Cinematics

Cinamatics covers all the vital information regarding combat and the information that relates to it. So, this would be the action scenes where characters fight, the weapons and armour they use, as well as injury and death that may result from that combat. The end of cinematics give rules for playing the game in different ways such as playing without a grid map and tokens or miniatures as well as how to run action scenes in three divisional terrain such as dioramas. First action scenes.

Action scenes

While this area of the book essentially covers what would be called combat in other systems, in Xor’Veil we use the term Cinematics. When there is ‘combat’ we call it an action scene. Why do we do this? Well believe it or not, language can shape our thinking.

Action scenes are vibrant scenes of dynamic action, as such don’t focus too much on plotting out your moves, think what is the coolest thing I can do? Action scenes are filled with people jumping over tables, through windows, and onto chandlers. While there will always be a tactical element to action scene think… How can I make this cooler? That is how you get action points.

Cool isn’t usually killing someone, it is grabbing someone and jumping out a window, it is running along a wall grabbing a bag and hiding behind a desk, and sometimes it simply point a weapon and announcing something. ‘I point my sword at him and call out “This ends tonight” and then ease it to my side’. Cinema is about experience, the experience of something magical, creating a moment that you will forever remember.

Starting an Action Scene

When an action scene is started everyone picks up their six dice and rolls them. After this they arrange them on their character sheet in the action reel. As shown below.

Initiative (who goes first?)

After you have rolled all your dice, add them together and total them. Your total is your Initiative. The person with the highest dice roll goes first. The Conspirator will call out six til they get to 36 (they will usually stop before then) when you hear the total of your dice, tell them. This way the they Conspirator can note the order of who goes when. Once the scene order is determined, the person at the highest Initiative goes first, the next and so on until every character has taken an action or chosen not to take an action during that still.

Legend

“Stop Clock” Once per still actions

“Flame Clock” Multi still actions

“Still icon”, there are six of these per reel.

“Reel icon” where your dice rest until you remove them for your action that still.

Performing actions

There are several actions that can be performed, but the break down into two categories,
which are Stop Clocks and Flame Clock

You may perform three actions per turn one Stop Clock and upto three Flame Clock

“Stop Clock” actions are once per “Still” still actions. This means that you can only ever perform one “Stop Clock” action per turn. In addition, these are usually followed by a number, so something like “Stop Clock” 4 this means you require a die of roll of 4 or higher to perform that action on this “Still”.

“Flame Clock” Actions may be performed up to three times in a “Still”. In addition, these are usually followed by a number, so something like “Flame Clock” 1 this means you require a die of roll of 1 or more in order to perform that action this “Still” . However, these actions can be combined with a “Stop Watch” . In order to do this, you add the two numbers together, so a “Flame Clock” 1 plus “Stop Clock“ 4 would require a roll of 5 or higher.

However, you may only make two move actions per “Still” and you may never perform more than three actions per “Still”.

Combining actions, Impossible actions, and exhausting yourself

“Flame Clock” can be combined with other “Flame Clock” actions and “Stop Clock” actions. When you combine actions, a dice rolled needed to perform the action that is the total of those dice, as an example you wish to use a base move action, “Flame Clock” 1 and a light attack “Stop Clock” 3 it would become a “Stop Clock” 4 Action.

Simple enough however, the combination of certain actions would make for ‘impossible’ actions. As an example, combing a rushed move “Flame Clock” 3 and a heavy attack “Stop Clock” 5 this means that would need an “Stop Clock” 8 to perform this action which is obviously impossible however you may perform these by exhausting yourself.

Exhaustion is where you perform actions you normally couldn’t perform. Either because the dice were very against you and you had a very bad roll, or if you placed your dice badly or, they are impossible tasks as mentioned before. So, to perform these tasks what you do is, you remove a dice from further down in the “Reel” in addition to the one on this “Still”. As an example

Let us say that you wish to perform the said impossible action of making a rushed move “Flame Clock” 3 and a heavy attack “Stop Clock” 5.  In order to do this, there are a number of ways you could do it. You could select either the six or the five to make a 10 or a 9 respectively.

When you do this you would remove them in addition the 4. However, let us say that the person wishes to keep their high rolls for more intense actions they may also choose to sacrifice multiple lesser dice. To get that “Stop Clock” 8 roll they could chose to select two of the following instead.

