Health, Essence, & Death
Health
Health, is determined by your vitality and sub-species multiplier. Your vitality is multiplied by this sub-species multiplier in order to determine your health. This is your base health that increases as your vitality increases.
Sub-species multiplier x vitality = maximum health
After character creation, there are two ways your maximum health can increase. The first way is at every new level beyond level one. Your vitality can be added to your health. The second way is using talents. One talent can be spent to increase your maximum health by two points.
1 talent = +2 maximum health
When increasing your maximum health, make sure you do not exceed the character’s absolute health limit.
Absolute Heath Limit
Everyone has a natural limit for how healthy they are or the total amount of physical damage they can endure. Absolute health is this limit which determines how much maximum health a character can have. As a character’s level increases or talents are spent to increase their maximum health, the absolute number their maximum health can become is their absolute health limit. This limitation is represented by multiplying the character’s vitality by twenty-five.
Vitality x 25 = absolute health limit
It is possible to increase a character’s absolute health limit based on the mutations, masteries, and other features they take.
Absolute health can also be increased by spending talents. For every two talents spent, the absolute essence limit can increase by one.
2 talents = +1 absolute health limit
Maximum Health Limit
Naturally, everyone has a limit on how much they can physically endure before death takes them. A character’s maximum health shows the total amount of health they have when at their peak. It is the limit on how much healing can show when they are physically healthy and uninjured.
When restoring the character’s current health, it cannot exceed their maximum health limit. When a character’s level increases or spends talents to increase their maximum health, it cannot exceed the absolute health limit.
Maximum health limit cannot be higher than absolute health limit
Anything that restores health beyond the character’s maximum health is temporary health and cannot exceed their absolute health limit. Most healing, however, does not allow for healing beyond the character’s maximum health.
Essence
Essence is your will, your inner strength, your ability to unleash great power. Essence, while a force within you, should not be confused with the life force that is reflected as your health. They are two completely different, although connected forces and they can be powerful with the right training and connection.
While essence is mainly used in the manipulation of energy, such as energetics, it is widely used in other ways. Essence can activate special abilities that are not connected to energy but can affect your skills, senses, and other traits. These are a few examples of using essence without energetics:
- Give an extra boost when needing to lift something heavy (Body Builder Mastery).
- Shoot an arrow into your target at extreme speed or accuracy (Steady Strike Mastery).
- Allow you to get in an extra strike when attacking (Quick Strike action).
- Hide you in plain sight without the use of shadows (Stealth Mastery).
To determine how much essence you have, add your channeling and mental together and multiply the total by two plus any miscellaneous bonuses. As your channeling and mental statistics increase, so does your maximum essence.
(Channeling + mental) x 2 = maximum essence
Your maximum essence can be increased by your mental statistic each time you level. You can increase your maximum essence by spending talents. For every single talent spent on essence, your maximum essence increases by two.
1 talent = +2 maximum essence
Absolute Essence Limit
The natural limit for your character's essence is called absolute essence, which is increased through increasing your channeling and talents. The absolute essence is determined by your channeling times fifteen.
Channeling x 15 = absolute essence limit
Absolute essence can be increased by spending talents. For every two talents, your absolute essence increases by one.
2 talents = +1 absolute essence limit
Maximum Essence Limit
Everyone’s body and mind have a limit on how much essence can be held. This limit is represented by the character’s maximum essence. When restoring a character’s current essence, it cannot exceed their maximum essence limit. The maximum essence of characters cannot go beyond their absolute essence limit, even when they level up or spend talents.
Maximum essence limit cannot be higher than absolute essence limit
Death
There are many ways to die in this world. While dying from a severe wound is the most likely reason, there are other ways to die or have your character rendered unplayable.
Once you die, you dead! Resurrection does not exist. The only way to not permanently die is to be revived within an hour of dying. There is no paying the reaper, praying to the gods, bribing your game master, or any other form of begging and pleading for a second chance. After that hour, you are dead and gone. No coming back!
The reason I decided on this was because I want the people in the world of this game to feel real. If resurrection was a real thing, those who are wealthy enough could live forever. There would be no fear of assassins or poison, as they could simply pay to be brought back. Therefore, death is one aspect of this game that is permanent. The concept of resurrection doesn’t exist.
Stabilizing the Dying
When you drop below zero health, you gain the dying condition, but that doesn’t mean your journey is over. You can be revived through many means, but if those methods are not readily available, your companions can try to stabilize you. Stabilizing a character increases the time they have until they die to equal their vitality in hours. For this to happen, you must keep track of how far your health went below zero as it affects the difficulty rating for the stable condition. See stable condition for more details.
Types of Death
Addict’s Death
There are substances in the world that can become addictive and can cause you to overdose on them. For an example, the substance known as dust has very addictive properties and if taken too much can cause you to become addicted. Should this addiction worsen, it can cause your death.
Exhaustion Death
It is possible to gain enough fatigue that you die from being overly exhausted. When your exhaustion limit is reached, you are dying and gain the dying condition.
Instant Death
If your health reaches negative equal to your maximum health you automatically gain the dead condition. So, if you are gain the dying condition and have a maximum health of forty-five and drop to negative forty-five you gain the dead condition.
Mental Death
Throughout the game, there are situations and creatures that will test your psyche. As mentioned in more detail in the mentality chapter, you have mental health. If your mental health reaches zero, your character becomes so insane, they lose their mind and are unplayable.
Over Channeling Death
Channelers have an understanding that the longer you channel and the larger the amount of energy you absorb, the more your lifespan is shortened. This is because of the way energy is channeled through the body and if over channeled, it will slowly consume your life force. Whenever you over channel, your lifespan gets shorter and the likelihood of becoming an Energy Breaker or dying from sped up aging increases. See over channeling in the magic chapter for more information.
Physical Death
If your health or vitality is equal to or below zero for whatever reason, you are dying. You have one hour to be stabilized by having either a revive spell channeled on you or by being given an herbal remedy. If you are not revived within the hour, you are permanently dead.
Wild Energy Death
Channeling spells without using the proper energy or with an untrained skill causes wild surges of energy in the channeler’s body. This causes their body to physically become altered and morphed based on the energy being channeled. Repeatedly channeling the same wild energy can cause the channeler's body being completely taken over by the mutated effects, ultimately leading to their death.
