When your character dies, you don't go back to a save point or safe place, but they stay dead. Instead, the glorious honour is passed on to their child and you try again with some skills passed down.
(I do seem to recall a game that had a similar mechanic to this at some point.)
Rogue Legacy 1 & 2 have the conceit that you're playing as a lineage of heroes; when you die, your corpse and its accompanying loot gets sent back to the castle, where it can be used to buy upgrades to reinforce the next generation
(i never beat the first game but Rogue Legacy 2 is really, really good)
