The cut is deep; the lesson deeper
A Hero’s health is tracked by marking wounds upon the health track. Wounds can come in three degrees of severity, which take longer to heal and recover from.
Light Wounds: Mark with a dash.
A minor injury that stings more than it slows. A Light Wound clears at the end of the scene.
Wounds: Mark with a cross.
A lasting injury that impairs the Hero. Wounds must be removed through healing.
Heavy Wounds: Mark with a double cross.
A long lasting injury. Heavy Wounds must first be downgraded to regular Wounds with healing.
Fatal Wounds: Mark death’s door space with a cross.
A life-threatening wound: at risk of death. If not stabilised by the end of the scene, the Hero dies.
Health Track
When a Hero receives a wound, the player will mark it on their health track.
Always mark the uppermost empty box first, so that injuries track downwards.
When a new wound is worse other wound on the track, it moves all lighter wound one box down. This sorts all wounds so that the most serious remain at the top and the lighted move to the bottom.
Penalty Boxes
- Low Health (+!): Increase Danger for this Hero by one until cleared.
- Critical Health (–1d): Roll one fewer die on every Action and Reaction. This stacks with Difficulty penalties.
- Death’s Door (☠): The Hero will die at the end of the scene unless stabilised.
Healing
Light wounds heal of their own accord, and one clears at the end of every scene.
While there are some rare powers that can clear a wound, most of the time normal and heavy wounds need to be cleared with the healing clock (4-segments).
Players may use relevant Actions or powers to progress the healing clocks with ticks. The clock is endless, meaning excess ticks carry over into a new cycle.
- Healing Actions performed under duress provide one fewer ticks
- Healing Actions performed during rest give an additional tick
When the healing clock is full, the player may choose any wound to downgrade:
- Heavy ➜ Normal
- Normal ➜ Light (which would then clear at the end of the scene)
Types of Harm
While all harm is measured in wounds, different safeguards can protect against specific types of harm.
Broadly, harm falls into one of three categories:
- Physical: all harm caused by weapons or objects; which can be blunt, piercing, or slashing depending on the source.
- Elemental: all harm caused by natural elements; which can be acid, fire, frost, or shock depending on the source.
- Mystical: all harm caused by strange and subtle elements; which can be bright, dark, force, weird, or wild depending on the source.
Protections
Armours provide protection against one category of harm but have limited uses until refreshed.
Resistances provide passive resistance against one specific type of harm.
Weaknesses
If something has a weakness to a type of harm, the damage is made worse.
- Is the subject is a Hero, the wound is heavier
- If the subject is a Monster or NPC, it does an extra point of damage
Morningstar Fables 