View source for Book:Life and Death

Optimists are known to repeat the tag line: "at least you still have your health!" On the road to adventure, there are many ups and downs. The "downs" come in the form of enemies, aches, pains, and bludgeonings. The "ups" come in the form of allies, rest, healing, and relaxation. This chapter details them both. It explains how creatures live and die, as well as the numerous physical conditions that can befall them in-between.

{{sidebar|caption=Death Has Consequences|When your character dies, there's no denying, it kind of sucks!  Your dead character isn't playable anymore; you have to create a new one if you want to continue playing with the rest of the group.  The main thing to remember is not to get discouraged.  This happens to even veteran players innumerable times.  There are even some players who have come to embrace the fact that their characters never seem to last long.  Just draw up a new character and keep playing — the reaper comes for us all eventually.  And yet, Some GMs will allow for things like resurrection, so maybe it isn't the end for your character.  Often, however, these magical rites are costly and rarely performed.  Maybe it was your clone that died.  Maybe the Immortals brought you back to life.  How you want to treat death in your game is up to you, your GM, and the other players.}}

==Losing Consciousness==
Many things can cause you to black out, like a good sucker punch, complete exhaustion, high g-forces, illness, or tranquilizers. Some of these are lethal, like starvation, suffocation, or hypothermia. This section details the loss of consciousness.

===The Knockout Track===
As a character becomes increasingly exhausted, ill, dazed, or punch-drunk, she moves further down the [[Knockout Track]].  Each consecutive stage instills harsher penalties to ''all'' skill checks, including combative rolls like attacking, defending, and casting spells. There are several ways to gain Knockout penalties.

{|
|+Knockout Track
!Status!!Penalty
|-
|Stage One|| −2
|-
|Stage Two|| −4
|-
|Stage Three|| −6
|-
|Stage Four|| −8
|-
|Stage Five||Knocked-out
|-
|}

The most common means of acquiring Knockout Track penalties is being battered or sickened.  This includes the [[Knockout]] tactic in combat, seasickness, and spells like [[Inflict Pain]]. When you move down the Knockout Track because of blunt trauma, nausea, or acute pain, the penalties last until you get a good night's sleep. You can also make a Healing check (see ''Chapter 6: [[Book:Skills|Skills]]''), apply specialized items (see ''Chapter 11: [[Book:Equipment|Equipment]]''), or cast the [[Revive]] spell (see ''Chapter 14: Spells'') to remove Knockout Track penalties gained in this manner.

You can also gain Knockout Track penalties because of poisons and diseases, which are detailed later in this chapter, as well as Stamina Drain, which is detailed next.

===Stamina Drain===
{{:Stamina Drain}}
====Exertion====
{{:Exertion}}
====Extreme Temperatures====
{{:Exposure}}
====Hunger and Thirst====
{{:Starving}}
====Suffocation====
{{:Suffocating}}
====Wakefulness====
{{:Wakefulness}}

==Resting and Recovery==
When your character rests peacefully, he regains a number of lost HP equal to his [[Endurance]] score plus his ranks in [[Vitality]]. Resting peacefully requires at least six hours of sleep in a non-hostile environment. Characters can never regain more than their maximum HP.

Poorly rested characters regain only half the normal amount of HP (rounded down). This occurs when your character sleeps less than 6 hours or is roused to arms during the night. Their body is simply too exhausted to heal correctly without a little help.

As mentioned in the ''Wakefulness'' entry, you can only regain HP when you rest. If you stay up all night, you can't regain any lost HP.

===Healers===
Injured characters can be tended by healers and medics overnight, which yields more HP recovery. The character attempting to administer overnight healing to the wounded one rolls a [[Healing]] check. See the ''Healing'' entry in ''Chapter 6: Skills''. A healer cannot tend to more than one person per night. Their services can be paid for like any other trade.

===Healing Items===
The natural world is rich with verdant energy. Finding natural ingredients, like herbs and nectars, that can help in restoring a character's health is possible if you know what to look for. Legends tell of flowers that cure specific illnesses. Some say that the fruit of rare trees can heal in much the same way. If an adventurer is seeking it, she should be able to purchase things like naturally-derived salves, ointments, and poultices that can be applied to wounds (see the ''Gear'' section of ''Chapter 11: Equipment''). A character who regains HP from a healing item still needs to rest that day unless the item specifically states that it is a substitute for rest.

===Magic Points and Spirit Points===
A well-rested character awakens to fully replenished MP and SP. Characters who rest poorly regain only half of their lost MP and SP.

“Mana,” as characters refer to their MP scores, manifests physically  in crystalline, liquid, or gaseous form throughout the world. If the character manages to locate mana, it can be used to regain MP. You can use crystalline mana in place of your own MP. Liquid or gaseous mana can be consumed or inhaled to replenish missing MP. Your GM can tell you how much MP each amount of mana restores.

