ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

The Blood of Life just turned up in the Bree potion store. Does this mean I can never find it in a dungeon?

(alas, I can't buy it since I'm 992.8 gold short..)

you still *can* find it, just have to be lucky

This is an odd place to bring this up, but I had the blood of life once, drank it and did not respawn when killed.

Was I not meant to drink it?

My understanding is that no, you do not drink it. If you are killed with the Blood of Life in your inventory, when the screen pops up with the exit and character dump options, it will also give you the option to select the Blood of Life and be reanimated.

I had it once, but when I was killed, I instinctively hit 'exit to main menu' instead...

You do have to drink it. Worked for me, at least (that was back in beta 3 I think)

You have to drink it.

Were you an undead by any chances ?

Since this is a spoiler page there's something else interesting about artifacts and shops...

Playing a skeleton mage I found the Blood of Life in Trollshaws, so I went back and sold it. In the Old Forest later... the Blood of Life appeared again (!). So sold artifacts can return. Also I saw the Ring of Ulmo in a shop, then in Carn Dum it appears on the floor (oddly, un-ID'd both times). So seeing it in the shop doesn't mean you can't ever get it... even if you sell it!

Yup. Almost always a skeleton as I find the race abilities to be mostly useless (except for dunadan)

Useless?
I am in love with grace of the eldars

Yeah, skeleton fan here too though my only winner so far was an Elf (grace of the elders is pretty awesome when you have good dex.)

And since DG didn't come right out and say it I will. You have to be alive to be returned to life. Skeletons have to reanimate through their talent.

The living should drink the Blood of Life to use it (my elf did and he wouldn't have been a winner if not for it). The non-living should just vendor it