In this game, violence has consequences. There are no bags of hit points to whittle down while your character fights at full power. Every wound makes you worse at everything, and that changes how you think about every fight.

The Death Spiral

When you take damage, fill in boxes on your hit point track starting from the top tier (OK). Each tier holds 7 + BR boxes. When a tier is full, you move to the next one and immediately take its penalty — applied to every roll you make.

Tier	Status	Penalty
1	OK	None — you're fine
2	Harmed	−10% to all rolls
3	Maimed	−25% to all rolls
4	Incapacitated	−50% to all rolls — you're barely conscious

Exhaustion

Everyone has an exhaustion track — it's not just for casters. It works identically to wounds: four tiers, 7 + PW boxes each, same escalating penalties. But instead of physical injury, it tracks everything that wears down your mind and spirit: magical drain, sleep deprivation, stun grenades, psychological stress, overexertion. Anything that hurts without leaving a wound lands here.

Tier	Status	Penalty
1	OK	None
2	Wearied	−10% to all rolls
3	Drained	−25% to all rolls
4	Overwhelmed	−50% to all rolls

And here's the cruel part: wound and exhaustion penalties stack. A fighter who's Harmed (-10%) and Wearied from a flashbang (-10%) is rolling at -20% to everything. The death spiral doesn't just punish you for one kind of damage — it punishes you for existing in a dangerous world.

Going Down

When you fill your Incapacitated tier on the hit point track, you collapse. Your weapon clatters to the ground. You can't act, can't speak above a whisper. But you're not dead yet — you're bleeding out, and the clock is ticking.

Every 3 counts on the timing track, you roll a death save: a straight d100, no modifiers, no skills. The dice decide.

Exhaustion works differently. When your exhaustion track fills completely, you don't make death saves — you're mentally shattered but still breathing. Any further exhaustion overflows into physical damage at half rate (rounded down), and that damage fills your hit point track. If it pushes you past Incapacitated on HP, then death saves begin. The mind breaks first. The body follows.

Roll	Result
01	Instant stabilization — you stop bleeding on your own. Unconscious but safe.
02–49	Holding on. You're still dying, but not worse. The clock keeps ticking.
50–99	Failure. Mark it down. Three failures and you're gone.
00	Dead. Immediately. No saving throw, no last words. Just gone.

Three failures kill you. The fastest possible death — three bad rolls in a row — takes 9 counts. But most of the time, you'll get a mix of holds and failures. A typical bleed-out lasts 12 to 18 counts. That's your window. That's how long your friends have to save you.

Saving a Downed Ally

You have options, and none of them are free. Everything costs time on the timing track, and the dying character's clock doesn't stop while you act.

Medicine check (speed 5) stabilizes the patient. They stop making death saves and fall unconscious. This is the reliable option — no magic needed, just skill and a few seconds you might not have.

A Mend spell actually heals hit points, pulling them back from the edge. But casting takes time too, and if you're in the middle of a fight, you're giving up your action to save someone else.

A healing potion (speed 3 to administer) is the fastest option. Expensive, consumable, and worth every coin when your friend is bleeding out on the floor.

Recovery

Rest heals. Not quickly — this isn't a "long rest and you're fine" game — but steadily:

Type	Rate	Notes
Physical damage	1d4 HP per hour of full rest	+1d4 with medical care
Exhaustion	1d8 EP per hour of full rest	Mental strain recovers faster than flesh
Armor repair	Metalworking or Repair check	Needs downtime and tools

That means after a bad fight, the party might need to hole up for several hours before they're fit to continue. Time pressure matters in this game — every hour spent resting is an hour the cult spends completing their ritual.