Page 176 - World of Darkness

Storyteller uses extras as a plot device to pro- automatically or healing them at will. Humans, of course,
vide information, to give your character a com- do not have that luxury.
bat challenge or to deliver a message. Extras don’t Your character doesn’t have to rest or receive special
usually appear individually in more than one scene attention to clear Health squares. They are cleared auto-
and interact very little with your character on a matically as the prescribed amount of time passes. The
personal basis. exception is if he is ever reduced in Health such that he is
To simplify large fights, the Storyteller may dying (see above); this requires intensive medical care.
assign only four Health to extras. That is, these Lost Health is recovered on your character sheet from
people can incur one Health point of damage right to left — in the reverse direction in which wounds
before they start to suffer from wound penal- are recorded on your sheet. Your character’s least severe
ties. These diminished points make combat quick injury (that in the rightmost box) is recovered first. The
and enjoyable for players, and still offer an ac- damage marked in each box is erased as your character
ceptable representation of events. becomes progressively healthier, until his last (leftmost)
box is empty and he is fully healthy again.
Example: Your character’s Health chart looks like this:
Aggravated Damage o o o o o o o o o o o o
The creatures that lurk in the world’s shadows work
+++
in ways that most people cannot comprehend. They have X X X X XX /
their own mysterious agendas and miraculous capabilities. -1 -2 -3
Among the latter is the capacity to inflict crippling harm
on other beings and mortals. These otherworldly attacks His rightmost wound is healed first. It’s from bashing
sometimes prey upon enemies’ inherent weaknesses, such damage, so is recovered in 15 minutes. (If your character
as silver for a werewolf. Or they involve dark magic and had been unconscious from this wound, he regains con-
unfathomable might, inflicting horrifying injuries. sciousness upon healing it.) His next three lethal injuries
A character’s Health points lost to aggravated dam- each heal over two days. One is erased from right to left as
age are marked with an asterisk. As the most severe harm each two-day period passes. All lethal wounds are gone after
a being can suffer, they always appear in the leftmost six days. Finally, each of your character’s three aggravated
squares on your character’s Health chart. If some boxes wounds is healed after one week. It takes three weeks for
are already marked with asterisks from previous injuries, them all to heal, each asterisk being erased from right to left.
you continue filling the remainder in, from left to right. Of course, receiving medical attention increases your
All lesser injuries — lethal or bashing — are pushed right character’s recovery time. See “Medicine” (p. 60) in Chap-
as more and more aggravated damage is taken, until your ter 3 for the Skill’s effects on wounds. Supernatural treat-
character’s Health chart is full of aggravated marks. ments such as spells, powers or ointments might restore
Once the rightmost Health box on your mortal lost Health at one point per success achieved on an Oc-
character’s chart is filled with lethal damage, all subse- cult or other roll (according to the Storyteller’s discre-
quent injuries are upgraded to aggravated, from left to right. tion).
He also bleeds to death or simply fades from life and one
box, from left to right, is upgraded to aggravated damage Deprivation
per minute that passes without medical attention. Once
your character’s Health chart is full of asterisks, he’s dead. People go hungry and without proper drinking water
everyday in the World of Darkness. They might eke out a
Healing meager existence in poor or war-torn countries, or could
struggle to survive in inner cities where brown water drips
Characters who face danger and who live to tell the from corroded pipes. Or a person might fall ill, be uncon-
tale still need time to recover physically. They need to scious, or be imprisoned and starved for days on end. He
heal their injuries. Short of being fatally injured or falling could even send his spirit on an incorporeal journey dur-
unconscious (see “Incapacitation,” above), your charac- ing which his body languishes. Regardless of the circum-
ter can continue to act while any of his Health boxes re- stances, denied proper food and water for an extended
main empty. If any of his last three Health boxes show period, a mortal being suffers.
injuries, he is debilitated with penalties to his dice pools, Your character can go a number of days equal to his
but he can still be up and around. Stamina before being inhibited by lack of water. Once
Wounds recover at the following rates. that threshold is exceeded, he suffers one point of bash-
Bashing: One point is regained in 15 minutes. ing damage for each day that passes. He can go without
Lethal: One point is regained in two days. food for a number of days equal to his Stamina + Resolve.
Aggravated: One point is regained in a week. After that point, he suffers another point of bashing dam-
Note that some supernatural beings can recover from age a day. Denied both food and water, he suffers two bash-
injuries at abnormally fast rates, even regenerating them ing wounds a day.

175
STATES OF BEING-HEALING