Misc. Game System Rules

Asphyxiation
Character Improvement
Disease and Poison
Falling
Fatigue
Fire
Hit Locations
Inanimate Objects
Luck Points

Asphyxiation

Characters can hold their breath for a number of seconds equal to their Endurance skill. However, the character must be prepared (filling the lungs with as much air as possible); if not, then the period is halved if the character was in a passive situation, or reduced to one-fifth if the character was engaged in strenuous activity.

Once the period of held breath is over, characters must make an Endurance roll each Round:
• If the roll is a Critical Success, no further deterioration occurs.
• If the roll is Successful, the character accrues an extra level of Fatigue.
• If the roll Fails, the character sustains 1d2 extra levels of Fatigue that Round.
• If the roll is Fumbled, the character sustains 1d3 extra levels of Fatigue that Round.

Once a character reaches the Dead level of Fatigue, they... are dead.

Without aid, death from Asphyxiation is usually swift. If the Asphyxiation ends before the character dies, they recover Fatigue levels lost to suffocation relatively quickly, regaining one level per minute.

Depending on the method of Asphyxiation, the Game Runner may wish to prevent full recovery, imposing an enduring level of Fatigue to represent damage to the lungs caused by smoke or water inhalation.

Character Improvement

Every Casus Muscharacter can improve with time and experience. Improvement can be undertaken in several areas:

Increasing Existing Skills
Learning New skills
Increasing or Decreasing Passions

Increasing Existing Skills

Any skill, Standard or Professional, can be increased by spending one Experience Roll. Players can elect not to spend Experience Rolls on increasing skills, instead building up a stockpile for use in increasing other things – such as Class abilities (see below).

Using Experience Rolls

The player rolls 1d100 and compares it to the skill being increased, adding the character’s INT to the roll.
• If the number rolled is equal to or greater than the skill being improved, it increases by 1d4+1%.
• If the number rolled is less than the skill selected, the skill still increases, but only by 1%.
• If a character Fumbled any skill during the preceding session(s) – i.e., between the last set of Experience Rolls and the present one – the Fumbled skill gains a free increase of 1%.

We learn more from our mistakes than our successes and this represents the reflection a character undergoes following a disastrous failure. Multiple Fumbles of the same skill do not stack. In a case where the Fumbled skill is also being raised with an Experience Roll, the 1% from the Fumble is applied before the roll is made to improve it.

Learning New Skills

Some characters may wish to study new Professional Skills which they never had the chance to learn from their culture.

Before they can start investing Experience Rolls, they must first find a source of knowledge from which to learn. This could be as prosaic as a professional tutor such those provided by orders or guilds. Alternately it might be a more exotic source of education such as an ancient and crumbling training scroll.

Once a source of education is found, the character must spend an entire month of study and practice to garner a basic grounding in that skill (learn at Base Level). This costs 3 Experience Rolls plus whatever in-game costs are required to pay the teacher (if one exists) and purchase (or rent) whatever equipment and tools may be needed.

Increasing or Decreasing Passions

As described in Passions, the value of a Passion may be increased with Experience Rolls in the same way as a skill. If supported by play, the Game Runner might even allow a Passion to be reduced using an Experience Roll.

For example, constant spurning from an unrequited love might eventually wear down the Passion of even the most ardent lover, especially one who wishes to pursue a relationship without the ghosts of the past haunting them.

Disease and Poison

Some of the most feared things which can affect characters are the myriad diseases and poisons which infest the dark and grim places of the world. There’s nothing quite as unsettling than a plague which strikes the character’s home city, especially when they are still within its gates. Likewise finding a venomous serpent in the bed or being attacked by giant scorpions can be moments of high drama.

Diseases and poisons are near infinite in their varieties but, for game purposes, are handled in the same way.

Disease and Poison Traits

All diseases and poisons manifest a number of traits important to their effects.

Conditions

Sample Disease: Red Pox

Red pox is a nasty disease spread by skin contact with a person already infected, or with something they have touched. The chance of catching the disease from an object remains for 1d3 days after contact, making it quite difficult to contain the disease once an outbreak occurs.

Victims initially suffer a minor rash, but within a day come down with a serious fever which usually renders them bedridden for the entire duration. During this time the rash evolves into gruesomely itchy pustules which burst open at the slightest movement, weeping small trickles of blood – especially from the armpits and groin. This stage can last up to a week or more, potentially proving fatal.

Application: Contact
Potency: 50
Resistance: Endurance
Onset time: 1d6+6 hours
Duration: 1d6+3 days
Conditions: Once the disease manifests the victim becomes Contagious. 1 day later they begin to suffer Fever and Bleeding. Each day the pustules weep blood the victim loses one level of Fatigue, which does not recover until the duration of the disease has completed
Antidote/Cure: Can be cured by the Healing skill.

Falling

The amount of damage suffered in a fall depends on the distance of the drop. Armor does not reduce falling damage, but the Damage Modifier of the falling character or creature applies to the damage suffered from the fall.