When the Investigator comes to that turn and they cannot remove a dice they are exhausted, the character cannot perform any action. This may be stylized in anyway the investigator so chooses. Struggling for breath, having a panic attack, or lost in the confusion of battle. However, certain actions remain impossible performing more than three actions in a single turn is always impossible.

Regardless of the path to perform this action, once it gets to the turns where the character has no dice they are exhausted. However, on these turns they can also remove a dice from later on in the track if they so desire. Though when they do this they are just kick the can down the road.

Move actions

In Xor’Veil when using movement on a grid you may only ever move along the north, south, east, or west axis never diagonally. Also, you may never perform more than two move actions per .

Your base movement is three unless stated otherwise.

Movement

1 Base move: You move up to your base speed, (base speed is three for Investigators without abilities). Thematically this may look like walking, strafing, deliberate pacing, careful plodding, or planned movement.

2 Rushed movement: You move up to twice your base speed. Thematically this is running, charging, and any rushed movement.

4 Sprint: You move up three times your base movement in a single direction.

Movement modifiers

There are three different forms of movement modifiers. Difficult Terrain, such as hills, stairs, and terrain that hinders movement. Dangerous terrain, such as uneven ground, ground covered in caltrops, or terrain which may injure someone crossing it. Obstructed terrain, such as thin hedges, grease covered ground or other terrain that could prevent passage.

Your conspirator will point out what areas have these modifiers.

Difficult terrain: Movement through this area one extra space for each move though here.

Dangerous terrain: Is the same as difficult terrain however, moving through it carries inherent risks. You must pass a roll as presented by the conspirator usually: Grace, Style, and one other though each terrain may have different skills. You may take a higher level roll in order to avoid the one extra space penalty, however if you fail you take double the damage.
If you fail your dangerous terrain roll you take damage equal to the number of dangerous terrain squares you passed through.

Obstructed terrain: Is the same as difficult terrain however, moving though carries the risk of finishing your movement inside this terrain rather than moving to the target.  You must pass a roll as presented by the conspirator usually: Grace, Athletics, and one other though each terrain may have different skills. You may take a higher level roll in order to avoid the one extra space penalty, however the skill check is increased two fold.
If you fail your obstructed terrain roll you stop inside the obstructed terrain and do not finish your other actions. The difficult of this roll will be equal to twice the number of spaces you wish to move through that area. Move the character equal to the number of spaces that roll would have give a success.

Example an Investigator wishes to move through five spaces of obstructed terrain, but on their roll they get an 8 instead of the ten they needed they would be moved four spaces and end their movement there.

Attacks

All attacks thematically fall into three categories.

Melee attacks automatically hit unless the opponent is defending.

Range attacks, they hit on the roll of 4 or more.

3 Light attack: upon hitting with light attacks they deal one die of damage

4 Standard attacks: upon hitting with standard attacks they deal two dice of damage

5 Heavy attacks: upon hitting with heavy attacks they deal three dice of damage

Weapons show in their profiles what attacks can be performed by that weapon. The range of ranged weapons will be show in their range in their profiles. Many weapons give special abilities these will be listed in the weapons section.

Unless otherwise stated unarmed attacks are light attacks, these are neither finesse nor savage attacks but unarmed attacks.

After you successfully attack you roll the location hit and then roll damage.

You may gain advantage against defenders by spending a dice of a higher value than the attack required. As an example, if you rolled a six and used a light attack you can spend the remaining dice to get a bonus of +3 against defenders. If you were making a standard attack it would be +2 and if it was heavy it would be +1. You can spend another dice on this by exhausting for a maximum bonus of +6 against defence.

Determining location

Whenever a character is hit you roll a location dice. If you do not have a location dice use this

1.       A roll of 1 hits the legs

2.       A roll of 2,or 3 hits the body

3.       A roll of 4 hits the arms

4.       A roll of 5 hits the head

5.       A roll of 6 is a called shot, you choose the location of your hit.

Defend

When defending if someone makes a melee attack against you, both you and your opponent roll a die. If you roll is equal or higher than them you defend against their attack. If you roll two higher than them you make an attack against them instead. If someone attacks you for a second time within the same “Still” you receive a minus two penalty, this penalty is cumulative, thus third attack you would have a minus four penalty and so on. You may only defend in the same method that you can attack with.

