Injury and Wounds

The body forgives, but slowly. It keeps count of every fall and every tooth, and it is in no hurry to forget.

How you are hurt, how you bleed, how you mend, and how you die.

Injury is the harm your body carries. It fills as you are hurt and empties, slowly, as you mend. When it fills completely, you die.

What hurts you

• Blows. Teeth, claws, horns and weapons.
• Falls. A short drop costs nothing. Past about three blocks, every block further hurts a great deal more than the last. A fall of about ten blocks can kill you.
• Drowning. Once your breath is gone under water, the water takes you quickly. See Breath and Drowning.
• Bleeding. An open wound adds Injury every hour it stays open.
• Poison and sickness. Venom, toxin and illness all do harm while they last. See Poison and Sickness.
• Starving and thirst. A full Hunger or Thirst ring does harm every hour until you eat or drink. See Hunger and Thirst.
• Stumbles and slips. Push on while spent and you will turn an ankle or let a tool slip. Each costs a little, never enough to open a wound. See Fatigue and Sleep.

Armor

Each blow strikes one place on your body. Armor worn there softens the blow and wears a little from it. Bare skin takes the whole blow. Even the best piece lets some of a blow through.

Wounds

A hard blow does more than hurt. It can open a wound.

Small knocks and short falls do not bleed. A blow that gets past your armor with real force does, and the harder it lands, the worse the wound. An open wound bleeds into Injury every hour it stays open. A small one barely seeps. A bad one can bleed you to death.

• Walk, don't run, and it closes. A wound closes on its own as long as you do not run. Even a grave wound shuts within a day.
• Run, and it opens wider. Every hour you keep running, the wound grows worse.
• Bind it. A dressing closes half the wound at once and holds it shut for hours, even while you run. Hold it and press E. A blow that opens a new wound tears the dressing off.

The Simple Bandage, a poultice of crushed leaves and ash, holds for eight hours. You can eat, drink and bind a wound while you bleed. A fresh blow interrupts all three.

Mending

Injury heals on its own, but slowly: think in days, not hours. After every blow, your body waits a short while before it begins to mend.

• Rest. Sitting (R) or sleeping mends you ten times faster than going about your work.
• Stay fed, watered and rested. Hunger, thirst and fatigue each slow healing, down to a third of the pace. Starving, parched and spent, you mend at a quarter of the pace.
• Close the wound first. An open wound can bleed faster than you mend.

Near death, the body fights for itself. Once you are badly hurt, you mend faster the closer you come to the end: at the brink, three times faster. Hunger, thirst and fatigue can still smother that last rally.

Injury weighs on everything

• It tires you. Badly hurt, you tire up to three times faster.
• It steals your breath. The worse you are hurt, the less breath you can hold. At your worst, your lungs hold half.

Death

When Injury fills, you die. See When Injury fills.