Medicine

In this system, Medicine is a skill which has a number of uses:  first aid, surgery, diagnosis, and treatment of ailments.

Understanding how health works in this system is crucial for understanding the content on this page.

Mundane Medicine

Without special (usually magical) powers, the medicine skill has some harsh limitations.

Medicine Requires Equipment

All powers linked to the medicine skill have the required equipment power limiter by default.  You needn’t go into a huge amount of detail about which powers require exactly what equipment; generalizing here is fine.  A surgeon needs a surgeons kit, and some place to perform surgery.  A battlefield medic needs a battlefield trauma kit.  Lacking these critical tools can make practicing medicine impossible.

The Healing Touch power removes the requirement for equipment for all medicine powers; Your magic simply allows you to work without tools.

Medicine Takes Time

Whether treating a disease(Ailment) or damage, medicine takes time.

Damage

A single point of damage is healed on a 1 week interval.  Wound penalties take the same time to heal.  Without special powers, there is no way to speed this up.

Ailments

While some ailments can be cured outright without magical powers, some simply have to run their course.  This can take days, weeks, or even months.  See Ailment Intervals for more information.

Ailments

Ailments are a broad category of medical conditions which includes: diseases, parasites, poisons, toxins, venoms, etc.  Ailments encompass any medical condition other than damage caused by combat(or similar trauma).  Mechanically, all ailments use the same framework of rules.

Ailments have 6 attributes: Transmission, Mortality, Diagnostic Difficulty,  Interval, & interval maximum, and a description of symptoms.

Diagnostic Difficulty

Diagnostic Difficulty is how difficult the Ailment is to detect.  This is rated from 0 to 12, with most naturally occurring Ailments not exceeding 6.

Diagnostic difficulty is the number of hits needed on a roll (Mental + Medicine) to diagnose the Ailment.

An individual character may only attempt to diagnose an Ailment once per Ailment Interval.  Failure to diagnose an Ailment usually leads to ineffective treatment.  While an individual who has failed their diagnosis test may not provide a cure, they can in many cases still treat the symptoms and consequences(damage) that the Ailment causes.

Many Ailments ramp up in Mortality as the illness progresses.  Ailments that do this tend to fall down in Diagnostic Difficulty.  Mortality and Diagnostic Difficulty are thus typically inversely proportional to each other.

Transmission

The Transmission rating is how contagious an ailment is.  Transmission is rated from 0-12, but most naturally occurring ailment will not exceed 6.  A Transmission rating of 12 is an ailment that would infect all the gods in the heavens quite rapidly.  Transmission may also be limited to certain paths for some diseases; airborne, waterborne, bodily fluids,  Precautions taken against the correct transmission vector(s) should grant positive dicepool modifiers for resisting catching the disease.

Once per ailment interval, roll the Transmission rating of the ailment against the Physical Attribute of any characters exposed.  If the Transmission rating gets more hits on the roll than the characters do, those characters are infected.

Some Ailments do not need to make a Transmission roll in order to infect you.  If you are intentionally infected by another character, no Transmission roll is made.  This could include dosing your drink, stabbing you with an envenomed blade, etc.

Mortality

Mortality is how deadly the disease is.  Mortality is also rated from 0-12, with most naturally occurring diseases not exceeding 6.  A Mortality rating of 12 will kill literal gods with ease.

The Mortality rating is rolled against the patient’s Physical Attribute once per Ailment Interval.  Net hits on this roll deal damage to the patient’s Health.  This damage is similar to, but distinct from, damage taken from physical trauma such as combat.  Damage from an Ailment cannot be treated by powers which treat combat damage, and vice versa.  Like with damage taken from combat, the GM will roll for wound penalties when you take damage.

Ailment Interval

Ailment Interval is a measure of how quickly the Ailment progresses within the victim.

Each time 1 interval has passed, the GM rolls the Ailment’s Mortality rating.  The Ailment’s victim rolls their Physical Attribute as a defense against it.  Net hits on the Mortality roll inflict damage on the character’s body that is mechanically similar damage dealt in combat, but cannot be treated by the same Powers that are used to treat wounds.

When creating an Ailment, choose an interval from the list of intervals below:

This interval list is trimmed down to intervals that Ailments can operate on; Not 100 years, nor 1 interrupt action.

An Ailment with an interval of 1 Combat Round is likely to be a fast acting poison or venom.

Ailment Interval Maximum

Interval Maximum is the maximum time that the Ailment can be present in the victim.  If the Ailment hasn’t killed them by the time the maximum interval is reached, they are cured.

Symptoms

In this system, symptoms are mostly cosmetic.  They don’t have distinctive mechanical affects, unless the GM says they do.  This doesn’t mean that symptoms aren’t important.  If a character is suffering, the GM should detail their symptoms.  Similarly, if a disease is ravaging a city, the GM should describe exactly what that looks like.

Magical Ailments

Curses, hexes, enchantments, voodoo, etc.  These sorts of things can cause magical Ailments.

There are no hard & fast rules regarding these, but we provide some mechanical possibilities for magical ailments:

• Normal Ailments all interact with the Physical Attribute.  Strange, magical, ailments may replace those interactions with the Social or Mental attribute.
• Diagnosis may require a Spiritual Awareness test instead of a Medicine test.
• Treatment may be impossible without some kind of macguffin.

Example Ailments

Food Poisoning

Mortality: 3

Transmission: 4, rotten food

Diagnostic Difficulty: 2

Interval: 1 hour, 12 max

Symptoms: Vomiting, Gastric distress

Bubonic Plague

Mortality: 5

Transmission: 4, vermin

Diagnostic Difficulty: 2

Interval: 1 day, 14 max

Symptoms: Fever, Headaches, Vomiting, Chills, Buboes, Seizure

Common Cold

Mortality: 1

Transmission: 2, body fluids

Diagnostic Difficulty: 1

Interval: 1 week, 3 max

Symptoms: Cough, sore throat, nasal congestion, fever

God-Killer Contagion

Mortality: 10

Transmission: 8, airborne

Diagnostic Difficulty: 2

Interval: 1 day, 7 max

Symptoms: Hemorrhaging, Loss of consciousness, other horrific things