You may only attack back once per still while defending unless you have a talent, trait or other ability that allows you to attack more than once.

Ranged weapons cannot defend.

3 Light defence: +2 to defence rolls: response deals one die of damage

4 Standard defence: +3 to defence rolls: response deals two dice of damage

5 Heavy defence: +4 to defence rolls: response deals three dice of damage

If you wish to defend another you simply announce I will defend another, announce the person, when defending that person unless they attacker is adjacent to you as well you receive a minus two penalty to defending them. If they are defenceless, meaning they have no combat training and no weapon, you receive a further minus two penalty to defending them. In addition if they do not believe you are defending them, or are resistant to your defence, such as they are panicked, you receive a further minus two penalty.

Special actions

All actions that are not basic actions, are special actions. These actions are innumerable in number, but they should have values that correspond to the level of effort that is suggested. However ultimately the decision falls with your Conspirator, always remember the Golden Rules, in these situations.

0 Picking up an item from a desk.

1 Throwing an item to another person

2 Picking a lock when unstressed (combat in a separate room, but not directly close to you)

3 Leaping a canyon (must be combined with a move action)

4 Picking a lock while stressed (combat is around you)

5 Blocking a door against multiple opponents trying to bash it down.

6 Cranking a massive cog.

Many of these will require a skill roll to perform them in addition to the dice to be removed from the “Still”. Others will not, but always remember the Golden Rules, the Conspirator is trying to make the best experience for all of you. Also, the Conspirator may give you the option of using a lower dice on the “Still” to have to a higher difficulty on a skill roll. You should also try and make the most cinematic experience you can, remember every special action you perform is a chance for hero points.

Struggle

Often towards the end of a reel things tend toward the worst. Everyone is out of breath, but they keep fighting even if things are going so very wrong. Struggles always cost one regardless of modifiers. Struggles are not unarmed, nor are they finesse, nor savage. They are just struggling to fight.

Nothing can increase the cost of a struggle attack or defence, not injury, not traits, not talents.

1 Struggling attack: You make a light attack where your opponent gets a free light defence (They may use a greater defence if they can)

1 Struggling defence: You make a light defence with a -2 penalty to defending

Rank Ordering abilities

Sometimes you or another investigator may be both defending but one person can also defend or the attacker’s abilities may clash with another ability. The order of abilities resolves thus so.

1. Attacker abilities first 2. Defenders abilities 3. Defenders allies’ abilities 4. Attackers allies’ abilities.

Weapons

Name: The name of the weapon.

Style:     The style of weapon, Savage or Fierce, and for Ranged: Thrown or Fired.

Attacks: The types of attacks they can perform Light, Standard, and/or Heavy.

Dmg:     Damage bonus or reduction on your damage die or dice.

Cost:      The cost bonus or reduction for the cost of attack.

Special: The special abilities the weapon has. Special abilities do not stack. Example if you have two weapons/shields with defender you only +1 bonus to defence.

Ranged Weapons

Shields

Weapon Abilities

Aggressive: +1 against defence rolls.

Awkward X: This weapon costs an additional X to use if you have moved.

Block +X (Z): When attacked roll a die, on a roll of X you gain Z armour when stuck on that attack.

Brutal: +3 damage against unarmoured or lightly armoured targets (excludes shields)

Defender: +1 to defence rolls

Dire: If you roll a 6 on a damage die or dice you may roll exactly one more damage die.

Parry X: When attacked roll a die, on roll of X you may make a defence roll, you do not gain the standard bonus to defence, (+4 heavy ectara) you may not strike back.

Natural: You may reroll natural damage rolls of 7 and 11

Range X: This weapon can be used from X spaces away from you.

Reload X: This weapon must be reloaded to be fired again, it costs X to reload.

Rend: +3 damage against medium or heavily armoured targets (excludes shields)

Sharp X: If the damage die or dice rolls X you may reroll that die or dice, may have multiple X.

Swift: Swift weapons change attacks from ‘stop clock’ to ‘fast clock’

Two handed: Requires two hands to use.

