Bounties

Every debt has a name. Every bounty has a price.

The Bounty System lets you put a price on another player's head, and rewards whoever kills that target in valid Descendants of Darkness PvP combat.

Bounties are placed on the Descendants of Darkness website. Claims are settled automatically by the game the moment your HUD records a valid kill — there is nothing to redeem and no claim button to press.

Several players can fund the same target, so rivalries, revenge and old grudges stack into one much larger reward. Bounties use Essence only; there are no Linden-dollar bounties.

Quick reference

Rule	Current value
Where bounties are placed	Bounty Board on the website
Minimum addition	5 Essence
Maximum addition	1,000 Essence
Contract fee	10% of every placement or top-up, paid on top of the reward
Activation delay	5 minutes on every new placement or top-up
Preset durations	1, 3 or 7 days
Custom duration	1–90 whole days
Permanent option	No deadline
Maximum open targets per player	10
Maximum unresolved reward from one player on one target	1,000 Essence
Maximum unresolved reward on one target from everyone	10,000 Essence
Anonymous bounties	Not available — every bounty is identified
Assists or split rewards	Not available — the killer takes the reward

Opening the Bounty Board

Sign in at descendantsofdarkness.com and choose Gameplay → Bounties, or go straight to descendantsofdarkness.com/bounties.

The Bounty Board is available to any logged-in player. There is no in-world placement interface; bounties are placed through the website only.

Placing a bounty

Open the Bounty Board.
Select Place a bounty.
Search for the player you want to target.
Check their name, avatar, species, organisation and status to be sure you have the right account.
Enter a whole Essence reward between 5 and 1,000.
Choose a timed duration, or No deadline.
Request the review.
Check the reward, fee, total cost, remaining balance, activation time and deadline.
Confirm that you understand the activation, refund and cancellation rules.
Pay the total and place the bounty.

The review screen is priced by the game itself, so the cost you see is the real cost at that moment. Once you confirm, the window becomes a receipt showing what you paid, when the reward activates, its deadline and the new total on the target. You do not need to leave the window open for the payment to complete.

Who can place a bounty

You must be alive to place or top up a bounty.

You cannot:

Place a bounty on yourself.
Place or top up a bounty while dead or Hibernated.
Exceed the open-contract or reward limits.
Spend more Essence than you hold.

Your target must be huntable. Alive and Hibernated players are valid targets. Players in other states may still appear in search so you can confirm you have the right account, but they will be marked unavailable and cannot be selected.

Choosing the reward

Every placement or top-up adds a whole Essence amount between 5 and 1,000.

The amount you enter is the advertised reward. The 10% fee is charged on top and never reduces what the claimant receives.

Advertised reward	10% fee	Total you pay	Available to the claimant
5 Essence	0.50 Essence	5.50 Essence	5 Essence
100 Essence	10 Essence	110 Essence	100 Essence
1,000 Essence	100 Essence	1,100 Essence	1,000 Essence

The contract fee

Every placement and every top-up carries a 10% contract fee. The fee is:

Charged in addition to the advertised reward.
Taken immediately when the placement is confirmed.
Never part of the claimable bounty — it leaves the economy entirely.
Kept if the bounty later expires.
Kept if your own contribution is returned because you claimed the target yourself.

Each top-up is a fresh commitment of Essence, so each one is charged its own fee.

Choosing a duration

1 day
3 days
7 days
Custom — any whole number of days from 1 to 90
No deadline

A timed duration starts when the new Essence activates, not when you pay for it, so the five-minute wait never eats into the time you bought. Deadlines are shown in your local time.

The five-minute activation period

Every new placement and top-up waits five minutes before it can be claimed. During that time:

The reward and fee have already been paid.
The target is warned that new Essence has been placed on them.
The new reward shows as Pending activation.
The new reward cannot be claimed.

The pending period is not an undo window. Once you confirm, the Essence is committed.

Topping up a target does not shelter them either — only the new money waits. Any older active money stays claimable throughout.

If the target dies before your new money activates, it is not paid out for that kill. It stays unresolved and can become claimable in a later life.

Bounties are public

Bounties are never anonymous. Any logged-in player can see who placed what. A target's details may show:

The placer's identity.
Their combined unresolved reward on that target.
The first placement time and the most recent top-up.
Activation information.
The deadline, or No deadline.
Whether the money is active, pending, paused or on hold.

Choose your enemies carefully — the name behind the bounty is part of the game.

Adding to an existing bounty

You can add Essence to a bounty placed by another player, or top up one of your own.

Contributions stay separately identified, but every claimable contribution on a target is combined and paid out together when they die.

If you already have an open bounty on that target, your new payment is treated as a top-up to it. When topping up your own timed bounty you may:

Keep the current deadline, if enough time remains for the new money to activate.
Extend the deadline, measured from the new activation time.
Switch the bounty to No deadline.

A deadline can never be shortened, and a No deadline bounty cannot be turned back into a timed one.

