Each PC beings an event in full physical health. A character that was dead at the end of the last event she was played at will be already raised at sign-in, and the character card will be marked appropriately.

Body Points

Body points (BP) represent the amount of damage your body can withstand before falling unconscious. Body points not only represent physical stamina but also a characters willpower and defensive battle skill. A character with many body points may look relatively small but can take a great deal of pain and damage before falling unconscious. A character starts off with number of body points depending upon what race the character is. Humans have a base of four body points while Ogres have a base of nine body points. BPs can then be purchased in the separate profession lists. Warriors purchase body points at a rate of 1 build for 3 BP. Mages purchase body at a rate of 1 build for 1 body point. Each profession has a maximum amount of build that can be spent purchasing body points each level. Warriors can purchase three build worth per level, while mages can only purchase two.

Stages of Health & Dying

There are eight general conditions of health in Knight Realms – Healthy, Wounded, Injured, Unconscious, Poisoned, Diseased, Serious, and Critical. It is common for a character to be in more than one condition at a time. For example, a character who is at half of her Body Point total and who has a broken leg is both Wounded and Injured. Each condition is defined in detail below.

The following conditions are health-related, and can be detected on another character by using the skill First Aid:

Healthy

Wounded

Injured

Serious

Critical

Unconscious

Poisoned

Diseased

The character is suffering from a disease. A disease must be cured before its effects can be healed.

The following are conditions that are not directly health related (i.e - a character may be Healthy, but can still be affected by one of these conditions), but affect the character's ability to act.

Blinded

The character cannot see and cannot use any skills or abilities other than those that target herself, are delivered by touch, or are latent defenses.  A blinded character cannot move faster than a heel-to-toe rate and cannot use movement skills. While playing a character that is blinded, you should keep your eyes open to ensure safe game play.

Deaf

The character is deaf and cannot hear anything.  A deaf character cannot cast any effects that require verbals or singing.

Mute

The character is mute and cannot speak or make any kind of sound using her vocal chords.  A mute character cannot cast any effects that require verbals or singing.

Paralyzed

The character cannot move at all. A character that is paralyzed is vulnerable to a Killing Blow.

Stunned

The character cannot take any action whatsoever.

Dazed

The character cannot take any offensive combat action.

Knocked Prone

The character falls to the ground and cannot stand for five seconds.

Pinned

One or more of the character’s limbs are pinned to the ground or another surface and cannot be moved. The character can escape from the pin before the duration of the effect has expired if she possesses Strength +2 or greater, but suffers five points of Direct Body damage as a result.

Held

The character cannot move her limbs but is otherwise interactive with her surroundings. A character that is held is vulnerable to normal attack but not a Killing Blow.

Immobilized

The character cannot move, speak, or even think. The character is unaware of her surroundings and possesses no memory of the time spent in this condition.  She is impervious to harm, help or alteration that does not first remove this condition.  A character must possess Strength +6 or greater to be able to move a normal humanoid that is immobilized.

Playing an unconcious or dying character

If you become unconscious, or enter Serious or Critical state of health, you should role-play collapsing and lying down motionless. If the area is muddy or otherwise undesirable to lie down on, you may kneel with your head resting on your knee and your eyes closed. It should be very clear to anyone looking at you that you are “playing dead”. When you are unconscious, you should keep out of game conversation to a minimum. If someone asks “what do I see?” you may tell them that they see you lying on the ground, and that you may appear injured, but you may not reveal any game mechanical information (such as that you are in Critical health) without someone using a skill to inspect you.

Physical Defects and Scars

In the world of Knight Realms, all damage/physical defects are healable, except when the body's "natural" form is altered through some means and thus creates an exception. The following means may create an unhealable wound or effect:

1. The defect/scar/disability was caused at birth. This creates a situation were the natural form is not typical, thus producing a birth mark/defect/scar/disability. Regardless of magical, divine, or alchemical healing, the normal form can not be altered and the mark is permanent, although it may be altered by surgery or other non-magical, physical means.
2. The Defect/scar/disability was left unhealed for a duration of at least three months time. Hence, the wound was allowed to heal on its own and permanently altered the normal sturcture of the body, and can not be healed by any magical, alchemical, or divine means. This is for role-play purposes, and is always voluntary for the player. It is to represent a player who decides to suffer from a defect/scar/disability to increase the depth and background of his character.
3. The defect/scar/disbility was given through specific ritual either Magical or Divine in nature and was made permanent. These are currently no known means to do this in-game, however the right is reserved to introduce them. Physical healing such as surgery or dissection can NOT change this, nor will normal magical, divine, or alchemical healing - the effect that caused the disability must be undone before it can be healed.

