Skills

It is assumed that all characters can do some basic form of combat. Fists, fangs, talons and any other natural appendage on a character’s body are free reign (though it is presumed that non-combat characters likely aren’t going to be the most coordinated with this).

All characters may also use knives or other small implements.

Characters with the combat skill gain access to large weapons like two handed axes and also firearms. It is up to you as an event runner what form of firearms is used (ie whether you use projectiles or caps).

There is no hitpoint system. If a character without armour or with damaged armour is hit then they are injured until they are healed. Injured characters are expected to walk slower, have difficulty fighting and generally act injured.

The result of hitting an injured character depends on your event’s lethality:

• High Lethality: Hitting an Injured character immediately kills them.
• Middling Lethality: Hitting an Injured character puts them on a 1 minute bleed count. During this bleed count they are also incapacitated. (Incapacitated characters are alive but cannot take actions and cannot move beyond a crawl or slow walk unaided). If they reach the end of their bleed count without being healed, they die.
• Low Lethality: Hitting an Injured character Incapacitates them until healed but does not kill them or cause them to begin a bleed count. 

You MUST clearly label the Lethality level of your event so players know going in. High Lethality events that are intended to have a lot of combat should also be prepared for players to play a ‘revolving cast’ of semi-disposable characters.

The combat skill also allows characters to wear armour. If they are wearing armour then they ignore the first hit at which point their armour is damaged until repaired.

Explosives

It is up to you whether you allow characters to bring explosive devices. These can be mundane grenades or a magical firebomb. Either way they work the same, the player must roll (not throw) the physrep to the area they wish to affect and shout ‘Explosive’. All characters in a 5 metre radius are hit at once as if by a weapon. It is advised that when giving the specifics of your event, you tell characters if they are permitted to bring explosives and how many they are permitted to bring. You can also give players explosives during the event but be sure to add a descriptive card or ribbon clearly marking what they are.

Magical Attacks

While it was stated that anything can be flavoured as being somewhat magical, this does not include substituting weapon attacks with magic. Spell slinging is not a thing in this setting. However, players are absolutely allowed to add magical aspects to their weapons. E.g. a magical aiming crystal instead of a scope or a sword made from magically hardened ice.

The basic use for crafting is to repair armour. This is an activity that takes one minute and can be roleplayed either as a mundane skill (e.g. using a welder or sewing kit) or a magical one (performing a repair ritual). It does not matter how it is performed and the only cost it requires is time. The Crafter must be in close contact with the armour they are repairing for the entirety of the repair.

Crafters should also gain information about creating or repairing things.

Depending on what event you are running, you can give them additional things to craft or repair. This could be mundane things, such as a power generator, or magical, such as potions to cure a sickness. Be clear on what components are needed for which result unless you are aiming to add some method of experimentation in which case be very clear as to what results are being achieved.

It is highly encouraged that you give physical things to do for your crafters when they are doing plot relevant crafting. Even if it’s just some old bits of circuitry to play around with, it adds to the immersion of play.

Healing can always be used to treat injured characters. This can be through mundane ways such as surgery or magical ways such as a ritual. The healing takes one minute and the healer should be in close contact with the individual they are healing. It takes one minute to heal. Healers cannot heal themselves.

Healers should also gain information about wounds and diseases.

Depending on your event, feel free to introduce more complex injuries or perhaps illnesses. Feel free to force Healers to experiment to find cures and treatments to odd magical diseases or wounds. In this case require the characters to use a specific type of treatment or use a specific thing in treatment. Try to ensure that whatever you are doing will engage as many people as possible. Feel free to get creative with VFX makeup for injuries! A bit of fake blood makes most things better.

In short, investigators can glean information hidden from other characters. This could be through careful analysis of an object or through magical visions. Use ribbons and cards attached to objects or in areas that will give more information to those who read them. For example a broken gun may just appear broken but an investigator will be able to see the attached note that states the gun broke from a magical attack to it.

(Note: Try to make this hidden information different from what a Crafter or Healer would learn. So for the broken gun, a crafter may note that it was broken by a powerful impact but the Investigator would be able to note that the impact was clearly magical. Feel free to mix and match information gathering this way to encourage collaboration between players).

Some information will be harder to gain than others. To help with this, introduce mini games for the Investigators such as cracking codes, matching paired items, or other challenges with the reward being clear information about whatever they are analysing. Feel free to leave Investigator cards out in the open for eagle eyed players to spot.

It can be an idea to flavour different information received by the archetype of the person receiving it. You can do this with archetype tags or even having it so refs give different information based on archetype.

Lastly, where an event has a set of Omen cards to collect, we suggest each Investigation character begin play with one.

This is a special skill only available to Delegate characters that have unlocked a Primordial archetype (such as Philosopher or Monster) at the Summit. This skill reflects the strange abilities of those archetypes as they have become something apart from the natural world. As this ability must be carefully unlocked, it could be considered more powerful than other skills though it has fewer practical purposes.

All of those with the Primordial skill are immune to environmental roleplay or damaging effects. Additionally, they do not need to roleplay the effects of injury (though they still count as injured). For High Lethality games, they instead gain a Bleed Count (as with middling lethality) and at High and Middling Lethality they can ignore the Incapacitation effects while bleeding (though they are still bleeding out). In Low Lethality games, they can ignore Incapacitation rp effects but cannot attack or perform magic until they have been healed.

Exactly how the player flavours this is up to them. Whether they’ve magically severed their pain receptors or have become a null element that some magic fails to register, it is up to them and will likely be influenced by their archetype.