Armour and Shields

In Xor’Veil it is not as often the weapon that gives away the dangerous as many people will carry a weapon for defence. It is the armour that gives people away as dangerous, this is why people will often try and disguise or stylise their armour to hide its true purpose. Armour brings a serious advantage in combat but for those untrained in it, the cost is taxing. Having an armour of 1 in the chest is considered unarmoured, your Conspirator may consider other armours to be of a lower category particularly in the chest even with higher armour values.

·         Light armour:                     Light Armour is armour of a value of 1 to 3.

·         Standard Armour:            Standard armour is armour of a value of 4-6.

·         Heavy Armour:                  Heavy armour is armour of a value of 7 to 10

Shields are armour, whatever their attack is that is their armour value, regardless of the fact that may not provide armour directly.

 Penalties for armour

·         Light Armour:                    -1 to all your action dice to a minimum of one

·         Standard Armour:            -2 to all your action dice to a minimum of one

·         Heavy armour:                  -3 to all your action dice to a minimum of one

What is considered light, standard or heavy armour?

Outside of the values listed there is no set rule for what is considered to be light, standard, or heavy armour. As an example gambeson armour would usually be considered light armour though it could cross over into standard armour. However, gambeson would never be considered heavy armour. Likewise, some plate armour could be considered to be standard armour however, it wouldn’t be ever be considered light armour.

Cover

Cover should only be used against ranged combat.

Cover will either give a bonus to armour or create a difficulty to hit. Cover is determined by the material, and amount you are covered as arbitrated by the conspirator.

Penalties to attack

·         Partial cover +1 to the difficulty to hit

·         Complete cover +2 to the difficulty to hit

·         Total cover avoiding cover becomes impossible

Partial cover increases the roll needed to hit by one (normally it would require a roll of four or more to hit with a ranged weapon but with partial cover it would be five or more). Partial cover is only used cover is inconsistent, such as bars, beams, and so on.

Cover armour

Types of armour give by cover depend on the cover itself.

·         Light 2-3

·         Standard 4-6

·         Heavy 7-10

Cover armour is used when only a specific locations of the body could be hit like standing behind a planted shield, behind a window, and so on.

Light cover would be thin would such as light wood used in markets to show their wears, Standardcover would be tavern wall wood, and Heavy cover would be stone, support beams, and so on.

Injury and Death

The reason for combat is to cause injury and death, it is the result of the actions and often not pretty, however some people can only be stopped through force. However, in Xor’Veil combat is set up for many of the tropes of the Noir genre. Often people will be knocked out rather than dying however, dying is always a real possibility not just for the investigators’ enemies but for them as well.

Damage Threshold

Your damage threshold is how much damage you can sustain before moving through an injury category. For instance, is a person has a damage threshold of 3 they can sustain three damage before going to the abraised category, whereas someone with damage threshold of 5 could sustain five before moving to the next. Both a person with a damage threshold of 3 and 5 would remain on abraised with 6 damage in a location but 7 damage would take person with 3 to grievous category.

Calculating your damage threshold is easy

1.       Starting damage threshold = 4

2.       If you have Physical ability add 1 your damage threshold.

3.       Talents or Traits may provide addition damage threshold.

Armour and Damage

When you are struck and dealt damage, before damage is dealt, the first subtract the armour value from that damage and then damage is calculated.

A.G.E.D

A.G.E.D is the various damage categories for a character and those categories are

A. Abraised

G.Grievous

E.Extreme

D.Deadly

Abraised means literally wearing away by grinding or other friction. This means light damage that will have caused noticeable pain and suffering but likely to have little lasting injury.
Grievous means great pain and suffering. A person who is grievously wounded has heavy injuries and has a noticeable lack of functionality
Extreme means simply an extreme injury one that is beyond noticeable, likely an arm or leg is broken, ribs broke, lungs punctured, or serious brain injury
Deadly means that the person who has sustained this injury is likely to die, in some instances the person will die immediately from this injury.

Location Damage tables

Consciousness H.E.L.D

Not only do you track your injury to locations but you also track the total amount of damage that you take have taken. The more damage you have taken the more likely you are like you are to lose consciousness or die.

How do you calculate your consciousness?

