Harm & Healing

When enemies attack or hazards threaten you, harm comes in two forms: light hits and hard hits. The damage is always physical. What changes is how you avoid it: with your body, by reading the danger, or by holding your nerve. When a hit lands, the DM indicates which capacity is involved.

Light hits are quick jabs you cannot avoid: glancing blows, accumulated strain, the wear of a long fight. A light hit calls for no roll. If you have Resolve remaining, it reduces your Resolve by 1. Otherwise it reduces the indicated capacity's current score by 1. The flavor follows the capacity: a hit on your Vigor winds you, a hit on your Wit fogs your thinking, a hit on your Zeal rattles your nerve.

Self-Inflicted Hits as Costs

Some talents charge their cost in flesh.

Light hits may appear as optional or automatic costs. When you suffer a self-inflicted light hit, you choose which capacity it strikes, and you must choose a capacity above its minimum. Resolve absorbs self-inflicted light hits as normal.

Hard hits may appear as costs only when they are automatic. A self-inflicted hard hit always names the capacity it targets (it is not your choice), and you make the capacity roll as normal.

Resolve

Resolve, from aetherial armor, is a clock of up to 6 segments that buffers light hits. While you have Resolve, each light hit reduces Resolve by 1 instead of touching a capacity. The blessing worked into the armor steadies you, so a minor blow is nothing while your confidence holds.

Example: Izzo is pinned in a chaotic crossfire. The DM lands a light hit on his Wit, the noise and confusion fraying his focus. Izzo has 2 segments of Resolve left, so he marks one off instead of losing any Wit. Later, with his Resolve spent, another light hit lands and his Wit drops by 1.

A hard hit is a serious source of physical harm that threatens real injury, and it is the only thing that calls for a roll: a heavy strike, a venting toxin, a hail of shrapnel. The harm is always physical; what varies is how you keep it from landing. When a hard hit comes, the DM tells you which capacity you roll to avoid it. Make a capacity roll: 1d12 against that capacity's current score plus your Reflex bonus. This is pass/fail only, with no critical results.

• Pass: You avoid the harm. No wound.
• Fail: Mark one segment on your wound clock and gain 1 balance token. Failing does not give the DM the spotlight.

How you avoid the hit follows the capacity the DM names:

The further a capacity has been worn down, the harder its hard hits become to avoid.

Example: Izzo walks through a corridor venting toxic gas. The DM calls it a hard hit against Vigor. Izzo's Vigor is 1, so only a 1 saves him. He rolls a 1 and makes it through coughing but unharmed. On anything else he would mark a wound and gain a balance token.

Reflex

Reflex is a rating from 0 to 3, gained through clockwork armor. Add your Reflex rating to your current capacity score on any capacity roll, the roll you make to avoid a hard hit. Reflex never degrades during play.

Example: A character with Wit 4 and Reflex 2 must avoid a hard hit with a Wit roll. They roll 1d12 and succeed on a 6 or lower (4 + 2).

Your wound clock is a circle divided into segments by life lines. All characters start with 1 life line, creating a 2-segment wound clock. Additional life lines come from character progression; each new life line adds 2 more segments, up to a maximum of 3 life lines (6 segments).

Wounds represent significant injuries. Unlike a drained capacity or depleted Resolve, wounds persist until treated during intermissions. Each wound brings you closer to a reckoning with the Fates.

Soak

Soak, from traditional armor, prevents wounds. When you would mark a wound segment, you may mark a soak point instead. Once all soak points are used, wounds must be marked normally.

Soak is only restored through specific talents or certain cutscenes. When traditional armor absorbs wounds equal to its soak capacity, it becomes Broken (see Talents & Equipment).

When you would add 1 segment to your wound clock but the clock has no empty segments, you must choose one of three bargains:

Clotho's Last Strand

For heroes who believe in going out in a blaze of glory.

Take three consecutive actions in the spotlight with three bonus dice on any risky rolls. During these actions, failures do not give the DM the spotlight and the DM cannot interrupt. After these three actions, your character dies heroically. Nothing can prevent it.

Lachesis' Tax

For heroes who aren't done yet.

Pay 3 balance tokens to remove one wound from your clock, freeing a segment and keeping you alive.

Atropos' Bargain

For heroes willing to linger as echoes.

Your character dies immediately but persists as a shade. As a shade, you can communicate with other characters and use the instant talent Whisper of Fate.

Whisper of Fate

PREREQUISITES: Atropos' Bargain TARGET: Anywhere, 1 friend

Instant: After a friend declares a risky action roll, reduce any of your capacity scores by 1 to add 2 dice to their roll. If they fail, you may spend one of your balance tokens on their roll (in addition to their own).

Your shade persists until all your capacity scores reach their minimums.

Wounds are healed during intermissions through the Heal Wounds cutscene (see Intermissions). There is no wound recovery during active scenes unless a specific talent provides it.

All capacity scores return to their maximums, and Resolve refreshes to full, at the start of each intermission. During a scene, capacities recover only through specific talents or the standard critical-success bonus (+1 to a capacity score of your choice).