Falling Objects

A falling object imparts an amount of damage based on its SIZ and the distance of the fall. An object imparts 1d6 damage for every 6 points of SIZ (or fraction thereof), plus an amount of damage equal to the Damage Taken column of the Falling Distance Table – including any reductions for objects of smaller size.

Fatigue

Fatigue measures tiredness and its incremental effects. It is used to track many different things, from strenuous activity to the debilitating effects of disease.

The primary way of accruing Fatigue is by engaging in some form of physical activity. The more arduous the exercise or work, the more quickly it tires the character. At the Game Runner’s discretion, characters must make an appropriate skill roll – either Athletics, Brawn, or Endurance – to resist gaining a level of Fatigue.

Every Failed roll accrues a level of Fatigue. Each level of Fatigue carries penalties for skill use, movement, Initiative, and Action Points. Asphyxiation, Blood Loss, and other setting dependent effects also contribute to Fatigue Accrual.

For most characters, activities of any kind become near impossible when the level of Incapacitated is reached. At this stage the character is still conscious but incapable of anything but the most desperate of activities.

Beyond Incapacitated, characters cannot act at all. The Fatigue levels – Semi-Conscious, Comatose, and Dead – are generally reserved for measuring the most extreme effects of suffocation, disease, blood loss, starvation, exposure, and so forth.

Recovering from Fatigue

Characters recover from Fatigue depending on their Healing Rate. The amount of complete rest needed to recover from each level of accrued Fatigue is equal to the Recovery Period divided by the character’s Healing Rate.

Note that the table below represents Fatigue recovery for physical exertion. Fatigue recovery can be much faster when recovering from Asphyxiation or slower if recuperating from Blood Loss.

Fire

Fire is always a source of danger, whether used as a weapon or just raging out of control. The Fire Intensity table below gives five different example intensities for heat damage and time to ignite.

Fire can ignite flammable materials. If not extinguished, such materials combust within the number of Rounds indicated by the fire’s Intensity. Once ignited, flammable materials burn until physically extinguished.

Fire-based attacks typically have a percentage chance of igniting flammable materials as they are generally over in a single Round. Unless otherwise noted, this chance is equal to the damage rolled x 5% for fire-based attacks, and damage rolled x 1% for electrical attacks.

Once ignited, flammable materials burn for the indicated damage every Round until physically extinguished. Apply this damage directly to the Hit Points of the material, ignoring Armor Points, and to any flesh beneath. A creature’s natural armor offers its normal protection, however.

A burning victim may attempt to smother the flames by dropping prone and making a successful Athletics roll, which requires an Action Point and may be attempted each Turn. If others assist in smothering the flames in some way, the roll is one Difficulty Grade easier. If the damage roll results in zero damage, the fire has gone out on its own.

Hit Locations

Occasionally it's useful to know where an attack lands, even though Casus Mus does not use Hit Points per location.

Hit Location Table (Tailed Biped)

Inanimate Objects

All inanimate objects possess Armor Points and Hit Points which are used to determine resistance to damage and destruction. Armor Points reduce damage before Hit Points are affected. Once an object’s Hit Points have been reduced to zero, it is useless.

Breakage attempts require a character to make a Brawn, Unarmed or Combat Style roll, as appropriate, to inflict damage. A success deals damage to the item.

Weapons vs. Inanimate Objects

Using a weapon against an inanimate object with Armor Points equal to or greater than those of the weapon deals damage to both the object and the weapon. For instance, using an axe on an iron door may damage the door, but the axe itself would be destroyed long before the iron door is. The Game Runner should exercise discretion on which weapons or tools can affect which objects. A chisel, for example, is explicitly designed to carve wood or stone while a sword, although sharp, is not. The chisel would therefore not take damage from something it is attempting to carve whereas a sword most likely would.

Luck Points

Luck Points help differentiate heroes from the rank and file. They represent a character’s ability to potentially turn failure into success and even cheat death.

Luck Points can be used during play and, at the beginning of the next session, replenish to their usual value.

Using Luck Points

Only one Luck Point can be used in support of a particular Action. Luck Points cannot be spent on Experience or Training rolls. Each of the following options costs a single Luck Point.

Cheat Fate
• Re-roll any roll they make; skill, damage, etc.
• Swap the tens and ones for any d100 roll they make; for example, a 90 would become a 09.
• Force an opponent to re-roll any roll made against them (rolls made by an opponent against the character); skill, damage, etc.

Desperate Effort
If a character has exhausted their Action Points during a round and needs to find that last burst of desperate energy to perhaps avoid a messy demise, they may spend a Luck Point to gain an additional Action Point.

Mitigate Damage
A character who suffers a Major Wound may spend a Luck Point to downgrade the injury to a Minor Wound. This reduces the damage taken to one Hit Point less than what would be required to inflict a Major Wound.

When a Character is below 1 Hit Point, they are dead. Characters can spend a Luck Point to downgrade a Fatal Wound to a Major Wound (reducing damage so that the Character has 1 Hit Point). The Character immediately falls unconscious.

Based on Mythras Imperative, Written by Pete Nash and Lawrence Whitaker, and published by The Design Mechanism, Copyright 2023.

Material on this site not covered by other ownership or copyright statements is Copyright © 2024 Robert Prince.