Consequences Rules

Introduction

Consequences are threshold-based effects that follow from the outcomes of actions — the ongoing weight of what happened in play.

Consequences are threshold-based effects that follow from the outcomes of actions. They are not punishment for failure or reward for success — they are the ongoing weight of what happened. A bad hit leaves a wound. A fumbled negotiation leaves a reputation. A brutal fight leaves something that needs healing before the next one.

Consequences arise from four contexts: combat outcomes, skill challenges, social encounters, and exploration attrition. The same three-tier framework applies across all of them — short-term effects that clear by end of scene, transition effects that escalate if untreated, and long-term effects that persist across sessions until properly healed.

The framework does not distinguish between a broken arm and broken confidence. Both are real. Both require care. Both can be healed — but neither goes away on its own.

Short-Term Consequences

Short-term consequences are named status conditions that apply immediately and expire by end of encounter. They change what a character can do, not just how well they do it.

Short-term consequences are concrete named statuses — not generic roll modifiers. Each applies specific mechanical effects: attribute penalties, blocked action types, or changed positioning rules. They last for a defined duration within the encounter and cannot carry into the next scene.

• Short-term statuses do not escalate — they expire, they do not compound into long-term.
• A status can be re-applied; recovering from Stunned and being Stunned again are separate events.
• Stun does not stack — re-application restarts the duration rather than extending it.
• Standing from Prone does not trigger zone-of-control exhaustion.

Long-Term Consequences

Long-term consequences persist beyond the encounter and across sessions. They arise from untreated transition statuses or from critical results severe enough to apply lasting damage immediately.

Long-term consequences are the system's most serious outcomes. They are not cleared by rest or the end of a scene — they require active treatment, healing, or sustained recovery through play. Two named statuses occupy this tier: Severe Injury and Downed.

Long-term consequences arise in two ways: a transition status that goes untreated escalates to long-term at the end of the encounter; or a critical result delivers a long-term consequence directly, bypassing the transition tier entirely.

• Multiple Severe Injuries do not stack numerically — use the highest penalty per affected attribute.
• Accumulating unhealed Severe Injuries may impose additional narrative consequences at GM discretion.
• A Downed character with active Bleeding requires both to be addressed separately — stabilizing does not stop blood loss.
• Psychological long-term consequences from untreated Combat Shock follow the same framework — healer, imbuement, or roleplay and time.

Recovery & Healing

Long-term penalties and injuries should be reversible through meaningful play, not treated as permanent dead ends.

Characters who take long-term penalties or suffer lasting physical harm can recover through meaningful play. Recovery addresses both confidence and injury.

Regaining Confidence

Healing Physical Injuries

• Medical treatment: care by someone skilled in healing, medicine, or alchemy reduces severity; a critical success may fully heal the injury.
• Rest and downtime: minor injuries heal naturally over days to weeks, while serious trauma may require a full rest period.
• Magical or psionic healing: restoration, spirit, body, or shapeshifting effects can partially or fully heal damage.
• Permanent scars: rare lasting marks may require powerful magic or major narrative events to remove.

How Consequences Work

The three-tier framework — short-term, transition, and long-term — that organises every consequence in the system.

Every consequence in this system belongs to one of three tiers. The tier determines how long a consequence persists and what it takes to clear it. The tiers apply equally to physical injuries, psychological wounds, social damage, and environmental attrition — the framework does not distinguish between a broken arm and a broken confidence. Both are real. Both require time or care to mend.

Re-application

Short-term statuses can be re-applied within the same encounter. Being Stunned once, recovering, and being Stunned again are two separate events — both are valid. Each application runs its own duration and clears independently. Multiple applications of the same status do not extend duration; each instance expires on its own timeline.

Physical and psychological injuries

The framework applies without distinction to physical wounds and psychological ones. A fractured leg and a severe combat shock response are both Transition statuses that escalate to long-term if untreated. Both require time and care to heal. A healer can treat either. The only difference is that psychological injury — Combat Shock, and its long-term form — can also be resolved through roleplay and time: the scene after the battle, the conversation that names what happened, the slow return of the self that was shaken loose.

Named Status Conditions

All named status conditions used in this system, organised by tier with full mechanical definitions and recovery paths.

Named statuses are the system's vocabulary for what has happened to a character. Every status has a tier, a mechanical effect, and a clear recovery path. When a table result or ability references a named status, this section is the authoritative definition.

Short-term Statuses

Short-term statuses are encounter-bound. They expire automatically — either at the end of their listed duration or at the end of the encounter, whichever comes first. They cannot be carried out of a fight by duration alone. They can be re-applied: recovering from Stunned and being Stunned again are separate events.

Dazed

A blow to the head, a flash of blinding light, or any concussive impact that disrupts the senses without fully incapacitating. The world reorganizes itself around the target. Thought comes slow.

Stunned

A sufficiently heavy impact, concussive force, or nerve strike. For the length of a held breath, the body overrules the will.

Prone

Knockdown, leg sweep, or any result that puts a character on the ground. The ground comes up fast. The fight continues from a different angle.

Grappled

A successful grapple attack, joint lock, or chokehold. The body is being directed by someone else.

Transition Statuses

Transition statuses fork on treatment. Address them before the encounter ends and they clear. Leave them unaddressed and they persist as long-term consequences. This applies equally to physical injuries and to psychological ones — Combat Shock left untreated becomes the same kind of long-term wound as a broken arm left unset.

Bleeding

A wound that opens a vessel — cut, puncture, or torn tissue. Blood has its own urgency. It moves toward the floor regardless of what you need it to do.

Arm Impaired

Significant damage to arm muscle, tendon, or joint — short of full loss but enough to compromise function. The arm is still present. Its participation is reduced.

