mode	Eligible for permadeath. Eligible for full duel rewards. Can build ELO. Can win pots. Can lose the Fantum.
Vanity mode	Cannot duel. Cannot be permadeathed. Half-price secondary royalties (1% instead of 5%).

The flag is set at mint time and stored on-chain. You can switch from Duel to Vanity at any time (paying a small sFUM fee). You cannot switch back from Vanity to Duel — once you've opted out of the arena, you've opted out permanently.

This is implemented in ArenaOptOut.sol and the flag is checked by Duel.sol before accepting any combat action involving the Fantum.

House Fantums

A small number of Fantums are designated as house Fantums — owned by the treasury, used as rotating opponents for matchmaking. They have isHouseFantum[tokenId] = true and are:

• Excluded from every OG perk regardless of OG status
• Excluded from permadeath
• Used by the matchmaker when the duel queue is short

House Fantums keep the duel queue alive during low-traffic hours. They cannot win the OG-only drops.

What death looks like visually

A dead Fantum renders in its dead state:

• Greyscaled body
• Closed eyes
• Drop shadow

A resurrected Fantum renders in its resurrected state for the first 24 hours after revival:

• Slight chromatic-aberration glow around the silhouette
• Standard sprite otherwise

After 24 hours the resurrection glow fades and the Fantum returns to its standard alive sprite.

See also

• Combat system — how the duels actually resolve
• Duel modes — different formats with different permadeath stakes
• OG perks — the OG resurrection track

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Last updated: 2026-05-21