Too little death?

So a strange thing happened...characters don't seem to die anymore. Perhaps I've made things a little too safe. Is one of the interesting things about Shadowdark the level of death and destruction to characters? We went through a lot of characters at early levels, but everyone is around 7th now, and there have been MANY close calls. But no one has died for quite a while.

Then...when you have characters die, do you start them at first level? Do they get to take the dead character's stuff?