States Designs and Backstory

Death and resetting

States and anything of the sort (countries included) cannot die, technically.

To start off, the only way they can really die is if they're land area no longer exists or is about to not exist. In that case they can fully die. Their body kinda fades out once they're dead. There's a grave yard where all the states, countries, or anything of the sort are commemorated. It looks exactly like a traditional grave yard, just there aren't any bodies actually buried there.

Moving along, they can't die from sickness unless the previous paragraph applies. They can be made very week by sickness but it can't kill or reset them. Now that that's out of the way, let's look at resetting.

If they're injured badly enough or poisoned or something like that, they can reset. Which essentially means that they won't have any memory of anything that has happened previous to the reset (they also won't know that they've been reset). They'll know who they are and the fact they're a state, they'll know who they're family is (in the sense they know USA is their dad and the other states are their siblings, they won't know anything personal about them). They'll know the history of their land/state, but nothing that's happened to them personally. So they do essentially die mentally, which most states fear even more then actually dying.

Usually if they reset they'll age back significantly. Any scars they had will disappear. Often times their personality will be the opposite of what their original personality was. Pretty much, mentally they're a new person but physically they're the same just younger.

Usually however they died will carry over into their 'new life' as an extreme fear. As well as that, any trauma they had will also carry over as some sort of fear. Although the state will have no idea why they have these fears.

It is possible to restore them but it's very hard as there's no one way to do it. Essentially, you need to remind them of who they were. The sooner you start trying to revert them back the more likely it is to work, if you wait to long/take to long then it won't be possible any more. The 'dead line' is when they start developing their own personality or their own memories, once they start becoming their own person essentially.

When doing this you need to be careful though. You want to subtly remind them of who they are and what they've been through. Because if they find out they're a reset it can cause them to lose it and possibly reset again. Which, the more someone resets, the less likely it is to get them, or any version of them, back.

Usually if you manage to get them back they're extremely lost/out of it for a while and will be very weak. All of their memories will return, along with any scars, fears, trauma, or injuries. So if they got any injuries in their death those injuries will return, still being fresh.

That's why a lot of states are very protective of each other. Because if someone were to reset all the others would be left to try and grieve their 'death' and push forward, but the reset would still be there, kinda like a constant reminder of what happened, making it much harder to move past the loss.