Every top-up has its own 10% fee, its own five-minute activation, warns the target, and counts towards your limits. Rapid top-ups may be grouped into a single warning to avoid flooding the target with messages, but every payment is still recorded and visible.

Limits

These limits keep the Essence economy stable and stop the board being dominated by a single player.

Limit	Meaning
10 open targets per placer	You may have unresolved Essence committed against no more than 10 different targets at once.
1,000 unresolved Essence per placer, per target	Your combined unresolved contributions on any one target cannot exceed 1,000 Essence.
10,000 unresolved Essence per target	All contributions from every player on one target cannot exceed 10,000 Essence.

Limits are checked again when you confirm. Reviewing a bounty does not reserve your Essence or hold a slot, so a placement can still be refused if something changes while you decide.

Claiming a bounty

A bounty is claimed automatically when the target is killed in a valid, HUD-recorded PvP fight. If the combat qualifies, the game settles the bounty as part of the death.

Deaths that count

Event	Bounty result
Valid HUD PvP kill	Counts
Valid official Challenge kill	Counts
Hunger death	Does not count
Administrative death	Does not count
Challenge penalty	Does not count
Any other non-PvP death or status change	Does not count

Only the player the HUD recognises as the killer can receive a bounty.

What is paid

At the moment of a valid kill, the game gathers every contribution on the target that is active and claimable — nothing pending, paused, on hold or expired.

All qualifying contributions resolve together, and the killer receives the combined reward on top of the normal PvP reward. The bounty never replaces or reduces what you would have earned anyway.

No assists, no split payouts

If several players take part in a fight, the HUD-recognised killer takes the whole claimable bounty. Clan, Dynasty, species, weapon and region make no difference to the payout.

Claiming a target you helped fund

You cannot turn your own bounty money into profit. If you funded a target and then kill them yourself:

Your own active contribution is returned to you.
The 10% fee on that contribution stays spent.
Everyone else's active contributions pay out to you as normal.
Your returned Essence is shown separately from the bounty reward.

Anything of yours still pending is neither returned nor paid for that kill, because it was never claimable. It stays unresolved for a later life.

Bounty states and clocks

Not every unresolved amount is claimable at every moment. The Bounty Board separates money by its current state.

Displayed state	Claimable?	What happens to a timed deadline
Pending activation	No	The purchased duration begins at activation.
Bounty active	Yes	The deadline counts down normally.
Bounty paused	No	The exact remaining time is saved until the target is huntable again.
On hold	No	The clock stops until the bounty is resumed.
No active bounty / closed	No	Already claimed, refunded or otherwise resolved.

Hibernation is not immunity

A Hibernated player:

Can have a bounty placed on them.
Stays visible on the Bounty Board.
Keeps their active bounty money showing in scans.
Can be killed for a valid claim.
Does not pause a timed bounty.

Hibernation helps you survive while away from the game. It does not remove you from PvP, and it does not lift the price on your head. Note that you must be alive to place a bounty — a Hibernated player can be hunted, but cannot hunt back through the board.

Death and other non-huntable states

When a target leaves every huntable state, any unresolved timed bounty on them pauses and the exact remaining time is saved. When they become huntable again, the clock resumes from that point rather than burning away while they could not legitimately be claimed.

This matters most when pending money survives a death: the active money is claimed by the kill, while the pending money waits for a future life.

Expiry, refunds and cancellation

Timed expiry

When a timed bounty reaches its deadline unclaimed:

The unresolved reward returns to whoever funded it.
The 10% contract fee is kept.
The expiry is recorded in Bounty History.
The placer receives a refund notice, and the target may be told the bounty has lapsed.

No deadline

A No deadline bounty never expires on its own. The Essence stays committed until a valid PvP kill claims it, or until it is returned to you because you claimed the target yourself.

Do not choose No deadline unless you are willing to leave that Essence committed indefinitely.

Can I cancel a bounty?

No. Once confirmed, a bounty cannot be withdrawn — otherwise players would simply pull their reward the moment a target looked close to death. The five-minute activation period is not a cancellation window either.

Very rarely, a bounty may be placed on hold while a problem with it is sorted out. While on hold it cannot be claimed and its clock is stopped. If this affects a bounty you placed or one on your own head, you will be notified.

The Bounty Board

The main board is the public view for logged-in players. It shows:

Total claimable Essence across the board.
The number of wanted players and active contracts.
Each wanted player's identity, species, and organisation or Outlaw status.
Their claimable reward and how many contracts are on them.
Availability and the soonest expiry.

Only currently claimable Essence feeds the headline totals and rankings, so nothing is advertised as collectable when it isn't.

Searching and sorting

Search and filter by player name, species, organisation or Outlaw status, and deadline. Sort by highest reward, lowest reward, most contracts, newest activity, expiring soon, or player name. The default view puts the richest claimable reward first.

Target details

Opening a wanted player shows the amount claimable now, pending, paused or on hold; the total open contracts; each placer with their reward and state; placement and top-up activity; activation time; and the deadline, countdown or paused clock.

You can inspect the contracts on your own head — you just can't add to them.

