Death
Risk and conflict are essential aspects of any interesting story. However, while horrible, terrible, very bad things happening to your character can make great fodder for roleplay, death is the antithesis of roleplay. It's not interesting storytelling, it's simply the end of the story.
Sometimes that's okay. All stories end! But Earthdawn is a game about heroes and their legends. When PCs die in Earthdawn they die gloriously. They die with pathos. They die in epic ways that the player will still be talking about ten years later. The player should never feel their character's death was unfair, or cheap.
Instead of literal death, a character whose damage reaches their death rating should be considered to be both unconscious and unrevivable for that combat (whereas a character who is simply unconscious might be brought back into the fight by a number of means, such as Blood Share). In addition, the character suffers some long-term negative as a result of the combat, with long-term here defined as something that lasts beyond the end of this particular mission. Perhaps they take a blood wound, break one of their limbs, are captured or implanted with eggs or marked by a horror that lurks in astral space on the threshold of death! Perhaps they develop a phobia of an appropriate stimulus, and are now considered Harried whenever they're forced to interact with it. Such consequences must always be removable, either simply through time or (even better!) a specific mission to address the issue. Let near-death experiences be the fuel for more storytelling, not the end of the story!
Remember also that items of significance to your personal legend become pattern items for you. The weapon that drove you to death's very door is definitely of significance.