Damage and Injury

Physical Damage

Whenever a character sustains damage, it reduces their Hit Points (HP).

Armor Protection: Before applying damage, subtract any Armor Protection (AP) the character gets from physical armor and magical armor. Some types of damage ignore one or both of these armors, or halve their AP.

Injuries: If any damage passes through the AP, mark it as a new injury on the injury track and decrease the character’s Hit Points by that amount.

A character’s current HP is their maximum HP minus all their ongoing injuries. Current HP may be negative.

Major Injuries

A major injury is an injury that deals damage equal to or greater than the character’s Major Wound threshold, which is equal to maximum HP divided by 3, rounded down. When a major injury is received, the character must immediately make a CON roll.

• Critical Success: The character endures miraculously, and may act with no penalties. They immediately recover 1D3 HP and 1D6 DP.
• Success: The character endures, but gets a –20% penalty to all their physical rolls. This stacks with the severely wounded penalty (see below).
• Failure: The character falls unconscious. The injury gets worse by an extra –1D4 HP every hour, from external or internal bleeding, or some other similar condition.
• Fumble: As above. However, the wound immediately gets worse by –1D4 HP, and the interval is 10 minutes instead of an hour.

Multiple major injuries may be active. For instance, a character that took two major injuries from a particularly nasty biting monster might have a –40% penatly to physical actions, while bleeding out at a rate of 2D4 per hour.

Severely Wounded

A character is considered severely wounded when their current HP drops below the Major Wound Threshold, which is equal to maximum HP divided by 3, rounded down. As long as their HP stay below this threshold, they suffer the following conditions:

• All physical rolls are at –20%. This penalty stacks with that of a major injury.
• Movement is halved.

Losing Consciousness

When a character’s HP drop to 1 point or less, they automatically fall unsconscious.

Dying and Death

At zero HP or less, a character falls unconscious and dying. They are dead at the end of the next round (between 10 and 20 seconds later) unless healed to at least 1 HP. If the total of current injuries brings HP far into negatives, this may require large amounts of magical healing.

Spirit Damage

Spirit Damage is dealt to a character’s personal Magic Points (MP). MP may go negative.

Armor Protection: Before applying damage, subtract any Armor Protection (AP) the character gets from magical armor. Some spirits deal damage that ignores any magical protection, or halves it.

Losing Consciousness

When a character’s MP drops to 1 point or less, they automatically fall unconscious.

Possession

At zero MP or less, a character may be possessed by a spirit or captured by an enchanter or shaman. Spirit possession is only possible on physical creatures. Capture by an enchanter or shaman is possible on both spirits and discorporate physical creatures. See also Binding Spirits in the Magic chapter.

If a spirit wants to possess a physical creature, the creature’s body must be nearby, for the spirit to enter it. It may control the creature partially or entirely:

• Partial Possession: The spirit lies dormant in the victim’s body. It only takes over when desirable. During combat, “taking over” requires an action. Releasing control back to the host is a free action. The spirit may only take over for its (POW + CHA) hours at a time.

• Full Possession: The spirit completely takes over the victim. The victim’s spirit is left imprisoned inside their own body, unable to take back control. The spirit doesn’t have access to the victim’s knowledge, memories, or skills, but it might bully the victim’s spirit into releasing information. Some people may notice a change in personality, depending on how reckless the spirit is.

Dealing with a possessed person generally requires an exorcism. See the Shamanism chapter for more details.

Mental Damage

Mental damage reduces the character’s Determination Points (DP). It represents emotional harm, mental fatigue, social damage, and more.

Moment of Doubt

A moment of doubt happens when the character sustains enough mental damage to bring the current DP below the Major Doubt threshold, equal to maximum DP divided by 3, rounded down.

When this happens, the character may either change their course of action, or double-down with an ability roll. This ability must represent why the character would be motivated to keep acting towards the same goal as before. A passion roll is a good candidate for this (see the Passions chapter).

• Critical Success: The character finds the inner strength to continue, or is oblivious to what’s going on. They may act with no penalties. They immediately recover 1D6 DP.
• Success: The character endures, and may act with no penalties.
• Failure: The character loses hope, motivation, or interest. They get a –20% penalty to all rolls for the rest of the scene.
• Fumble: The character completely breaks down. They give up, surrender, or otherwise fall on the ground crying or stunned.

