Greetings. After creating a character, world and starting an adventure I started to wonder how my character can die?
I found that character can die by fatigue but under "Death" on page 27 there is only Attribute decrease. Should I assume that character dies if any attribute decrease to or below 0? Or just kill a character when the story see it fit?
Other than that I really like this system.
If you die from pushing yourself well beyond your Fatigue limits, there was likely a reason you pushed yourself so hard. The tension and buildup as you slowly wear yourself down hoping to survive just a little longer (like Pheidippides dying after getting the message of victory to Athens) can be a very dramatic, and satisfying end, or a result of spiraling bad decisions. Either way, it can feel earned.
Death in Combat can instead feel like rotten luck, and so I wanted to have the mechanics reflect that. At Level 1, it is possible to roll up an Encounter of 5 Levels, which could be a Dragon Warrior and 2 Footsoldiers (3+1+1). All 3 hitting and rolling average for dmg rolls would be 6 damage, which could kill a level 1 PC before they even got an action. Therefore, combat inflicts permanent wounds instead of death.
All this is to say: Kill (or retire) your PC when it feels right. You would have to drop to 0 several times, rolling poorly each time, before you had to worry about dropping an attribute down to 0, and by that point you may decide your character is just too scarred to keep going. Pass the torch to a new PC who became embroiled in your budding conflict and keep the story going.