“Ki,” as characters refer to their SP scores, sometimes permeates spiritual places. You can regain SP by meditating peacefully in such a place. The longer your character does so, the more SP regained. 

==Taking Damage==
The world is filled with dangers that can injure your characters. Many times, these dangers are ''other'' characters. This section explains the loss and recovery of Health Points. As mentioned in ''Chapter 3: Character Creation'', a character's life force is measured in ''[[Health Points]]'' (or ''HP''). A creature's [[Size]] determines its total HP. Most characters begin the game with 30 HP.

===Damage===
{{:Damage}}

===Tainted Damage===
{{:Tainted Damage}}
===Bleeding Damage===
{{:Bleeding}}

==Contaminants==
Pathogens, parasites, fungi, toxins, poisons, drugs, and tranquilizers are all substances which can invade your body and dish out pain and suffering. A [[Vitality]] check (see ''Chapter 6: Skills'') is necessary to keep these forces from harming you.

===Diseases===
In addition to the physical dangers of the world, characters are often accosted by sniffles and common ailments, as well as many serious bacterial and viral diseases. Some diseases are spread through touch, others through injury and direct contact with the blood, and others still are airborne. When it comes to sickness and plague, running out of tissues is the least of your worries. 

When a character is exposed to a disease, the character must make a [[Vitality]] check to avoid becoming infected. If you fail the Vitality check, you gain the ''infected'' condition and suffer the effects of the disease. Each time your character rests, you must make another check. If you pass this check, you may ignore the effects of the disease for the following day. If you make two consecutive, successful checks, your character is considered to have beaten the disease. Rare diseases might only be curable with medicine, if a cure is even possible.

The effects of the disease are dependent on the level.  Each day, the infected character wakes at a specific stage of the Knockout Track.  These Knockout Track penalties cannot be removed by any means other than curing the infection. More bad news: each disease can have side effects as well.

Diseases make starvation and dehydration much more difficult to survive. For example, if you're infected with a Level 3 disease (which puts you at stage 3 on the Knockout Track), you only need to fail two Stamina checks to fall comatose. A third failure means death. If you're infected with a Level 5 disease (which makes you comatose on its own), a single failed Stamina check means death.

# Level One – Stage One KO
# Level Two – Stage Two KO
# Level Three – Stage Three KO
# Level Four – Stage Four KO
# Level Five – Infected character is comatose each day the save is failed 

Listed below are some simple diseases.

* Minor Malaise – Sniffles, a low-fever, and aches and pains gently pelt the body with slight discomfort.  Most employers will ask for a note from the doctor if the character misses work (Level One, Airborne, DL 10]).
* Icy Shivers – The infected character begins to shiver violently and suffers from a feeling of extreme cold, dizziness, and numbness in extremities.  Fatal if endured for long.  Writing legibly is impossible, and tasks requiring manual dexterity or steady hands are extremely difficult.  The infected character becomes increasingly dependent on extreme heat, and in bad cases, may attempt to burn themselves (Level Two, Airborne, DL 14). 
* Rusty Leg – Flu-like symptoms including nausea, weakness, and vomiting accompany a nasty red-orange rash which causes the inflamed skin to flake like rust.  The character gains the ''hampered'' condition (see Conditions, below) and has a hard time walking faster than a shuffle due to pain in the shins and feet, which is where the symptoms usually first manifest (Level Three, Injury, DL 12).
* Violet Death – A plague-like sickness which begins with itching and a bile-like taste in the mouth.  Purple splotches begin to appear first around the armpits, feet, and crotch of the victim, then appearing on the neck, elbows and knees and spreading outwards.  Open sores then appear on the skin, which turn necrotic and begin to rot, causing damage to the infected character.  The character suffers 1 damage/hour each day (Level Four, Touch, DL 16). 
* Hematic Scourge – Three days after becoming infected, the character is wracked by terrible pain.  She gains the paralyzed condition (see Conditions, below). The body begins to seep blood out of the pores and orifices (2 damage/hour each day).  Screaming and moaning are commonplace, as are last wills and testaments (Level Five, Injury, DL 18).

====Curing Disease====
Using the ingredients in the natural world, a character can craft medicines such as salves, pills, and teas, which combat or cure disease. To craft medicines, the character needs access to a space that can be used as a laboratory, as well as fire and containers to boil or distill liquids, and a mortar and pestle for grinding ingredients. They also need to be familiar with the materials used in the creation process: which herbs, plants, seeds, or fruit lessen which ailments. To create a medicine, the character must make a [[Craft]] check against a DL of 15 + 2 for every Level of disease (so for example, the DL to craft a medicine for a Level Three disease is 21). As noted in the Craft skill, a character with a roll above or below the DL creates a medicine of differing quality. Below are the details of different quality medicines.

