Clarifications: Death & Dying

[staff_steve]

Hey, all. We wanted to clarify a few mechanics between games that we either have heard people ask about, or that we’ve heard common misconceptions about. This might get compiled into a doc when we have enough of them, but here’s where they’ll be for now. The first: Death & Dying.

There’s two different tracks to this. They aren’t especially related.

The Short Version (behold my glorious photoshop):

Consciousness

• If you have zero Blood, you are unconscious.
  • The SLAY call reduces you to zero Blood, no matter how much blood you have, making you unconscious.
• If you have more than zero Blood, you are conscious.
  • Anything that gives you Blood back works.
• If you’ve been unconscious for five minutes, gain one Blood. You’re conscious again.
  • (If you’re Critical, you don’t get up after five minutes or gain one Blood). It’s a weird exception to the note that “these aren’t super related”, one we might revisit later.

Boom. That’s all there is to that one.

The Short Version (behold my glorious photoshop again):

Dying
(You can be conscious OR unconscious for literally anything on this track besides Death. Does not matter.)

STEP ONE: BLEEDING OUT

• If you take a Bleed call or a successful Finishing Blow 3 (which should also end with the Bleed call), you are Bleeding Out.
  • A Bleed call is the only way you enter Bleedout.
• Bleeding Out can be ended with the “Purge Bleed” call.
• (YES IT IS REAL DUMB that we have a Blood stat and a Bleed call that has nothing to do with that stat. We’re thinking of changing the name of Blood at some point.)

STEP TWO: CRITICAL

• The stage after Bleeding Out is Critical. You can reach Critical a number of ways:
  • Bleeding Out for 5 minutes without a Purge Bleed call.
  • Taking any strike to the torso while Bleeding Out.
  • Taking a Critical call, even if you weren’t Bleeding Out.
• Once you are Critical, you must go to the nearest Shrine and receive an Intervention.

STEP THREE: DEAD
The stage after Critical is Death. Dying happens one of a two ways:

• Drawing a Death card from the Intervention Deck
• Remaining Critical for one hour

[Andy]

Thanks for the clarify! If I was to spitball ideas for other things to call Blood, maybe Body? Vitality? Life?

[RTG]

My suggestion is Health!

[Praseodymium]

Hitpoints would be a technical but clinical way of saying it directly - you lose one for each hit.
Vitality or Health also works, I like those better than hitpoints but it does get the point across.

[Veronica_Staff]

HI STEVE!

I have the following question (asking on behalf of players I’ve heard ask this):

WHAT IF I HAVE ALL THE SUPER COOL ARMOR IN THE WORLD, DOES SLAY STILL DROP ME UNCONSCIOUS?

xoxoxox
V

[staff_steve]

Yes!

Slay drops your Blood to zero, which makes you Unconscious, even if you still have Armor. (Just like taking Wound might drop you to zero Blood while you still have Armor).

Slay CAN be blocked with shields or weapons, unless it’s a Crushing Slay.

Wards will protect you from Slay, unless it’s a Piercing Slay.

[Venskus]

If I just keep striking an unconscious body without using a bleed call or a death strike I’m actually not doing anything to change their state, correct?

[staff_steve]

Yes, that is correct!