Bounty History

The board keeps a paginated Bounty History of public outcomes, newest first: successful claims and automatic expiries.

A claim entry may show who claimed it, the target, the reward paid, any contribution returned to the claimant, how many contracts resolved, the identified placers, and when it happened. An expiry entry may show the target, the reward refunded, the contracts resolved, the placers, when it lapsed, and that the fee was kept.

Bounties in scans

A positive, currently claimable bounty shows in player scans as a bounty total.

Only claimable Essence is counted.
The line is hidden entirely when the claimable total is zero.
Pending, paused, on-hold, expired and closed money is excluded.
Other players see the claimable price when they scan the target.
A wanted player can see the price on their own head through a self-scan.

A scan total can therefore be lower than the unresolved total on the website, if some of that money is not yet claimable.

Notifications

Bounty events are delivered through the website Notification Centre and, where possible, the HUD. You may be notified about:

New placements and top-ups.
Activation warnings.
Successful claims and rewards paid.
Your own contribution being returned to you.
Timed expiries and refunds.
A bounty you are involved in being placed on hold or resumed.

Targets are warned as soon as new money is placed on them, even though it does not become claimable until the five minutes are up. HUD messages use player profile links where possible so named players can be checked properly, and rapid top-ups may be grouped to reduce spam.

The Notification Centre is the lasting record. A HUD delivery problem never undoes a placement, claim, refund or any other completed Essence action.

Worked examples

Example 1: A normal placement

Ninja places a 100 Essence bounty on a target for 7 days.

Advertised reward: 100 Essence
Contract fee: 10 Essence
Total paid: 110 Essence
Claimable after 5 minutes: 100 Essence, for the full 7 days

If it expires unclaimed, Ninja gets the 100 Essence back. The 10 Essence fee is gone.

Example 2: Several players fund one target

Three players hold active bounties on the same target — 100, 250 and 50 Essence. A fourth player kills them in valid HUD PvP.

The killer receives 400 Essence in combined bounty rewards, plus the normal PvP reward. All three contracts resolve together.

Example 3: The claimant funded part of the bounty

Player A places 100 Essence on a target. Player B adds 250 Essence. Player A then kills the target.

Player A receives their own 100 Essence back, Player B's 250 Essence as the bounty reward, and the normal PvP reward. The 10 Essence fee A paid is not recovered.

Example 4: A kill during activation

A target already carries 200 active Essence. Another player adds 100, which begins its five-minute wait. The target is killed two minutes later.

The 200 active Essence is claimed.
The 100 pending Essence is not.
That pending contribution stays unresolved, and its clock pauses until the target is huntable again.

Example 5: Hibernation

A target with a timed active bounty enters Hibernation. The bounty stays active, the deadline keeps counting down, the target stays visible in scans and rankings, and a valid PvP kill can still claim it.

Frequently asked questions

Can I place a bounty anonymously?

No. Every bounty is identified.

Can I place a bounty on myself?

No.

Can I place a bounty while Hibernated?

No — you must be alive. You can still be targeted while Hibernated, though.

Does Hibernation pause the deadline?

No.

Does the five-minute delay let me cancel?

No. Your Essence is committed the moment you confirm.

If I top up an active bounty, does the whole thing become pending?

No. Only the new money waits. Existing active funds stay claimable.

Can I shorten a deadline when adding Essence?

No. You may keep it, extend it, or switch to No deadline.

What if the target dies while my contribution is pending?

It is not paid for that kill. It stays unresolved for a later huntable life.

Can a bounty be split between several fighters?

No. The HUD-recognised killer takes it.

Do official Challenge kills count?

Yes, when the Challenge produces a valid PvP kill. Challenge penalties do not.

Do hunger or administrative deaths pay bounties?

No.

Do I still get the normal PvP reward?

Yes. The bounty is paid on top of it.

What if I kill someone I placed a bounty on?

Your own active contribution comes back to you rather than paying out as profit. Other players' contributions pay you normally. Your fee is not returned.

What happens when a timed bounty expires?

The reward returns to whoever funded it, and the fee is kept.

Can a No deadline bounty expire?

No. It stays committed until claimed or resolved.

Why is the scan total lower than the website total?

Scans show claimable Essence only. The website also shows pending, paused and on-hold money.

Key rules at a glance

Bounties use Essence only, and are placed through the website.
You must be alive to place or top up; alive and Hibernated players are valid targets.
You cannot target yourself.
Add 5–1,000 whole Essence at a time, plus a 10% fee on every placement and top-up.
New money waits five minutes before it can be claimed, and cannot be cancelled.
Every bounty is identified.
Only valid HUD PvP and official Challenge kills claim a bounty.
All active claimable contributions resolve together to the killer — no assists, no splits.
Your own contribution is returned, not paid as profit, if you claim the target yourself.
Timed expiry refunds the reward but keeps the fee; No deadline money stays committed.
Hibernation does not stop a bounty.

Choose your enemies carefully — and watch your back. The night now has a price.