If changing their course of action, the gamemaster and/or player decide what the character does. The following list provides some ideas. For a GMC, the gamemaster may prefer rolling a D4:

D4	Action	Description
1	Surrender or give in	The character abandons their course of action and defers to the opposing party for now.
2	Flee or give up	The character abandons their course of action and tries to remove themselves from the situation.
3	Panic	The character acts irrationally or unpredictably, lashing out or attempting a desperate move.
4	Escalation	The character becomes violent or escalates an already violent situation, with little regard to consequences.

Moments of doubt are why driving a GMC’s DP down may be dangerous. For instance, chieftains and kings might be as easy to break as anybody else (and in some cases easier). However, it is dangerous to do so because they might panic or escalate, using the full might of their power and influence against the adventurers!

Crisis of Faith

When a character’s DP drops to 1 point or less, they immediately change their course of action. The gamemaster and/or player decide what the character does. See Moment of Doubt (above) for more information.

Physical Danger

The most common source of physical damage for adventurers is combat with enemies and monsters (see the Encounters chapter). Other common sources of physical damage are described below.

Falling

Falling causes 1D6 crushing damage for every 2 meters. Round the falling height down. Magical armor protects from this damage, but physical armor’s AP is halved (rounded down).

A character may make an Athletics roll to reduce this damage:

• Critical Success: Reduce the damage by two dice.
• Success: Reduce the damage by one die.
• Failure: Take the damage as usual.
• Fumble: Roll damage twice.

Fire

Fire damage halves physical armor, but magical armor protects against it normally unless stated otherwise. Being in contact with or surrounded by fire deals damage based on the intensiy of the fire:

• Torch: 1D3
• Camp fire: 1D6
• Moderately vigorous forest fire: 2D6
• Burning building, active crown fire: 3D6

There is a chance that the victim catches on fire: multiply the total fire damage by 10 and make a percentile roll under the result. For instance, if a character deals 6 points of fire damage to an enemy, there is a 60% chance that the enemy catches on fire. As usual, rolling 96 or above is always a failure. Once on fire, a character immediately takes 1D6 fire damage, ignoring all physical armor. This continues every subsequent round, on the character’s turn.

Every round, including the first one, make a percentile roll under the damage multiplied by 10. On a success, the fire spreads. If it was dealing 1D3 damage, it gets upgraded to 1D6. Otherwise, it gains +1D6 damage.

Extinguishing the fire requires spending two actions rolling on the ground with a DEX roll. If the first DEX roll is a Critical Success, the fire is extinguished in only one action. At the gamemaster’s discretion, water or thick blankets may also help extinguishing fire in only one action.

Asphyxiation and Drowning

A character may hold their breathing for one round (about 10 seconds), or two rounds if they do not do any physical actions during that time. After that, they must succeed a CON roll. Each subsequent round incurs a cumulative –20% penalty to the CON roll. As soon as this roll is failed, the character has to start breathing again, and probably suffers damage from their situation until it is resolved:

Situation	Damage
Thin Smoke	1D3 / round
Thick Smoke	1D6 / round
Drowning	2D6 / round

Unless specified otherwise, neither physical nor magical armor protects from this type of damage.

Poison and Disease

Poisons and diseases are handled the same way whether delivered by an assassin, injected by a venomous creature, contracted from a cursed artefact, or some other source. Poisons and diseases have the following attributes:

• VIR: A virulence characteristic that represents the strength of the poison or disease. This can be as low as 5 for a weak one, and as high as 20 or more for a deadly one.
• Effect: This is the effect of the poison or disease. If it deals physical damage, this will be specified per round, per minute, or per hour (e.g.: 1D3 damage per minute). Otherwise, it will be a simple effect description (.e.g: makes the victim fall unconscious).
• Duration: How long the effects apply, specified in rounds, minutes, hours, or days.

Armor does not protect against this type of damage, but some spells may offer some protection.

When the character first enters in contact with the poison or disease, make an opposed roll between their CON and the poison’s or disease’s VIR.

• Great Victory: The character has somehow developed a temporary immunity! No effects are applied.
• Victory: The character suffers half the effects for half the duration. Round damage down. Some effects (such as falling unconscious) cannot be halved and are applied as usual, albeit for half as long.
• Weak Victory: The character suffers the effects for half the duration.
• Weak Defeat: The character suffers the effects for the whole duration.
• Defeat: The character suffers the effects for twice the usual duration.
• Great Defeat: The character suffers double the effects for twice the usual duration. Some effects (such as falling unconscious) cannot be doubled and are applied as usual.

