Wounds & Recovery

One-pager. Injury and fatigue are tracked as levels, like everything fragile in this game. Two tables tell the story: Impact (what a wound does to you now) and Recovery (the much slower business of getting better). Toughness rolls — resisting pain and convalescence — are made on Endurance or Willpower (the player's choice: some people are physically tough, some just refuse to quit). Pain resistance and stamina are not skills — you roll the raw attribute.

Impact — what a wound does now

Injury is a single number, 0 (healthy) to 8 (dead). The level is a −(level) modifier to everything you do.

Lvl State Right now
0 Healthy —
1 Light −1 to all activity
2 Medium −2
3 Heavy −3
4 Incapacitated −4; roll (EN/WP) each combat turn to act at all, and lose an action
5 Critical −5; roll each turn to stay conscious
6 Dying Unconscious
7 Near death Unconscious
8+ Dead —

New damage adds to the current level (medium 2 + heavy 3 = critical 5). Optional Accumulation: head/chest/abdomen add in full; a limb adds its level −2 (min 0), or replaces the current level if higher.

Pain, Shaken & Stun

Damage doesn't only wound — it rattles. Whenever a character is hit hard enough to matter, they make a pain-resistance roll — EN or WP:

Shaken is "off-balance and hurting"; Stunned is "out of the fight until you pull yourself together." Both are temporary and leave no lasting level.

Recovery — convalescence

Healing is slow. At the interval for your level, make a convalescence roll (EN or WP) to improve or worsen:

Lvl Roll every Result
1 Light day success drops a level; QR10 raises one
2 Medium 5 days "
3 Heavy 20 days "
4 Incapacitated day "
5 Critical 30 min QR3 drops, QR7 raises, QR10 raises + unconscious
6 Dying 5 min " (deterioration)
7 Near death minute " (deterioration)

Convalescence rolls carry a penalty equal to the worst level you've sunk to since last healthy — until you fully recover or get medical care. Care (closing wounds, transfusions, surgery) lowers that worst-level penalty or directly buys back levels; it's what hauls a dying character back from the edge.

Fatigue — exhaustion levels

Hard exertion (a sustained sprint, a long mêlée, a forced march, harsh exposure) calls for an EN/WP check; failure adds a level of exhaustion, with the magnitude of effort as a modifier rather than extra rolls.

How exhaustion penalizes activity. Unlike a wound — which is −(level) to everything, because pain and blood loss don't care what you're doing — exhaustion is domain-weighted. Each exhaustion track is a full negative modifier to activity that uses that pool, and half to everything else; different tracks stack (and stack on top of any wound penalty). Add the contributions, then round (half away from zero).

A wizard is at −3 fatigue (a forced march) and −3 mana (a duel). Physical activity: −3 (fatigue, full) + half of −3 mana (−1.5) = −5. Casting: −3 mana + half of −3 fatigue = −5. Seducing the apprentice (neither physical nor magical): half of each = −1.5 − 1.5 = −3.

Unlike wounds, exhaustion clears by rest, not rolls — but you clear one level at a time, and the deeper the level, the more rest it takes to shift:

Clearing a level at depth… …takes
1 A 15-minute breather
2 A long break (an hour+)
3 A good night's sleep
4 Unconsciousness / near-coma
5+ Special intervention

So a character at −3 gets a good night's sleep and comes back to −2; clearing that level then wants a long break, and the last a breather. Deep exhaustion is a slow climb out. At four or more levels, keep checking EN/WP or exhaustion begins converting into actual wounds — you can collapse, or die of exposure. Mana, piety, and other powers run identical exhaustion tracks driven by gathering, not exertion — see Power Pools.

Designer's Note: the stamina-point pool is gone. A check you can't fudge beats a pool everyone quietly forgets to subtract from — and letting toughness be EN or WP means the stoic and the stubborn are both survivors, by different routes.