Stress

# Optional rules: Stress

If you decide to use this rule, you will have to commit. It definitely makes the game more difficult and stressful for the players. It will make the world more lore-friendly, but it may also cause the player characters to not embark on some quests. Use with caution. Recommended to use with Luck optional rule.

To simulate the fact that being an adventurer is hard, difficult and terryfying, a new quality is introduced: Stress

**Stress:** Current / Base contains two values between 1-100. Characters start with base stress dependent on their backstory, profession and age from 1 (a fisherman spending his whole life in chill, with no problems of any sort in his entire life), through 20 (a european languages student), 30 (a law student) until 40 (a pathologist). Current stress at the beginning of the game is equal to base stress and cannot drop below it.

Whenever something terryfying happens, you may gain stress. Roll d100. If you roll above your Stress, the event had a significant impact on you (right column of stress gain). If you roll below stress, the event seemed equally terrifying to previous encointers you had (left column of stress gain). Roll for Will. You gain stress according to the table below - 1 for every success on the Will role.

Following a stressful event related to unknown, supernatural causes, your character will try to understand it. Roll for Intelligence. Gain 1 stress for every success. Every fail removes 10 stress.

### STRESS GAIN EXAMPLE TABLE

The following are only examples. If an event happens and is not described on a list below, try to assess its effect on the characters using the table below. The loss on success is about ¼ to ⅕ of the fail loss.

Some events, when seen for the second time, will stress the character as if resisted, or not stress the character at all. GM’s will.

### Reacting to gaining stress

Whenever a character gains at least 1 stress, they act in some way without their agency. They might scream or run away or perhaps freeze in fear; they might as well shoot at what they see or start crying. Either played out by the player or chosen by the GM.

### Temporary madness

Whenever a character gains 5 stress in a short time, the character will be terrified and want to do something different than their course of action. They may want to perform one of the stress relief activities, run away, try to learn something about the terror they encountered, etc.

### Afflictions

Once a character hits 65 stress, they become afflicted. This lasts until the character relieves stress below 50. For the list of afflictions, see below. Every 10 stress points further can result in another affliction or strengthen one of applied afflictions, chosen by GM.

### Permanent insanity and heart attacks

Once a character reaches 90 stress, they risk heart attack. Any further stress gain or fear (such as a surprise) can cause a heart attack. Roll for Endurance every time you gain stress. If you roll less successes than stress received, you get a heart attack. Every attack dealing 2 or more damage will automatically kill you. If you do not recover with medical help or magic, a second heart attack will kill you.

99 or more stress is called 'permanent insanity' and makes the PC so insane they become an NPC.

### Changing base stress

If a character engages in stress-relief activities (point 4 of Healing Stress) when their current stress is equal to their base stress, they start to lower both their current and base stress at once. The relief of base stress is ⅕ of normal stress relief.

If a character has greater current stress than their base stress for prolonged time (3 days or longer) their base stress starts to catch up. For every 3 days of current stress exceeding base stress, they gain 5 base stress.

### Healing stress

Stress can be healed in the following ways (from weakest to strongest healing):

#### Harming or killing an enemy causing fear.

If the zombie you saw dies from one gunshot, you’ll be far less terrified of them. Heals up to 100% of stress inflicted by seeing the monster, see the stress table above.

#### Rest.

Resting for a day without stress in familiar, good company removes up to 2 points of stress per day. Worse situation can cause 1 or 0 stress relief per day.

#### Rest activities.

When resting, various activities may be performed. They all relieve up to 8 stress. An activity performed for half the time can stress relief. Half (rounding down) dice is used. Activities can only be performed once in 4 hours to provide the stress relief.

##### Meditation / Prayer:

Spending two hours on prayer or meditation can cause the character to see some hidden wisdom behind their pain. Roll for Will + meditation. Each success relieves 1 stress. Each fail grants 2 stress.

##### Gambling:

An hour of playing cards, dice, or another game can relieve stress based on hero’s Luck. Roll for Luck - each success -1 stress, each fail +2 stress. (see: Luck). A character can decide to cheat - in that case, they instead use ‘Cheating - cards’ or ‘Cheating - dice’ proficiency from ‘Gambling (A)’. Each success will relieve 1 stress, but a fail will make them busted, causing +6 stress and will definitely anger other players.

##### Sex:

Intimacy with a partner for around an hour (the time isn’t that important) relieves stress based on both partner’s Apparition, and Agility. Roll for lower value between the other partner’s Apparition and your own Agility. DL determined by the GM.

##### Therapy:

Actively talking for 2 hours or longer with somebody friendly can relieve stress. Roll for Intelligence, with DL dependent on the Intelligence of the interlocutor. If a conversation revolves around a specific science, philosophy, etc. ability related to it can be used. Every success is -1 stress, every fail +2 stress.

### Stress relief activities.

Each relieves up to 20 stress per week spent on it depending on the quality of care. Average 8 stress relief per week. If something should relieve stress in your setting but is not matched with the list below, use a new

##### Brothel:

Low quality brothels 5 stress relief per week, high quality even 20 per week. Risk of obtaining an STD based on quality (10% - 40%), losing some of the money (5% - 30%) or falling in love (5% - 20%). In the case of the latter, character will gain 2 times more stress relief with the particular whore, but will relieve up to half or less stress relief through other stress relief activities.

##### Drinking:

Low quality bar 8 stress relief per week, high quality 12 per week. Risk of losing some money or being beaten up based on bar quality (10% - 70%) per week. After each weak, roll for Will. On success, next roll is with one DL higher. Failed save causes addiction to alcohol, resulting in 2 times higher stress relief when drinking and half or less through other stress relief activities.

##### Gambling:

Roll a 100 die. For every 10 below 40, gain 3 stress. For every 10 above 50, lose 6 stress. For each weak of stress relief when gambling, roll for Will. On success, next roll is with one DL higher. Failed save causes addiction to gambling, resulting in 2 times higher stress relief when gambling (-12 per success, +6 per fail) and half or less through other stress relief activities.

##### Prayer, Meditation:

Roll for Will + meditation. Each success is -4 stress. Each fail is +2 stress. Prayer requires the character to be religious. Stress relief by praying turns religious characters deeply religious.

##### Medical / Psychiatrical help:

A week of professional care relieves between 10 to 30 stress, based on the quality of care.