Optional Damage Rules

Knockdown

When rolled damage is greater than a character’s SIZ, that character must roll under their DEX or Athletics skill, whichever is higher. On a failure, they fall prone one step away (for humans, this is 1 meter, see Encounters).

If damage is greater than SIZ×2, the character falls prone automatically and rolls against their CON at –40%. On a failure, they lose one action and half their MOV on their next turn.

Hit Locations

This optional rule adds complexity to the game but also exciting details and fodder for roleplay. When taking damage in combat, by falling, or most other sources of physical damage, roll a D20 and use the appropriate Hit Location table to determine where the brunt of it was taken. The following table is appropriate for humanoid characters:

D20	Hit Location
1-4	Right Leg
5-8	Left Leg
9-11	Abdomen
12	Chest
13-15	Right Arm
16-18	Left Arm
19-20	Head

The Bestiary chapter has some hit location tables for non-humanoid creatures. If none applies to the situation, the gamemaster may have to improvise one.

When the character takes damage in a hit location, follow the usual rules if the hit location is not a limb nor the head.

If the hit location is a limb or the head, compare the damage taken to the Major Wound threshold, which is equal to maximum HP divided by 3, rounded down. If the damage is equal to or higher than this number, the character receives a crippling injury:

• Limbs: The limb is disabled and unusable. If it is an arm, the character drops any items it was holding. If it is a leg, the character falls prone.
• Head: Immediately make a CON roll at –20%. On a failure, the character loses half their actions and half their MOV on their next turn.

If the damage received is equal to or higher than twice the Major Wound threshold:

• Limbs: The limb is severed or maimed. Make a CON roll at –20% or fall unconscious.
• Head: Make a CON roll at –60% or fall unconscious.

If the damage received is worth three times the Major Wound threshold or more:

• Limbs: The limb is utterly destroyed and may never be healed except by magic that can regrow an entirely new limb. Automatically fall unconscious.
• Head: The character is decapitated and killed immediately.

Injuries to the limbs and head cannot exceed three times the Major Wound threshold. Ignore excess damage. However, once taken, the injury may worsen past this limit due to bleeding (see Major Injuries).

Recovery

Natural Recovery

Characters recover naturally over time:

• Every hour of rest, recover POW/10 MPs.
• Every day of rest, recover CHA/10 DPs.
• Every week of rest, recover CON/10 HPs in each injury.

Round down each of these numbers, with a minimum of one point being recovered in each interval.

Mundane Healing

Some abilities can help a character recover.

Meditation

A character may meditate for one hour and roll under their Meditate skill at the end of this time. On a success, they recover an extra 2D6 MPs.

Inspiration

A character may rest for 8 hours and make a Passion roll at the end of this time. Ideally, this a Passion that represents the driving force for their recent actions. On a success, they recover an extra 2D6 DPs. Alternatively, another character may make that roll, or give a pep talk with a Persuasion roll. This only takes an hour.

Medical Attention

The Healing skill helps a character recover HP. See the table below. A character may heal themselves this way.

Healing Type	Success	Failure
Stabilize (one round)	Delay a character from dying by one round. On a critical success, recover 1D3 HP in one injury.	No effect. On a fumble, the dying character dies.
Treat wounds (10 minutes)	Recover 1D3 HP in one injury. On a critical success, recover an extra 1D3 HP, in the same or a different injury.	No effect. On a fumble, the injury gets worse by –1D3 HP.
Cure disease/poison (1 hour)	Gives +20% to a patient’s next CON roll against the disease/poisoin, or +40% on a critical success.	No effect. On a fumble, the patient suffers a –20% to their next CON roll against the disease/poison.

Magical Healing

Various types of magic offer spells to help regain hit points. Some of these spells heal one injury at a time, while others are able to affect the whole body in one casting. See the Magic chapter for more information.

Reattaching Limbs

When using the hit location rules, it is possible for a character to get a limb chopped off or maimed. Reattaching a severed limb or rebuilding a maimed one requires 6 points of healing on that injury in one application. That is, the healing spell or other medical operation must provide at least 6 HP in one roll. Anything less is wasted.

A destroyed limb cannot be healed, but some magic spells are able to regrow a new limb. See the Magic chapter.