There are 2 types of karma, good karma and bad karma. Karma is an important prerequisite for relics and plates, and if anything, for those cool looking karma epithets.

There are three avenues for gaining karma: grinding, SvS and pk.
There are two avenues for losing karma: dying apart from pk (mobs/dungeon), dying from pk.

Gaining Karma through Grinding

You gain good karma by grinding on mobs that are at least 2 levels (green) below your current level or higher. 1 gk is gained for every 100 mobs you kill. The counter is reset every time you log off; but is preserved if you change maps or go to the character selection screen - anything that does not require reentering your password.

Gaining Karma through SvS

You gain 10gk per kill in SvS.

Gaining/Losing Karma through PK

If the level difference is less than or equal to 24:









If the opponent is more than 24:









Taken from http://phpbb.acclaim.com/9dragons/viewtopic.php?t=24530

In order to gain karma as listed above, you have to pk without a mask on. Pking while masked will result in a 0 gain in karma.

Losing Karma by Dying apart from PK

You lose good karma equivalent to a tenth of your level upon death, and 2 bad karma. For example, a level 119 character will lose 11gk and 2bk upon death.

Dying in SvS does not result in any loss of karma.

Karma Epithets


















Taken from http://phpbb.acclaim.com/9dragons/viewtopic.php?t=24530

Bad karma epithets overwrite good karma ones of the same level. For example, if you have 1234gk and 567bk, you qualify for both 'Brave Heart' and 'Dark Heart'. But 'Dark Heart' overwrites 'Brave Heart'. If you have 12345gk and 678bk, you qualify for both 'Noble Soul' and 'Dark Heart'. 'Noble Soul' overwrites 'Dark Heart' as it is the level 2 gk epithet.