What happens when player characters die? They become ghosts! When a player dies, he or she will be prompted with a dialogue box to "Release Spirit." Pressing this button will instantly transport the player to the nearest graveyard. The player will then be transformed into a ghost. On death, all equipped items will lose 10% durability.

As a ghost, you have three options:

You can return to your corpse and recover it.

You can have a fellow player (Paladin, Shaman, Priest, Druid) resurrect you, or use a Warlock's Soulstone, which will bring you back to life next to that player. There are also items in the game that allow players of any class to resurrect you. You will not lose any experience when resurrected by another player. Also, you can be resurrected by other players even after you have released your spirit back to the graveyard.

You can talk to a spirit healer NPC (currently located at graveyards) to immediately resurrect yourself at the spirit healer's location. If you choose this option all items (equipped and inventory) will take 25% durability loss and the character will gain resurrection sickness for a duration that scale according to level. The length of resurrection sickness suffered from using the Spirit Healer is set to a maximum of 10 minutes.

Being a Ghost

Players have special characteristics while in ghost form:

Players appear in a black & white world while dead.

Tyrael's sister?
I see dead people

Players are ethereal in appearance.

In ghost form, players are unable to interact with most things in the world.

Ghosts will neither be seen by nor see living players and most creatures, other than those creatures that are in the immediate area surrounding their corpses.

Ghosts can see other ghosts.

Ghosts can run faster, which makes it easier to return to where they died. They can also levitate over water.

A few special creatures may be able to see ghosts (these will be apparent to players), and they can attack players in ghost form.

If players do die in ghost form, they will be transported back to the most recent graveyard that they were at (not the graveyard nearest to where their ghosts just died, if different).

"Public chat" is not available to ghosts, but "private chat" such as /tells, /guild, and /party chat are still allowed.

Players can't use ghost form as a means to travel to far off locations. Having a spirit healer resurrect you in a graveyard other than the one you appeared at when you died will always teleport you back to that initial graveyard.

Spirit healers are ghosts and can only be seen by players in ghost form.

Player corpses turn into race-specific skeletons as they decay.

When a player dies in an instance and then uses the spirit healer, the body in the instance now turns to bones.

When a ghost player is resurrected into an instance that has become full, they no longer come to life wherever their ghost happens to be standing. Instead, they get ported to the closest graveyard.

This screenshot doesn't actually have
anything to do with the death system,
but it's kinda cool and death related
Finding Your Corpse
When you are a ghost, it is easy to find your corpse. An arrow is placed on your minimap, directing you to your corpse. Once you get near the corpse, a special icon also appears on the minimap to show you the corpse's exact location.

Reviving as a Ghost
Once you approach your corpse, you will see any monsters that are near it. You do not have to reincorporate directly on the spot where your corpse is. As you come closer to your corpse, a dialogue box will pop up, asking if you are ready to be revived. You'll then be able to pick a safe location near your corpse to come back to life. Players that revive will have 50% health and mana.

Dungeons
If you die in an instanced portion of a dungeon, crossing the instance line into that dungeon as a ghost counts as reclaiming your corpse. You don't have to go all the way back in to find it, and it doesn't matter if your particular instance no longer exists. You cannot explore the dungeon in ghost form. Also, your ghost may not enter an instanced dungeon in which you do not have an active corpse.

Other Information
Players do not need to manually bind at the graveyard. The game selects the nearest graveyard automatically.