Passing On

When a character dies, the body stays where it is and the soul is drawn directly to the bright light of the healer’s circle or a nearby healer or priest, or towards the Grand Nexus.  Upon reaching the end of the Critical stage of health, put on a blue headband to signify that you are dead (and playing your spirit), and drop all your in-game possessions to signify your body still being there. All possessions carried on the body remain at the site of death. You may now seek out a means of resurrection.

Resurrection

If a spirit seeks to return to the Prime Material plane, it must first locate a healer or priest that is attuned to an active focus. A healer or priest who is approached by a spirit becomes aware that a spirit is nearby and that the spirit desires to resurrect. The person will be unable to see the spirit in any form, but will continue to perceive if the spirit is following him or her. If the person uses an ability that allows her to enter or see into the Spirit Realm, then she will see the spirit as that spirit appears in the Spirit Realm.

To begin resurrection, the healer or pries must guide the spirit to the focus that she is attuned to, and she must then enter that focus and pass into the Nexus. The spirit - with the help of the healer or priest - must then pass through three veils (Creaton, Union, Conviction) before she can enter the Nexus with the healer or priest, and then reenter the Prime Material plane. This process takes at least fifteen minutes to complete.

Each character can be resurrected a maximum of four times. After the character dies for the fifth time they are permanently dead and may not return to the realm of the living.

When a PC is resurrected by any means, they return with all Body Points and at full health (no broken or missing limbs, etc.). Tag Skills, Magic Points, or other periodic abilities and points are neither lost nor restored (i.e., the PC returns with what they had available to them at the time of their death). Any enchantments, items, or other enhancements remain with the original body and do not automatically carry over to the PC's new body, unless specifically stated in the enchantment's/item's description.

The Healing Nexus

A Healing Nexus is a point where multiple healing lay-lines converge and create an area of concentrated healing energy. This energy is a gentle current of power drawn from the Positive Energy plane, and which resides just outside the Prime Material plane of Arawyn. A Nexus is an infrequent, though regular feature of the world; a Nexus can generally be found within any given one hundred-mile radius on the surface of Arawyn. A healer can detect the presence of any Nexus within one mile of her, and with ten minutes of undisturbed concentration can pinpoint the exact location of it. Since a Nexus exists outside the Prime Material plane, however, it serves no purpose without some way of accessing it on its own plane; that way is called a Healing Focus.

The Healing Focus

A Healing Focus is an item that resembles a large diamond, and serves as a connecting point between the Prime Material plane and the Spirit Realm by tapping into the healing energy contained within a Nexus. To serve any purpose whatsoever, a focus must be placed within ten feet of where a Nexus resides, just outside the Prime Material plane. Only one focus can be bound to a Nexus at any time.

A focus is created by White Sorcery, and at the beginning of its existence, the Warden of the focus is the sorcerer that created it.  The Warden controls who can be attuned to the focus, and has the ability to break someone’s attunement as well.

Healers or priests can become attuned to a focus, and are the only people aside from the creator of the focus who can become its Warden. To become attuned to a focus, a healer or priest must receive the permission of the Warden, who must spend five minutes concentrating on the focus to prepare it. Next, a healer must imbue one permanent Healing Point to the focus, or a priest must imbue one permanent Faith Points to the focus. The healer or priest must expend the points and spend five minutes concentrating on attuning to the focus. If a healer or priest attempts to attune to a focus that has not been prepared for her, then the attempt will fail right at the outset, and no points are expended. Once a healer or priest is attuned to a focus, she can utilize it to cross into the Spirit Realm and perform resurrections.

The Warden of a focus can break the attunement of another healer or priest by expending permanent Magic, Healing, or Faith points equal to the total number of points contributed by the healer or priest whose attunement is being broken, and by concentrating on the focus for five minutes.  The points that are expended towards breaking an attunement are not added to the cumulative total for that focus. They simply replace the points that were already there, and the energy of the previous points is lost. To change the Warden of a focus, the current Warden must spend five minutes concentrating on the focus with the healer or priest who is to become the new Warden.

If the Warden of a focus has no contact with that focus for a duration of six consecutive months, she ceases to be the Warden. Warden status is automatically passed to the person who currently has the most permanent points imbued into the focus. The previous Warden remains attuned to the focus and with her points invested, but she cannot reclaim her status unless the current Warden willingly transfers it to her, as described previously.

Healers and priests can imbue more than the minimum number of Healing Points or Faith Points to a focus. These contributions are responsible for a process called Focus “Evolution”, whereby a focus gains new properties and becomes a stronger force in the world.

