Death penalty

Death penalty (commonly abbreviated as "DP") reduces your maximum health and energy values by the current % amount of the penalty. Every time you earn a penalty, it is added to your current total; this total cannot exceed -60%. A Death Penalty is the opposite of a Morale Boost, although both are added together for a cumulative effect.

Note: The terms "morale boost" and "death penalty" are also used to describe whether this cumulative effect is positive or negative.

Removal
There are currently five known methods to remove DP:
 * 1) Killing enemies (earning Morale Boost). 2% is removed for each opponent slain by your team during PvP. In PvE the amount removed depends on how much experience you earn. This means that rewards of high-experience quests (like in the Fissure of Woe and Sorrow's Furnace) can be used to completely erase DP. (Experience gained by capturing elite skills also can be used to erase DP.) In PvP you may earn Morale Boosts for achieving goals; these reduce DP by 10%. One death will erase all your morale boost, if you have the maximum boost of 10%, when you die, the 15% is subtracted from this and you have -5% penalty.
 * 2) Making an "Offering to Courage" to a god's avatar for 100g will reduce DP by 2%.
 * 3) Candy Canes, which were obtainable during Wintersday events, remove a character's death penalty completely.
 * 4) Going back to town, which will remove a character's DP completely.
 * 5) Accepting a Quest reward.