Players connect their avatars to "lifestones", where the avatar will be resurrected if killed. Resurrected characters lose half their pyreals, one or more valuable items, and (temporarily) a certain percentage of their constitution—their primary and secondary strengths and characteristics—in what is known as a "vitae penalty". The player may then bring their resurrected avatar to the place where the death occurred and recover the item(s) from their own lingering "corpse". In player-killer ("PK") battles, the victor is allowed to take the dropped items from the vanquished. Regardless, the resulting "vitae penalty" is removed by gaining a modest amount of additional experience, or "XP". Player Killers ("PKs") are players who have chosen to change their characters' status in order to enable them to attack, or be attacked by, other PKs in Player vs Player combat. On most servers, players by default are prevented from attacking each other and must voluntarily change their status to "PK". "Asheron's Call" features a unique allegiance and fealty system that creates formal links between players and rewards cooperative play. A player of equal or lower level can swear allegiance to a player of the same or higher level, becoming a vassal of a patron. The patron earns a small percentage of bonus experience based on what the vassal makes, while the vassal is motivated to seek a patron in exchange for money, items, game knowledge or protection. Players may also join together in fellowships, temporarily splitting the experience they gain amongst themselves.