It’s simple you take damage threshold and times it by seven.
When you hit that number you must make a consciousness check, which is a conviction check with the difficult determined by where you are, when you hit that consciousness check you must take it.

After your first consciousness check it becomes progressively harder to remain conscious as if you take more damage you are likely to die, things tend to become very bad very quickly when they close that threshold.

Injury outside of cinematics

Obviously, injury is meant to provide narrative tension, will your characters survive, will this stop them from reaching their goals and will they be able to succeed in spite of them? All of that can be fun in combat, however outside of it trying to keep track of all of this can be a hassle this is why you AGED. For each AGED category you have received you receive a -1 to skill roll totals. As an example let us say your character has suffered a grievous wound to the legs, and been abraised in both the arms and chest. You would have AGED 4, thus you would receive a -4 penalty to all skill rolls. You may ignore these penalties during the Will to Fight phase, during the what just happened scene.

Recovery

As an inevitable consequence of fighting there is injury and from injury comes a need to recover. There is ‘Will to Fight’ an immediate recovery phase after an action scene, ‘Seeing the Doc’ for serious injuries, as well as natural healing and death. However, one can also avoid death by seeing the ‘Holy Man’. ‘Will to Fight’ happens immediately after an action scene and is meant to represent that moment where everyone recovers from injury in movies with the ubiquitous comment of it’s not so bad. ‘Seeing the Doc’ is for serious injuries which would usually end a session and changes the course of the investigation. Seeing the ‘Holy Man’ is for when no doctor could save you. However, in Xor’Veil death is not always the end.

Will to fight

The ‘Will to Fight’ scene is a scene that happens immediately after an action scene and is meant be a scene in of itself where the investigators revel in the idea that they are still alive. The mechanics of this will be laid out later. The way you play a will to fight scene is that everyone looks at themselves and others to see if they are hurt or not. Then the people attempt to tough their injuries out. If they are successful they avoid injury and continue their investigation.

In the will to fight scene what you do is talk to one another and look at each other’s injuries, the diagnose self tags are where you tough out your injuries. Whereas the diagnose others are about your concern fuelling that persons will to fight. Lines such as ‘Pain is an old friend’ would be referring to one of your injury’s tags as Conviction. Whereas animal whimpers or growls of pain can be used as an Animalist tag in relation to a different injury. Finally, more open lines such as ‘I was lucky back there’ and ‘it was smart we did…’ and then tagging an injury will get you Wisdom roll. Then when tagging other people you refer to them, and you tag them with what you say and you tag their injury as well. ‘How is that arm’ in a low voice, would tag Empathy. ‘Looks like tabular facture’ could tag Academics. Finally, ‘a quick shot of powder, will balance the humours, and fix bile within the body, have a snuff!’ would tag eccentricity.

The conspirator will not always allow you to spend so long talking about your various injuries as this is meant to a wrap up to combat and the end of the action scene. These scenes are meant to be short and to the point and a transition point to the next scene. The ‘Oh my god were alive’ after all of action. Each Investigator is aiming for three tags in this short time. However, if the fight was particularly brutal and the time there was quite taxing the WTF phase could be extended with the conspirator’s discretion.

Tagging skills and recovery

One tag per injury.

Diagnosis yourself: Animalist, Conviction, or Wisdom.

Diagnosis another: Empathy, Academics, or Eccentricity.

The difficulty of the roll is equal to the damage dealt to that area.

Once this scene is over, each player notes their tags, on various injuries. Each injury may only be rolled once. Self-Diagnosis is performed first. Then others may diagnose each other. Who recovers first is up to the investigators. Medicine can be used if a save fails by six or more.

Medicine skill may be used after the various skills have been rolled, but only for investigators with a medicine of three or more.

WTF Recovery

Once all of the skills are tagged, you note the tags and the injuries they relate to, present who is going first for self-diagnosis and then who will go after that for diagnose other. You make your rolls.

The difficulty of each roll is the damage that has been dealt to that location. If your skill roll beats the total damage dealt to that location that damage is removed to the next lowest category, and that amount is reduced on the Investigators consciousness. Additionally, you can only reduce injuries that occurred in the previous combat. Though, if you fail your roll by six or more your injury worsens, one category up. You can choose not to heal even if you tagged a skill.