Leg Impaired

Significant damage to leg muscle, joint, or ankle — enough to compromise movement. The leg continues to function as a leg. It has lodged a formal complaint.

Combat Shock

Witnessing or experiencing trauma severe enough to disrupt psychological function — extreme injury, witnessing the death of allies, facing a threat that overwhelmed the mind's ability to process. The mind has encountered something it was not equipped for. It is doing its best.

Long-term Statuses

Long-term statuses persist beyond the encounter and across sessions. They cannot be cleared by rest alone in most cases. They require active treatment — a healer, a physician, an imbuement, or sustained recovery through play.

Severe Injury

Any injury designated Severe: major structural damage to a body part, organ involvement, significant bone fracture, or an escalated Transition status that was not addressed in time. Something has been changed. The body or the mind has been altered and is in the process of trying to return to what it was.

Downed

HP reaching 0 or below; or an explicit result that states Downed regardless of HP. The fight has been resolved — for this character, at least. What happens next belongs to the healers and to whoever is still standing.

Statuses Within the Framework

How named status conditions map onto the short-term and long-term consequence framework, and how the two layers work together.

The named status conditions are implementations of the broader short-term and long-term framework — not a separate system running alongside it. Every named status belongs to one of the framework's tiers, and the rules for that tier govern its behavior.

When multiple statuses apply

A character can hold statuses from multiple tiers simultaneously. A fighter can be Prone (short-term), Bleeding (Transition), and carrying a Severe Injury from last session (long-term) at the same time. Apply all effects. When the encounter ends: short-term effects expire; Transition effects either clear (if treated) or lock in as long-term; long-term effects persist unchanged.

The fiction drives severity. A character who is Bleeding and Prone is in immediate danger but may recover fully. A character who finishes a fight with an untreated Arm Impaired will carry that into the next session as a Severe Injury. The table should always know which consequences are ticking.

Social Consequences

Consequences that arise from social encounters — reputation damage, broken trust, and public disgrace. Same three-tier framework as combat.

Social consequences follow the same framework as combat consequences. They have tiers, mechanical effects, and recovery paths. A broken reputation is not a flavor note — it is a tracked state that changes what a character can do until it is repaired. The fiction of social damage and social recovery is different from physical injury; the architecture is identical.

Short-term Social Statuses

Short-term social statuses are the immediate echoes of a misstep. They sharpen the current scene and expire when it ends. They do not follow the character out of the encounter.

Rattled

A surprise challenge, an unexpected accusation, or a moment of visible uncertainty. The character is present in the conversation but no longer fully in control of it.

Off-Footing

The character has said the wrong thing, revealed too much, or ceded narrative leverage in an exchange. They are still in the conversation. They are no longer directing it.

Transition Social Statuses

Transition social statuses have been written into the world. Other characters know. The damage persists past the scene and requires active work to undo — not just time, but demonstrable change.

Distrusted

A specific person, faction, or community has lost confidence in the character. This is not a vague unease — it is a tracked state tied to a specific relationship. The door is not closed; it is guarded.

Shamed

A public failure, a revealed deception, or an act witnessed broadly enough to travel. The community holds this now. Not as malice — simply as information.

Long-term Social Statuses

Long-term social statuses have been written into the world's memory. They persist across sessions and require sustained narrative effort to resolve. Recovery is always possible, but it is measured in sessions and story beats, not actions.

Disgraced

The reputation is damaged broadly. Not a single relationship but a standing. The character's name precedes them now, and not in the way they would choose.

Marked Enemy

A specific individual or faction has moved past distrust to active opposition. This is not passive hostility — the Marked Enemy will work against the character when the opportunity arises.

Exploration Consequences

Consequences that arise from travel, wilderness, and environmental encounter — attrition, disorientation, and the slow cost of the land.

Exploration consequences arise from the environment — weather, terrain, distance, and the slow attrition of time spent away from safety. The land does not intend harm. It simply continues to be what it is, and characters are small within it. Exploration consequences follow the same three-tier framework as combat and social: short-term effects clear with the scene, Transition effects demand attention before they compound, and long-term consequences persist until real recovery.

Short-term Exploration Statuses

Short-term exploration statuses are immediate responses to environmental pressure. They resolve when the pressure resolves — a navigator finding their bearings, a traveler reaching shelter. They do not follow the party out of the scene that generated them.

Disoriented

The path has become uncertain. A fog bank, an underground complex with identical corridors, a dense forest that swallowed the landmarks — something has removed the party's confidence about where they are relative to where they need to be.

Exposed

Extreme cold, sustained rain, desert heat, or any environmental condition that the body cannot maintain itself against indefinitely. The environment is not hostile — it is indifferent, and that is enough.

Transition Exploration Statuses

Transition exploration statuses have accumulated past the point of easy resolution. They require specific action — rest, resupply, or treatment — before they become long-term problems. The wilderness rewards parties who address these before pressing on.

Exhausted

The body has been asked to give more than it had available. Forced march, sleepless nights, sustained cold, or the cumulative weight of days without adequate rest. There is a point past which the will is no longer a useful instrument.

Resource-Depleted

A critical supply has run out. Water, food, rope, lantern oil, medicine — the specific resource defines the consequence. The wilderness does not negotiate on this.

Long-term Exploration Status

Long-term exploration consequences are the mark of time spent hard in the wilderness — the body carrying the weight of sustained attrition. They do not resolve overnight. They require the safety and rest that only a return to civilization or a well-provisioned sanctuary can provide.

Worn Down

The accumulated cost of sustained hardship — weeks of difficult terrain, deprivation, or exposure without adequate recovery. The body has been spending reserves it no longer has. Every check is harder. Every wound takes longer to close.