Characters will invariably lose Health Points during the course of their adventures, whether it be in the form of physical harm like cuts and bruises, emotional trauma and scarring or cognitive malfunction and psychic assault.
Health Points themselves represent the amount of damage you can handle before things start to get really bad. When a character falls to 0 Health Points, refer to the relevant section below to find out what happens.
0 Physical Health
When Physical Health falls to zero, the character or creature in question immediately falls to the ground unconscious and will die after a number of minutes equal to their Physical Fortitude unless they can pass a Hard (TN 30) Physical Fortitude + Endurance test. They may make one such test per minute and if successful they awake with 1 Physical Health restored.
If the unconscious character has their Physical Health restored by some means (a helpful healer for instance) then they awake automatically and no longer need to worry about dying from their wounds.
0 Social Health
When Social Health falls to zero the character is an emotional wreck, unable to say or do anything except try to extricate themselves from the situation. Usually by means of fleeing as fast as they can.
At the end of every round the fleeing character may attempt to rally themselves. To do that they must make a Hard (TN 30) Social Fortitude + Bravery test. They may make a maximum number of rolls equal to their Social Fortitude attribute. On a successful roll they have 1 Social Health Point restored.
If the character is unable to rally themselves, the emotional trauma is too great and they retreat from the world inside a landscape of the mind. To onlookers they are inchorent and entirely unable to function or relate to the real world.
If a character has Social Health restored to them before they become a gibbering wreck, then they immediately snap out of it and rally themselves.
0 Mental Health
If a character’s Mental Health reaches zero, they immediately fall unconscious and are at risk of falling into a coma. They will remain unconscious for a number of minutes equal to their Mental Fortitude. During that time the character may try to recover by making a Hard (TN 30) Mental Fortitude + Willpower roll. Success means they recover 1 Mental Health Point and wake up.
If the character fails to wake up, they go from being unconscious, to being in a coma. There is no coming back from that under normal circumstances.
Unconsciousness
Characters that suffer damage while unconscious unfortunately do not stand a chance and die from the effects of their injuries. Ne’er do wells may take advantage of this and dispatch fallen victims with ease.
Resting and Recovery
With a good day of rest (24 hours), characters heal a number of Health Points equal to their relevant Fortitude Attribute + their Shaping Attribute. So a character with PF 4, SF 5, MF 3 and Shaping 2 would heal 6 Physical Health Points, 7 Social Health Points and 5 Mental Health Points per day of rest.
Characters that do not have the luxury of taking it easy will only heal half of that, rounding down. So the same character would instead heal 3 Physical Health Points, 3 Social Health Points and 2 Mental Health Points per day of activity.
Healing
Characters with an appropriate healing aptitude may help themselves and others to heal wounds more quickly. Make a Hard (TN 30) Mental Agility + Aptitude roll. A success heals 1 Health Point, with every 10 points of success healing an extra Health Point. Characters may only be healed once in this way, until another event causes them to lose more Health Points.