Shock

A sudden, overwhelming strain can drive a creature into shock — a worsening spiral from disorientation to death. Violent injury and heavy blood loss are the most common causes, but fear and other systemic or psychological forces can bring it on just the same. A creature is always in exactly one Shock State, and while in any shock state it cannot concentrate until it recovers.

Ordinary (normal) shock is a very temporary condition: a stunned, incapacitated, or unconscious victim shakes it off quickly through a Shock Re-Test. Only a failed Re-Test drops a victim into the lasting condition of Extended Shock (or a Coma), which has no time limit on recovery.

Shock States

Shock State	Effect (summary)
None	No shock.
Stunned	Reeling and disoriented. All movement is Difficult and double Moves are barred; every Impaired test drops one Success Level. At the end of the next turn (and each turn after) the victim may attempt a Shock Re-Test to shake it off. A second Stunned result while already Stunned worsens immediately to Incapacitated.
Incapacitated	Awake but knocked prone. Only an assisted Difficult half Move is possible, with no actions of the victim’s own, and every melee attack must be Ignored. A Shock Re-Test is made at the end of the next turn. A fresh Incapacitated result while already Incapacitated drops the victim to Unconscious.
Unconscious	Blacked out and prone — unaware, unable to act, and Helpless (melee attackers score a Critical Success Ignore). A Shock Re-Test is made ten minutes later.
Dead	The victim dies on the spot.

Shock State Index

Which shock state a creature is in is driven by its Shock State Index (SSI) — a running numeric index that maps to a state:

Shock State Index	Shock State
≤ 6	None
7	Stunned
8	Incapacitated
9	Unconscious
≥ 10	Dead

The Shock Test

Whenever a force threatens a creature with shock, it makes a Shock Test. The force supplies a base SSI, and the creature rolls its Shock skill to resist; the result adjusts the base index up or down (the creature’s fatigue penalty applies, but body-part impairment penalties do not):

Shock Test	Adjustment to base SSI
CF (−1)	+2
MF (0)	+1
MS (1)	0
CS (2)	−1

The adjusted index maps to a shock state on the table above. That state is then offered to the creature’s controlling player, never imposed — and only ever to worsen the current state (a lesser result never lifts a worse one; recovery is the Shock Re-Test). Two shortcuts skip the roll entirely: a base SSI below 5 is too slight to threaten shock at all, and a base SSI above 10 is immediately Dead.

Sources of a base SSI. Shock is not specific to injury — the base index can come from any cause:

Injury — the struck body location’s Shock Value + the Injury Level, plus 1 more if the blow was a glancing one. Every body location carries its own Shock Value: on a human the skull, eyes, nose, and neck are the worst at 5, the forearm and calf the mildest at 1. Other body structures carry their own values. See Body Structure → Shock.
Fear and other systemic or psychological forces — each by its own measure.

Modifiers to the roll. Two circumstances adjust the Shock Test itself rather than the index: a glancing blow grants +10, and an amputation check that ended in a marginal success imposes −20.

Worked example. A blow to a human’s skull (Shock Value 5) inflicts an S3 wound (Injury Level 3), so the base SSI is 8 — within the 5–10 band, so a Shock Test is made. A Marginal Success leaves it at 8: Incapacitated. A Critical Success pulls it to 7: Stunned. A Marginal Failure pushes it to 9: Unconscious. The same wound to the forearm (Shock Value 1) would open at 4 — below 5, so no roll is made and no shock results at all.

Some effects instead raise the shock state directly, by their own means — most notably blood loss, which advances the shock state one step per Blood Loss Point.

One state at a time

A creature is in exactly one shock state — None, Stunned, Incapacitated, Unconscious, or Dead — never two at once. Whatever changes it (blood loss, an injury’s shock result, a Shock Re-Test) replaces the state rather than adding to it, and the change runs in both directions: a victim who improves from Unconscious to Stunned is Stunned, and no longer unconscious in any degree.

Where two things would set the state at once, the more severe one holds.

Shock Re-Test

A victim who is Incapacitated or Unconscious makes a Shock Re-Test to try to recover: a Shock skill test at −20 (fatigue penalties apply; injury-impairment penalties do not). It is made at the end of the next turn for an Incapacitated victim, or ten minutes later for an Unconscious one.

Success Level	Result
CF (−1)	Incapacitated → Extended Shock at HR 4. Unconscious → Coma.
MF (0)	The victim slips into Extended Shock at HR 5.
MS (1)	The shock state improves to Stunned.
CS (2)	The victim recovers from all shock states.

Extended Shock

Unlike ordinary shock — a very temporary state shaken off with a Shock Re-Test — Extended Shock is a lasting condition. When an Incapacitated or Unconscious victim fails a Shock Re-Test, they fall into it — pale, clammy, cold-sweating, and sapped of strength — and stay locked in their shock state with no time limit on recovery:

Incapacitated in Extended Shock is senseless and cannot communicate clearly; with support (and if their wounds allow) they can manage a Difficult half Move, but every ten minutes spent moving this way adds Personal Fatigue.
Unconscious in Extended Shock is completely out — unaware, defenseless, and unable to act.

Extended Shock is recorded as a new injury whose Healing Rate is 4 or 5 (per the failed Shock Re-Test), with Injury Level and Aspect marked “X” (not applicable) and Location set to the body location that caused it.

Extended Shock Course Test

Once every four hours the victim makes a Course Roll — a test of Healing Base × HR (HR 4 or 5). Fatigue continues to affect this test, and there is no recovery from fatigue while in Extended Shock.

Success Level	Change to HR
CF (−1)	−2
MF (0)	−1
MS (1)	+1
CS (2)	+2

If HR falls to 0 or below the victim dies. If HR rises to 6 or greater the victim comes out of Extended Shock and is no longer Incapacitated or Unconscious (a victim in a Coma remains in the coma).