7 - Health and Armour

Staying Alive 

During your game, your character may be put in situations that harm them, or in some cases, their lives may hang in the balance of your choices. In times like these, it's important to understand Health and Armour - the biggest tools for keeping your character alive, safe, and healthy.

What is Health? 

Health, also called HP - short for Hit Points, is a numbered resource, represented by a labeled, green bar near the top of your sheet. The number you'll see may be different from the players around you, but you'll always see two numbers separated by a “ / ” symbol. 

(Example: 10 / 10 , 21 / 30 , 16 / 45 ) 

The first number will always be the Hit Points you currently have, while the second number shows the maximum your health can be. When you're hurt by something during the events of the story, you take damage, and the first number is lowered by the damage you took (more on that in a future article). 

When your health reaches 0, your character makes a Death Move.

What Are Death Moves? 

When your health reaches 0, your character is given 3 choices in that very moment: 

Blaze of Glory - Your character takes one last action, which is guaranteed to be a Critical Success (See Dice and Rolling). After which, they die. 

Escape Death - Your character falls unconscious, avoiding death entirely. They can return to consciousness if they receive any form of healing, but must immediately make an Action Roll(See Fortune and Folly). If their Folly dice is higher, they are scarred by this experience, and permanently reduce their maximum Fortune by 1. 

If their maximum Fortune is completely reduced to 0. They cannot be brought back again, and will die the next time their Hit Points are reduced to 0. 

Risk It All - You make an Action Roll, risking your life to the fate of the dice. If your Fortune dice is higher than your Folly dice, you survive and regain health equal to twice the result of your total roll. But if your Folly is higher? You die. 

What is Armour? 

Armour typically has two main components. 

The first, being your Armour Class or “AC”, is directly below your health, represented with a blue bar and a shield icon . Whenever an attack is made against you, the result of the Action Roll must meet or exceed your Armour Class to hit you and deal damage. 

The second component is your Armour's durability. This acts as an addition to your character's Hit Points, serving as a sort of buffer before your character actually gets hurt. 

When your armour's durability reaches 0, it's broken, and must be repaired during a rest (see Resting). Broken armour will often reduce your armour Class, unless specified otherwise. 

Your Armour Class and Durability can be determined by a wide variety of factors, from the equipment your character wears to features unique to them as a whole. Though whatever the case may be, it will always be clearly outlined in your sheet, written in the description of your armour itself.