A physical condition is a Trauma of the body that is not a wound — a lasting state the character is simply in. A limp, poor eyesight, albinism, a hand bound fast, the condition of a man who has not eaten in a fortnight: none of these is an injury, none of them is running a course toward death or cure, and none of them heals by the day. They are the standing facts of a particular body.
It is the bodily counterpart of a psychological condition, and it is told apart from its neighbours the same way:
| Kind of trauma | What it is |
|---|---|
| Injury | Damage done to a location, which heals or kills |
| Affliction | A hostile agent — disease, poison, maladiction — running a course |
| Fatigue | Depletion, which rest restores |
| Physical condition | A state of the body, which lasts until its cause is removed |
Unlike a wound, a physical condition has no injury level and no healing rate; unlike a fatigue, it is not slept off. It is present or it is not, and while it is present it is described rather than counted.
Where they come from
Physical conditions arrive by four roads:
- Born with it. A congenital feature or defect the character has always had — clubfoot, dwarfism, colour-blindness, a missing finger. These are part of the character rather than something that happened to them.
- Left behind by a wound. A healed injury that took long enough to heal leaves permanent impairment, and with it the condition that describes what the character is now like: the withered arm, the dimmed sight, the leg that will not bend. The wound is gone; the condition is what it left.
- Privation. Want of food, water, warmth, coolness, or air puts the body into a failing state — hungry, then starving; thirsty, then parched; chilled, then frostbitten. Privations worsen along their own scale for as long as the want continues, and are the one family of physical conditions that will kill on their own if nothing changes.
- Restraint. A limb pinned by a wrestler’s grip, tangled in a net, bound with rope, or locked rigid by a working is Immobilized — whole, strong, and unable to move.
Grades
Every physical condition is graded, and the grade — not a level — says how far it reaches into the character’s life:
| Grade | Reach |
|---|---|
| Trait | Present but not impairing. It colours how the character is seen and how they live, and costs them nothing they cannot work around. |
| Impediment | Impairing in the circumstances it bears on, and only those. The condition names what it hinders. |
| Debility | Disabling. What the condition bars, it bars outright — a blind character does not test to see. |
The same subject can appear at any of the three: albinism as a trait is pale skin and a care for the sun; as an impediment it is eyes that fail in daylight and a life narrowed by the staring of others; as a debility it is a person who no longer leaves a shuttered room. Each condition entry describes all three readings, and the one a character carries is recorded with the condition.
A character may carry several physical conditions at once, and each is recorded separately. Where two of them bear on the same body part, the worse of the penalties holds; penalties for the state of one part are never added together, exactly as they are not for impairment.
Recovery
A physical condition runs no course test and no recovery test. There is no interval at which it is re-rolled and no rate at which it improves, because nothing about it is a matter of the body’s healing:
- A condition imposed by a circumstance ends the moment the circumstance does. Cut the rope and the limb is free; give the starving traveller food and water and the privation lifts, over whatever time the gamemaster judges the recovery to take.
- A condition that is part of the character — congenital, or left by a wound that has already healed as far as it will — does not end at all. Permanent impairment never heals by natural means.
What can change is the grade. A condition may harden from trait to impediment as circumstances press on it, or ease back as they relax, and a privation worsens grade by grade for as long as the want continues. That movement is narrated, not rolled: it is a judgement about the character’s situation, and it belongs to the gamemaster and the player rather than to the dice.
Immobilized
Immobilized is the one physical condition with a hand in combat, and it is worth stating on its own because it is so easily confused with disablement.
An immobilized limb cannot be moved. It may not strike, block, parry, gesture, or be brought to bear on anything, and any test that requires moving it fails. The condition names the limb it applies to — a character may be immobilized in one arm and perfectly free in the other — and each hold is recorded separately.
But an immobilized limb is still a working limb, and it does not drop what it is holding. The fingers still close; a weapon in an immobilized hand stays in that hand, and taking it means prising it loose rather than merely pinning the arm. That is precisely what separates a hold from a disarm. A limb made unusable — by a grievous wound or a permanent maiming — is worse off on both counts: it is immobilized and it loses its grip, and drops what it held. See Body Structure.
The condition lasts exactly as long as whatever imposes it, and no longer.
See also
- Psychological Condition — the same idea for the mind
- Impairment — the penalties injuries and maimings impose, and the permanent impairment a slow-healing wound leaves
- Body Structure — the parts a condition attaches to
- Affliction vs. Trauma — why a disease is not a condition