Hoo boy, this is gonna be a controversial one.

So, okay, no one likes bad things happening to their characters. Death loses you a lot of experience, theft loses you a lot of equipment, and stuff. But it just seems to me, (and I very much doubt I'm biased in this respect, since if this were to occur I'm a bad enough fighter/tradesman/whatever that I'd be on the losing end of this), that almost nothing is permanent in Lusternia in terms of player-caused effects, both negative and positive. Afflictions are cured in 2.5 seconds or less, defences are lost when you die (or heck, even leave the game) and come back, and with a few exceptions nothing you do seems to last.

Of course, this is for a pretty good reason. I mean, who wants to die 50 times and lose all that experience and have to work so hard to get it back? I sure as hell don't. But maybe it'd be nice if there were SOME things that actually lasted, albeit at a large cost? Just positive things to start with, and if that worked, maybe some differing (and by that I mean not necessarily negative or positive, just different) or negative effects, could last, say, several months. Now I'm not suggesting permanency is a good thing, because unless there's a really good reason there should be a way to remove/fix everything, given time. But with so many things only last five minutes, at least in terms of skills, some amount of durability would be nice.

Having lastign negative effects ain't fun. It is a game, and meant to be fun, even if it focuses on roleplay.

Fun > realism

In games with perma-death, they're normally almost entirely RP-oriented, rather than being PK or hack-n-slash. Given that one of the IRE games' biggest selling points is the highly developed PvP combat system, I don't see perma-death ever coming up.

The best I can think of is some consequences from RP sticking around. The way a village or person reacts to you, perhaps arranging with the Gods to have your character walk with a limp after some catastrophe, or... I don't know. But the thing is, these RP situations don't come up often (not as often as everything there's a coded system for, that's for sure) so the 'permanent' changes wouldn't come up often either.

If they did though, well... it would just become the same as choosing your guild or race. There would be guild advice on the best 'permanent' stat mod. to get and how to get it, other 'permanent' things would be collected like honours quest lines. Once something becomes 'permanent', part of the system, that's just what it IS. Everyday and no longer exciting.

But if you mean something entirely different, which I think you might, it'd help to have some examples, to steer me off this pessimistic track!

I certainly don't think permanent death is a good thing. I was thinking of much MUCH more minor effects. And they wouldn't be permanent, per se, just longer lasting than the 10 seconds or less they are now.
Maybe, um...well, I can't think of the examples I was going to use, but look at Dilution in Aquamancy.

There are ofcourse RP things that could be done, no real effect besides maybe bragging rights. Maybe after you've given Magda a huge number of rockeaters(say 1000) every time you enter the shop Magda greets you in a special way. No real game effect, but fun RP that they remember all the good you've done. In the same way, village leaders could greet city leaders of the city they are loyal to.

Well, things like being enemied to villages go along those lines. Though I think village enemying could be improved a lot (like, villages having their own guards, and you being enemied to just the village, not the whole city and all the OTHER villages spontaneously).

I think I understand what you mean now, but like many of the things that don't have coded solutions, you'd just have to roleplay out whatever you have planned.

On this particular ability, if it was implemented back in Achaea, people are so whiny that it would be given the flick in less time than you can say 'oh great, they issued'.

A few things had moderately permanent effects in Achaea, like the Wheel tarot. Formerly, when a Jester/Occultist flung it, the wheel spun around and around, and everyone in the room got a (permanent) random exp boost or drain, or a skill boost or drain - you might go from Adept halfway to Skilled inRiding, or down to 90% of Mythical Survival. People enjoyed this, and those willing to take the chance had fun using it in private. All this came to a screeching halt when an Occultist used it in a room of consenting people in public in Delos, a Priest walked through not paying attention, five minutes later noticed that they lost a couple of abilities, AAAAND... they issued. Long story short, now the Wheel tarot is pretty useless, it has a small chance of giving a temporary +1 or -1 in a random stat, for about 30 minutes. Cool, sure, but much diminished.

And this relates to Lusternia how, I hear you asking? Well, some people here are from Achaea, just as some are from Aetolia and Imperian too. And some of those Achaeans are of the mind that this type of permanent thing is VERY VERY BAD.

Just a historical example to give you some background. With your ideas, bear in mind that people seem to like the oppurtunity to fix their horribly screwed-up mistakes, and rather than saying "oh wow, what great RP, ever since I interrupted their mating ritual and killed the pack leader, wolves attack me on sight so I can't get into " they'll be more likely to say "omg how crap, i killed one wolf now i can't bash anywhere. i paid $400 for credits, i want answers damnit!"