Rank I Focus

This focus possesses fewer than one hundred permanent Healing Points and Faith Points combined. It must be charged every twenty-four hours to remain actively connected to the Nexus. When disconnected, the focus can be moved about freely, but once connected to the Nexus, the focus cannot be relocated any further than ten feet from the position of the Nexus. To charge the focus, one or more healers or priests attuned to it must expend five periodic Healing Points or fifteen periodic Faith Points, or an equitable combination of the two. For each point that a healer or priest expends to charge the focus, she must spend one minute concentrating on the focus. A normal shattering or blasting attack will destroy a focus of this rank.

Rank II Focus

This focus possesses at least one hundred but not more one hundred ninety nine permanent Healing Points and Faith Points combined. It is permanently affixed to the Nexus, and cannot be moved under any circumstances. The focus never needs to be charged, and cannot be destroyed by shattering or blasting attacks.

Rank III Focus

This focus possesses at least two hundred but not more than three hundred ninety nine permanent Healing Points and Faith Points combined. It has all the qualities of a Rank 2 focus, and additionally produces a circle of healing power in a ten-foot radius around itself. All healing abilities or prayers cast - by healers or priests attuned to the focus - within this circle are performed at one half the normal cost.

Rank IV Focus

This focus possesses at least four hundred permanent Healing Points and Faith Points combined. It has all the qualities of a Rank 3 focus, and additionally is surrounded by a circular positive energy barrier with a ten-foot radius. Anyone attuned to the focus can raise or lower the circle of protection; in the event on conflicting wills, the Warden’s desire reigns supreme, with other conflicts resolved based upon whom has the most permanent points imbued into it – taking the one-to-three ratio between Healing Points and Faith Points into consideration. The circle is impenetrable to anything other than air and sound, and in true geometric terms is a hemisphere with its planar surface along the ground. The circle can remain raised indefinitely.

It is possible that by investing a far greater number of Healing and Points and Faith Points into a focus that it could evolve beyond the four ranks described here. However, no such focus has ever been documented, and the benefits it might provide are entirely unknown.

The Spirit Realm

The Spirit Realm is in many respects a mirror image of the Prime Material plane, except that all things within the Spirit Realm have a mild, blue, luminous quality to them. As spirits cannot normally be seen from within the Prime Material plane, living beings cannot normally be seen from within the Spirit Realm – with the exception of healers and priests that are attuned to an active focus, who can be perceived as white balls of brightly glowing light.

When a person dies, her spirit rises from the body, lingers around it for a few moments, and then passes from the Prime Material plane to the Spirit Realm. Within the Spirit Realm, each spirit appears to herself and other spirits as she did in life, but absent weapons, armor, or other items – aside from clothing and any items that are attuned to her. Spirits can interact in all ways as they could as persons in the Prime Material plane, speaking to one another and even attempting to kill one another. A spirit that is killed within the Spirit Realm dissipates and reforms twenty-four hours later.

A spirit within the Spirit Realm may feel one of two profound impulses, or may feel nothing at all. The first impulse a spirit may feel is the desire to seek out a healer or priest and secure her return to the Prime Material plane. The second impulse a spirit may feel is the desire to travel towards the ever-present glow of the Grand Nexus, where each spirit will be drawn into the Umbra to face her final judgment.

Only a bold and determined few spirits ever return to live again in the Prime Material plane. For those that do, each time that a spirit enters the Spirit Realm after dying in the Prime Material plane, the impulse to return lessens, and the impulse to travel to the Grand Nexus increases. No mortal spirit can pass through a Nexus and resurrect more than four times, and most never resurrect at all.

Some spirits are never powerfully drawn in either direction, and wander the Spirit Realm forever. To remain long in the Spirit Realm is to risk calamity, however, for the god Malyc has servants – known as Spirit Harvesters – that dwell there, capturing spirits and delivering them to Malyc before they can receive their final judgments. The god Galladell presides over the Spirit Realm, and his servants endeavor to guide each spirit to its proper terminus – to resurrect or to receive judgment - according to their god’s wisdom.

Returning to the Material Plane

If a spirit seeks to return to the Prime Material plane, it must first locate a healer or priest that is attuned to an active focus. A healer or priest who is approached by a spirit becomes aware that a spirit is nearby and that the spirit desires to resurrect. The person will be unable to see the spirit in any form, but will continue to perceive if the spirit is following him or her. If the person uses an ability that allows her to enter or see into the Spirit Realm, then she will see the spirit as that spirit appears in the Spirit Realm.