When a category is lessened it is reduced to the lowest level of that category, when it worsens it is increased to the highest level of that category.

It is at this time you can be ‘saved by the doc’ if an Investigator fails a check, another Investigator may attempt to save them from themselves, and take the same check but, with the Medicine skill. If they do this the injury is reduced as if they succeed. If the Medicine roll fails by six or more the injury worsens by two instead of one. This uses their medicine check for this WTF phase.

Patch em’ up

If a player has three or more dots in Medicine, and If they have not used the Medicine in this WTF to save another Investigator from themselves, they “patch em’ up”. You may select a single person and reduce their injury received during this previous cinematic scene, even if they have already been reduced by a single category. The roll is exactly the same as above, as well as the consequences.

Oh… I am going to die.

So you failed your roll on your injury, or worse another person failed a roll and now your going to die. But you’re going to die… you don’t die, not just yet at least. The goal of this session now becomes saving this character. The character that is currently dying is babbling incoherently, begging their deity of choice for forgiveness, or cursing all of the gods. Hell, they may even be proclaiming there is no god. OR, perhaps they are confessing their sins, and begging for forgiveness, or screaming how they would have done it all again, they would have killed for less than a coin because this the world we live in. Or May be, just maybe, you tell them it’s going to be alright...

So why are you the dying person putting your whole group on tilt, while you go into a spiralling death rant? To gain as many action dice as humanly possible. You’re going to need them to help you get through the next scene. In addition, the Conspirator is going to make it worse not better, they are going to have you have visions, your life flashing before you, have you make conviction rolls, or any other rolls. If you pull though this will be an extremely dramatic scene, if you don’t. It will have been a harrowing death that will haunt the party. Why would you want that? Because death should matter, and your death should linger with these people and affect the story from here on out. Make this scene matter, no matter the outcome.

Natural recovery

One of the other ways people can recover from injury is naturally. The other is seeing a doctor. Natural healing is usually not a great way of recovery it will allow you to recover from minor injuries quickly, but more major ones will take a significant amount of time. Natural recover times are as follows.

This represents full recovery and does not usually involve a great deal of active investigation during this time. Natural recovery if ever part of a story is usually a plot element which is intended to limit the investigators ability to investigate.

Seeing the Doc

Seeing the doc allows people to recover beyond WTF. Seeing the doctor will usually involve a fee of some kind and comes with inherent risks. Most doctors are run by organisations, either state run, by organizations of dubious legality. The odd disgraced doctor does exist. Often, they will be swallowed by another organisation, the ability to preserve life is a precious resource.

It is also possible that a member of the investigators may be a doctor and may take the rolls for you. However, the doctor must still have the facilities in order to use these abilities. Finding the facilities will be the problem is you already have a doctor in your group.

Doctors must make a medicine roll as if they were ‘patching em up’ as described in the WTF recovery. The difficulty of each roll is the damage that has been dealt to that location. If their skill roll beats the total damage dealt to that location that damage is removed to the next lowest category.

Depending on the quality of the facility that they are at, they may be able to make more than one roll. If they fail the medicine roll even by six or more they may spend another roll to instead attempt again and ignore the failed roll. If they are successful they reduce the injury normally and may reduce it by a further category.

Some of the times one of your characters may be better than the doctor in question, this should be a very quick scene in of itself. When you do this the Investigator in question makes the rolls that the doctor would instead. Always remember with these mechanical rolls to include the roleplay within it.

The ‘Holy Man’

Very few people within the world of Xor’Veil have magical talent, some of them are preachers, clerics, and shamans. While the doctor or the organization that owns them may require a fee, one sometimes too high to pay. Seeing these people may cost you a piece of your soul. A ‘Holy Man’ neither needs to be a man, nor holy, sometimes they are quite the opposite. Those with the ability to heal are the revered figures within a church, cult leaders, or both. Just know when you see a Holy Man what you are really doing is making a deal with the devil, a piece of you or your loved one now belongs to them and they are forever bound by this force.

The ‘Holy Man’ can cure any injury, even those which would normally be lethal. There is nothing they cannot heal. The only thing they cannot do is bring the dead back to life. Though, if the person nears death, they can bring them back. Seeing the Holy Man is riskier and has a greater toll, than seeing the mob doctor operating out of a vet clinic. The price for this favour is greater than anything than any mobster would ask for. The price is a piece of your soul.

