Stress Rules

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Madness and despair—the preface of doom. Watch your back, for little of this damnable place can be trusted.

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Mercenary work, especially when dealing with the unknowable entities from beyond, can be physically and mentally taxing. Without proper care and rest, Player Characters risk cracking under the stress and strain. When such breaks in the mind occur, the character exposes themselves to physical threats as well.

Stress

All Player Characters have a value referred to as Stress. This value starts at 0 during the beginning of the campaign, but can be increased by various factors over the course of play. A Player Character has a Stress Maximum dependent on their background and class features. Most PCs will start with a Stress Maximum of 20.
A character’s stress maximum and Stress Threshold can vary. By default, a character’s Stress maximum is 20, and their threshold is 10. Unless specified otherwise, a character’s Stress Threshold is half their stress maximum. Certain backgrounds and other features, however, may change a character’s stress maximum and threshold.

Roleplaying Stress

Characters that have yet to receive an affliction from stress have not accumulated enough be be consistently lashing out. With an affliction, though, a character is strained enough to display symptoms of their stress openly.
Proper roleplaying of stress isn’t a requirement in all technicalities—all players are free to roleplay to their level of comfort. However, the DM may award inspiration by proper roleplay of the character’s affliction or how they try and overcome their stress.

Gaining Stress

Stress is gained through harrowing and dangerous encounters, especially against the eldritch. It’s also possible to gain stress from personal injury, or from watching a loved one come to harm. Stress, at least in terms of the measured statistic, does not come from minor inconveniences or small worries. Such are too trivial to measure, and would bog the game down.
When a player character would be subjected to stress damage, have them perform a saving throw, adding half their level (rounded down) to the roll. Some examples of what the penalty for a failed save, and the DCs are provided below.

Stress Name	Amount	Save DC	Example
Mild	1	10	Taking a critical hit (< 12 damage), seeing a single dead body
Moderate	2	13	Seeing multiple dead bodies, taking a critical hit (> 12 damage)
Daunting	4	16	Witnessing a lesser eldritch being, seeing an ally take a serious injury, gaining a Sea Curse for the first time
Crushing	7	19	Dropping to 0 HP, watching an ally die
Terrible	10	22	Bearing witness to a monstrous eldritch being

Stress Threshold

A Player Character that reaches half their Stress Maximum has broken their Stress Threshold. In this state, the character is left shaken and reeling from their recent experiences. When this happens, the character gains an Affliction, which is either rolled on the table below or selected by the DM, should the DM deem a particular Affliction to be the most appropriate.

1d8	Affliction	Effects
1	Apathetic	You gain a -2 penalty to all ability checks.
2	Hesitant	Your Speed Modifer is reduced by 2.
3	Hopeless	You gain a -3 penalty to all physical (STR, DEX, and CON) checks and saving throws.
4	Irrational	You gain a -3 penalty to all mental (INT, WIS, and CHR) checks and saving throws.
5	Lethargic	You gain a -2 penalty to your Armor Class.
6	Morbid	Your allies within earshot gain an additional +1 stress whenever they would gain any. You gain 1 less whenever you gain more than 1.
7	Terror	You gain a -3 penalty to your attack rolls and aim checks.
8	Wrathful	You gain a +2 bonus to melee damage rolls, along with a -4 penalty to your Armor Class.

Afflictions are removed when a character's Stress is reduced to a quarter of their maximum. They do not wear off through other means.

Recovering From Stress

Recovering from stress requires a character to either relax or to achieve success in an endeavor. Downtime taken over the course of a Restorative Rest is a possible source of such relief, albiet a more mild one. For a character to remove further stress during downtime, they should pay for various stress-relieving facilities.
It is also possible for a character to recover stress during an adventure, namely by achieving or acting in accordance to their ideals and comforts. As a way of encouraging roleplay, characters that perform actions related to their personality traits, ideals, bonds, or flaws may recover stress, as the familiarity proves soothing to them. See the table below for methods of recovering stress mid-adventure.

Recovery Name	Amount	Example
Soothing	1	Downing a hostile foe, having something go right
Balm	2	Receiving magical healing (that does not inflict a sea curse)
Relieving	4	Downing a significant foe, staying true to an ideal despite adversity
Revitalizing	Reduce stress to 3 and remove affliction	Finding courage despite drowning despair (extremely rare)

Stress Maximum

The comes a point where one's mental fortitude is compromised entirely. This occurs when a character exceeds their maximum stress. When this happens, they are exposed to forces from beyond this world as madness enters their minds. Through these eldritch forces, the individual is corrupted, though may not be immediately incapacitated. Roll on the table below to determine what they see.

1d6	Eldritch Madness	Description
1	Twisted Flesh	All living beings around you appear to warp. Their flesh mutates and grows unnaturally, as gore and bone protrude from their bodies. You cannot tell creatures of similar structure apart.
2	Collapsing World	The world around you collapses into stars and void. You now stand on but a brief portion of the world set just above the abyss. You cannot willingly move in any direction.
3	Absolute Emptiness	All of your senses begin to dull as it feels like reality vanishes from you. You cannot understand anything you hear, and you are completely blind.
4	Terrible Things	Unfathomably large beings appear all around you, collapsing the world where they step. You collapse and hide from them as they stalk above you, seemingly unaware of your pitiful existence.
5	Miniscule Infinity	Everything expands out around you. You see the stars, the planets, and everything far, far away. Why are you bothering to do anything? It wouldn't affect the course of history to any degree. You must be persuaded to take any action.
6	Truth	You see it. The truth. Something your kind was never ready for. Something it never will be ready for. And now it stares right at you. Your mind can't handle what it sees. You collapse unconscious for 24 hours. When you awaken, you barely remember a thing.

A character that reaches their Stress Maximum is affected by its condition until their stress is reduced by any means. If your stress is not reduced within a day by other means, it is lowered by 1 point. You still experience more moderate hallucinations until your stress drops below 17, however. Until then, it would be wise to avoid adventure and combat.