To begin resurrection, the healer or priest must guide the spirit to the focus that she is attuned to, and she must then enter that focus and pass into the Nexus. The spirit - with the help of the healer or priest - must then pass through three veils before she can enter the Nexus with the healer or priest, and then reenter the Prime Material plane.

The Veil of Creation

To pass through the Veil of Creation, the spirit must describe hers body in life to the healer or priest. This description must be true to the spirit’s perception of herself. It is this important facet of the Veil of Creation that is responsible for people who are resurrected still bearing scars, injuries, or infirmities that they possessed in their previous lives – for it is how these people perceive themselves in completeness. The healer or priest will weave together strands of healing energy from within the Nexus to produce a new body that matches the description she is given. The new body is completed after five minutes of work, and if it is accepted by the spirit as herself, then the spirit passes through the Veil of Creation.  At the moment the new body is created, the spirit's current body crumbles into dust, regardless of what state it is in.

The Veil of Union

To pass through the Veil of Union, the spirit must plead her true association to the body before the Nexus. The spirit must describe some of her life’s experiences, her hopes and ambitions, and her personal relationships. After five minutes, the Nexus will either accept the spirit as the true inhabitant of the body that lies within it, or reject the spirit as an interloper, and disperse it for twenty-four hours – ending the resurrection process. If the spirit is accepted, then she passes through the Veil of Union.

The Veil of Conviction

To pass through the Veil of Conviction, the spirit must enter the body and rise as a living being, standing upon the threshold between the Spirit Realm and the Prime Material plane. The spirit must prove the strength of its conviction to return to the Prime Material plane and live again, by speaking of its reasons for returning – from unfulfilled obligations to lost loves. After five minutes, the Nexus will either yield, permitting the spirit to enter the Prime Material plane in its new body, or it will obliterate the body and disperse the spirit for twenty-four hours – ending the resurrection process. If the Nexus yields, then the spirit passes through the Veil of Conviction and enters the Prime Material plane anew.

A character that reenters the Prime Material plane after being resurrected is restored to her maximum Body Points, and with all injuries and ailments healed – excepting those that the spirit may have described as integral to herself before the Veil of Creation. She wears clothing that is the same that she wore when she died, and bears with her any attuned items. Spells, prayers, or other abilities that were cast upon her, actively or latent, at the time of her death are gone. Whatever skills and career points she had remaining at the time of her death are what she has upon completing her resurrection.

Final Death/Retirement

There are two ways a PC leaves the game for good.  Either the PC dies when they have no resurrections left and therefor suffers final death, or the player chooses to retire the character before final death is reached. A player may choose to retire at anytime after the PC's second event.  Whether the PC suffers final death or when the PC is retired the player receives a portion of their total build back and a portion of their total wealth, to include banked money, coin turned in, and the value of any itesm turned in.

Final Death Build

• A player receives 10% of the total build earned by that character to invest in a new PC.
• Final Death Build may not be spent at character creation on the new PC

Retirement Build

• The percentage of build the player receives for retiring their PC is based upon the number of resurrections that the departing character has taken:
  • 0-1 Resurrections = 30%
  • 2-3 Resurrections = 25%
  • 4 Resurrections  =20%
• A player may not retire a PC into an already existing PC.
• A player may not retire multiple PCs into a single new PC, unless the additional build total earned will be less than 50.
• When a player retires a PC, she can choose to have the PC die in some kind of glorious, tragic, or whatever, finale, or you can choose to have the character continue living, at which point the character can only ever appear at the discretion of the Director.  In either case, the exact outcome must be approved by the Director.

Retirement Wealth

• The formula for determining the amount of carry over wealth has two parts - establishing the eligible amount and determining the percentage accordingly.  To establish the eligible amount, the PC's bank value will be multiplied by 1.1 (giving it a 10% bonus), and will be added toany coin that you turn in plus the coin value of any items that you turn in.
• That subtotal will then be multiplied by a percentage as follows:
  • Less Than or Equal to 100gp = 5%
  • Less Than or Equal to 500gp = 10%
  • Less Than or Equal to 750gp = 15%
  • Greater Than 750gp = 20%
• The total amount of retirement wealth you receive will then be available for the player to spend on normal equipment and non-magical items at character creation.
• In addition, a PC's whose retirement wealth is greater than 100gp will be allowed to purchase one magic item, to be designed using PC rituals and costs provided by the Sorcery Higher List.
• The remainder of the unspent wealth will be placed into the new character's bank or, a the ability of logistics to practically accomodate you, given as coin.