Speed of Plot

Sometimes your heroes have recovered between session even if the required amount of time hasn’t passed. Just as you are meant to trust the Conspirator as stated in the Golden Rules, they too are meant to trust you. This means that they may have things planned and need you to be healed in order to continue to the next part, just remember there are thousands of hours of television where injuries are hand waved away. When it comes to recover it maybe hand waved and after the fight may be told you recover for the next fight, but you have a limp, have trouble moving, or something else thematic but not mechanical. If this is the case, leave it be take the win and keep on playing.

Often between sessions, your characters will heal completely despite, the ‘required’ amount of time not having passed. This is standard for recovering between sessions. This is the speed of plot.

Character Death

The ever-lingering shadow of death hovers over the investigators, those that deal death also call to it. The long and the short of it is, most character deaths aren’t fun. Something happens, and you can’t control it. There will be exceptional circumstances where you did control it and this isn’t why your reading this section. Where your character buys time by fighting off the bad guys single handily while a candle slowly burns next barrel upon barrel of flammables ready to explode.

These deaths were essentially planed. So, what do you do when your character dies at a point when the story isn’t set up for it. There is a number of options, Xor’Veil’s ghostly gambler is an option for unexpected death. However, this will go through what you can do if your character dies. Though usually Xor’Veil encourages people to be as in character as possible now is a good time to have a character break and to discuss as group what to do.

Having a plan if your character dies is always good. However, if you don’t just discuss this will go over a number of options, one of the options within Xor’Veil is the ghostly gambler for unplanned deaths, changing the guard and using another investigator is always great option, or it may be a good spot to stop the session but what is most important is…

Have a break, have a breather, discuss your options, games are meant to be fun.

A changing of the Guard

One of the most important parts of Xor’Veil is having a rich backstory and to your Investigator and the possibility of death is one the most important reasons for this. Having played out your backstory, this should give you access to other characters who may make a smooth changing of the guard for your character. A friend, family member, or even a rival from your backstory may feel honour bound to continue your cause until the quest is done. Your Investigators death affects them as much as it does the rest of the group. This person becomes your Investigator for the remainder of the session. The reason that the group is so ready to accept this person is not only do they need all the help they can get, but also this person is a connection to the investigator that just died, thus they trust them.

It is best only to use this option if you already have a sheet set up or if you are using the Xor’Veil Basic rule set or lower.

Session ending

Some of the times when a character dies this a natural point to end a session, it depends at what stage a person dies. If a person dies toward the end of a session this may be a natural point to end the session so that you can work out next session what investigator they would like to replace there previously demised investigator. During between now and the next session you can do the background for the new character. However, it is not recommended to use this if the death happens early into the session. Sessional ends should only be reserved when things can be picked up naturally in the next session with changing of the guard could follow more smoothly next session, or if that person wants to take a break til this investigation ends and they can natural introduce a new investigator.

The Ghostly Gambler

This option is best for unplanned deaths where there is no clear way, to integrate the death into the game. Thematically your death haunts the group, your death hangs heavy in the air. You remain at the table and continue to interact with the group however, you remain in character and while your Investigate doesn’t directly participate in conversations, you may say things to individual members of the group, this is the memories of your character haunting the group. Additionally, there are mechanical advantages, to having the Ghostly Gambler.

As the name suggests, the Ghostly Gambler uses the gamble mechanic however, they are not required to do any rolling of any kind in order to gain the gamble advantage. Whenever there is a skill roll of any kind for the Investigators or the Conspirator, the dead Investigator, adds a gamble to that roll, adding a single line to every successful or unsuccessful roll as if they won a gamble. Additionally, you can continue to earn hero points during this point in time. Also, during this time unlike any other time, you can use your hero points to aid another Investigator in a skill roll.

It is in this way that you can be kept at the table and included as a participating member of the group. If, there is another Investigator that has died in this way, they may also fill the same roll as you do. However, their gamble will always follow the first person’s death. Other than that, they follow the exact same rules as the Ghostly Gambler.

Optional Rule for last man standing