UnofficialWIKI
Builder
Edit / Suggest changeSuggest deletion

Death Rules

death

Defines what happens when a character's health hits zero - whether death is permanent, and how the narrator plays the downing and recovery process.

In the editor

"What happens when characters die"

Editor location
Files → Mechanics → Death Rules
Editor type
Edit in Studio + View JSON
API endpoint
/sections/death.json/sections/death.md
Size limits
  • death.instructions — 4,000
Related

Schema

json
{
  "death": {
    "permadeath": "boolean",
    "instructions": "string"
  }
}

Example

json
{
  "death": {
    "permadeath": false,
    "instructions": "When health reaches 0, the character is downed but not immediately dead. An ally may stabilize them with a DC 10 Medicine check or a Healer's Battlefield Medicine ability. If no ally is present, a Con save DC 10 may allow the character to stabilize on their own. Recovery costs narrative time and may shift faction standings. If the character is captured rather than killed, describe the capture cinematically. True death requires a second triggering event while already downed, or a dramatically appropriate final moment."
  }
}

Note: death.instructions carries the rules for this world's consequences of failure - whether downing leads to capture, a mercy round, permadeath, or something else. Treat it as director's notes for the dramatic moment of a playthrough; the exact firing semantics are not formally documented.

Design note: The two-stage downing pattern above (downed → possible capture → true death only on a second event) creates story texture: it gives you scenes of imprisonment, interrogation, and escape rather than immediate game-over. Keep permadeath: true only for challenge-mode scenarios where the tension of real stakes is the whole point.

Fields

permadeath

Determines whether the "continue" option remains when a character dies. When true, death is final: a downed character taken past recovery stays dead, and the run ends once the whole party is gone. When false, you can choose to continue past a death instead, with the narrator giving an in-fiction reason the character survived.

instructions

Director's notes for how the narrator plays a character's defeat and its consequences - what a downing leads to: recovery, capture, a mercy round, or a dramatic return from death that carries a cost. It holds the world's rules for that dramatic moment of failure.