Poison, Disease and Traps

Poison is chronic decisive harm. It is established at onset as a condition with defined character and expected course. Once established, it runs its course until resolved. It is not re-tested through repeated rolls at each interval — the condition is known, its trajectory is established, and its effects are expressed through play over time.

A successful saving throw against poison does not mean the character was not poisoned. It means the poison’s effect fell toward the lower end of its expected range. The condition remains and continues until addressed.

Poisons vary in character: some produce gradual debilitation, some work quickly toward a single terminal event, some cause specific functional impairment. The GM establishes the condition at onset. The specific effects follow from the nature of the poison.

Delivery mechanism and the hit point abstraction: a poison delivered by a weapon in combat is still resolved as chronic decisive harm. The abstraction handles the moment of delivery (whether the wound occurs at all, within the combat framework); it does not govern the poison’s subsequent effect.

Disease follows the same model as poison: chronic decisive harm, condition established at onset, trajectory defined, effects expressed through play. The distinction is that disease typically operates on a longer timescale and its onset is often separated from its cause by days or weeks.

A character who drank from a questionable source three days ago and is now feverish is in a known state with a known character. Others can observe it. Decisions can be made. The condition runs its course.

Traps produce acute decisive harm when triggered — immediate, resolving in a single moment or brief sequence.

The aware character’s reflexive opportunity applies where the character has any warning. A trap that announces itself through a click, a visual cue, a pressure change, a moment of instability — any of these provides the basis for a reflexive action. The GM sets up the scenario with sufficient detail that the opportunity is implicit if it exists.

A character who triggers a trap with no warning — a perfectly concealed pit, a pressure plate that gives no feedback until it fires — has no reflexive opportunity. The decisive harm resolves without variance-reduction.

The expected outcome is established before the roll: a pit trap in a dungeon corridor will produce falling harm; a mechanical arrow trap at close range will produce a wound; a collapsing ceiling trap in an enclosed space is potentially lethal. The roll expresses variance around that stated baseline.

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