{| width="100%"
! Difference !! Quality
|-
|align="center"| −10 || Awful (extra Knockout penalty)
|-
|align="center"| −5  || Not great (ineffective)
|-
|align="center"| 0   || Normal (Knockout penalties removed, but symptoms persist)
|-
|align="center"| +5  || Good (symptoms slightly lessened, +2 to save)
|-
|align="center"| +10 || Outstanding (symptoms masked, +4 to save)
|-
|align="center"| +15 || Perfect (character automatically passes save for 1 day)
|-
|align="center"| +20 || Legendary (instantly cures the disease)
|}

Medicines take two hours per level of disease to create. Characters cannot create medicines which combat magical diseases.

===Poisons===
In the words of the great Socrates: “I just drank what?” Be careful of that goblet of wine, friend, it may have worse things in it than cheap merlot.

Poison is a common weapon in the political world of kings and pawns. Then there are the exotic animals and monsters of the world with their natural venoms. Anything that poisons the blood and causes impairment is considered a poison. Some poisons enter the bloodstream through injury, some must be imbibed, and some can be absorbed through contact with the skin.

When a character is dosed with poison, a Vitality check is required. If you fail the Vitality check, you gain the poisoned condition and are subject to the effects of the poison for its duration. Each poison lists its duration in rounds. You must make another Vitality check each round for the duration of the poison to resist its detrimental effects for that round.

# Level Zero – 0 damage/round
# Level One – 1 damage/round
# Level Two – 2 damage/round
# Level Three – 4 damage/round
# Level Four – 8 damage/round
# Level Five – 16 damage/round

* Webking Venom – The venom of these huge spiders causes a drowsy or unconscious state in its victims.  Affected characters take no damage, but move one stage down the Knockout Track each round, eventually falling unconscious (Level Zero, Injury, DL 14, 8 rounds).
* Ginger Ivy Oil Extract – The oils of the Ginger Ivy plant severely irritate the skin, causing small blisters and boils which itch like a ''sonofagun'', but are mostly an annoyance.  If the extract of the plant is imbibed, however, it causes the mouth and throat to swell and blister, cutting off airflow.  The victim often tears frantically at her own throat in a futile attempt at relief, and this sometimes does more damage than the Ginger Ivy Oil.  The character gains the ''suffocating'' condition as a side effect for the duration of the poison  (Level One, Imbibed, DL 12, 8 rounds).
* Hag's Blood – This is the actual blood pulled from the veins of slain hags.  It is highly toxic and causes short bouts of violent illness and hallucinations preceding death.  A character poisoned with Hag's Blood gains the ''distracted'' and ''confused'' conditions (Level Three, Imbibed, DL 16, 10 rounds).
* Mortargore Poison – This alchemical poison is capable of thickening and hardening the blood in a victim's veins, causing rigidity in the body and heart attack. The victim gains the ''immobilized'' condition for the duration as their limbs stiffen painfully (Level Four, Imbibed, DL 18, 6 rounds).
* Black Lotus Poison – Capable of killing in a matter of seconds, Black Lotus poison is an assassin's preferred weapon, when they can afford it.  It is swift, undetectable, and extremely potent.  A character poisoned with the Black Lotus gains the ''blinded'' condition permanently (Level Five, Imbibed/Injury/Contact, DL 20, 5 rounds).

====Curing Poison====
A character can create a poison antidote, antitoxin, or antivenom using a chemical countering agent. To create an antidote to a chemical poison, the character must have the ingredients available to create a compound that can counter it. To create an antivenom, the character must be able to locate and identify natural ingredients (possibly the venom itself) which can be processed. In addition to a space to create this compound, the character may require equipment such as syringes, mixing containers and instruments, and heat sources.

To create an antidote, the character must make a [[Craft]] check against a DL of 15 + 2 for every Level of poison (so for example, the DL to craft an antidote for a Level Four poison is 23). Antidotes are straightforward: they neutralize the agent in a victim's body, so one of greater quality has no additional effects. If the Craft check fails, the character makes an antidote of lesser quality, and it may actually harm the victim of the poison. A critical failure results in no antidote, and will ruin any materials. Antidotes take one hour per level of poison to create. A character cannot create antidotes which counter the effects of magic poisons.

==Condition==
Sometimes a character can be impaired through causes other than the loss of blood and HP.  Often, diseases, poisons, spells, exhaustion, heat, or strong emotions can affect how well a character feels.  
{{:Condition}}

==Disposition==
{{:Disposition}}

==Nature==
{{:Nature}}

__NOTOC__ __NOEDITSECTION__