I believe there are hack tools to allow you to mess around with stats and equipment.
While UrW auto saves, those saves are NOT reliable for save scumming purposes, because they're not complete. UrW performs some integration of temporary data files when performing a proper save. Most of the time save scumming through crashing UrW (or recovery from a crash) will work fine, but at times the save is corrupted.
You should make regular backups of your save folder (the (copy) generated by a simple copy/paste work fine, as it won't interfere with the game, so Brygun's method seems like overkill). If you want to save scum you can delete the save folder and replace it with the previous backup. However, that is not the way UrW is intended to be played. You take risks and you live (and die) with the consequences of your actions. If you want to play with save scumming it's your business of course (but don't brag about things you achieved through save scumming), but you're playing the game in a way it wasn't intended to be played.
I think you have to delete/rename ANCESTORS to revive a dead character. At least you have to if you want to create a new character with the same name as a previous one.