Hazards (IB)

Starfox's Blades Hack

A compilation of common consequences and hazards.

Harm

This consequence represents long-lasting debility — or death.

Level	Description	Example	Penalty
6+	Disintegrated	Cut to pieces	Instant death
5	Dismembered	Lost leg	Need help within 1 minute
4	Fatal	Macerated leg	Need help within 1 hour
3	Severe	Shattered leg	Need help within 24 hours
2	Moderate	Wounded leg	−1d
1	Lesser	Drained, Battered	Reduced Effect

Further Harm Examples

• Disintegrated (Level 6): Flattened, Cut Into Pieces, Brain Dead.
• Dismembered (Level 5): Lost Limb, Crushed Torso, Coma.
• Fatal (Level 4): Electrocuted, Drowned, Mauled limb, Catatonic.
• Severe (Level 3): Impaled, Broken Leg, Punctured Chest, Badly Burned, Terrified.
• Moderate (Level 2): Exhausted, Deep Cut to Arm, Concussion, Panicked, Seduced.
• Lesser (Level 1): Battered, Drained, Distracted, Scared, Confused.

Harm such as Drained or Exhausted is a good fallback consequence when nothing else is immediately threatening — for example, after spending all night Studying old books in search of a foe’s weakness.

Tracking Harm

When you suffer Harm, record the specific injury on your character sheet at the level of Harm you suffer. See the harm tracker and examples below.

Your character suffers the penalty listed for a row if any Harm recorded in that row applies to the current situation. For example, if you have Tired as Lesser Harm, you suffer reduced Effect when trying to run.

When you are affected by Severe Harm (Level 3) or worse, your character is incapacitated and cannot act unless you receive help from another character or Push yourself to act. You still get the normal benefits of Pushing; desperate action has its rewards.

If you need to mark Harm but the appropriate row is already full, the Harm moves up to the next row:

• If you suffer Moderate Harm but the Level 2 row is full, it becomes Severe Harm.
• If you suffer Harm that must be recorded in the bottom row and there is no space, your character immediately dies.

Harm Track

Level	Harm Boxes		Penalty
5			Need help within 1 minute
4			Need help within 1 hour
3			Need help within 24 hours
2			−1d
1			Reduced Effect

Level 6 harm is not on the character sheet as it is instantly fatal.

Example

This example character has three Harm: Drained and Battered (both Level 1) plus Shattered Right Leg and Head Trauma (both Level 3). If they suffer another Level 1 Harm, it moves up to Level 2. If they suffer another Level 3 Harm, it moves up to Level 4: Fatal. If they suffer Level 1 Harm three times, it will fill both Moderate Harm boxes and a level 4 box, Fatal.

Level	Harm Boxes		Penalty
4			Need help within 1 hour
3	Shattered leg	Head trauma	Need help within 24 hours
2			−1d
1	Drained	Battered	Reduced Effect

First Aid

Harm of level 3 or more requires help to survive. Medbots can handle this automatically, otherwise it requires basic medical kits and training.

Recovering Harm

At the end of an operation, all Harm is reduced by one level of severity. Further recovery is done using the Heal downtime activity. There are also special methods, notably the Philosopher's Medicine ability and the Praxic's Surgeon ability.

Degrav

Degrav is the slow physical degradation caused by prolonged exposure to reduced gravity. It does not occur during missions, but during downtime when a character lacks sustained access to exercise under Terran gravity conditions. Degrav represents muscle loss, bone density reduction, cardiovascular weakening, and impaired balance.

Degrav is resolved at the start of each period (month) of downtime.

Degrav Rolls

When a character resides in reduced gravity, make a Degrav roll based on the environment.

Microgravity Make a Micro roll. 1–5: Take Level 1 Micro Degrav Harm. 6: No Harm.

Lunar Gravity Make a Lunar roll. 1–3: Take Level 1 Lunar Degrav Harm. 4–6: No Harm.

If dissatisfied with the result, you may spend a Downtime Action to reroll.

Degrav Harm

Degrav Harm uses normal Harm boxes and counts as Harm for all purposes. Each instance of Degrav Harm is named after the gravity level that caused it (e.g. Micro, Lunar).

Degrav Harm only imposes penalties when acting in gravity heavier than the environment that caused it: Lunar Harm applies penalties only in Terran gravity. Micro Harm applies penalties in Lunar and Terran gravity.

Even when not imposing penalties, Degrav Harm still occupies Harm slots, increasing vulnerability to other Harm.

Healing Degrav

Degrav Harm can only be healed in an environment with one level higher gravity than the Harm’s origin: Micro Degrav can heal in Lunar or Terran gravity. Lunar Degrav can heal only in Terran gravity.

Permanent Degrav

A character may choose to accept permanent Degrav, becoming adapted to a lower gravity.

When you do so, remove all Degrav Harm of that gravity level and lighter. However: When acting in higher gravity, you suffer Reduced Effect on all Actions. If adapted to Microgravity, you are incapacitated in Terran gravity; you must Push to take any action.

Permanent Degrav can be recovered in a hospital with a 12 tick clock. Recovering from permanent Degrav is staged; characters must adapt upward one gravity band at a time. Adaptation to Lunar gravity uses Lunar rolls in Terran gravity and removes all gravity adaptation. Adaptation to Micro gravity uses Micro rolls in Lunar gravity and changes the adaptation to Lunar. During terapy you still suffer the disadvantage of adaptation but are vulnerable to degrav damage.

Degrav Table

Gravity	Degrav Roll	Harm	Applies In	Incapacitates In	Can Heal	Permanent Recovery In
Terran	—	—	—	—	Any	Lunar
Lunar	Lunar 4–6	Lunar	Micro	—	Micro	Micro
Micro	Micro 6	Micro	Terran, Lunar	Terran	—	—

Radiation

Radiation represents cumulative, invisible harm caused by exposure to charged particles, neutrons, gamma rays, and secondary showers. Unlike Harm, it often manifests late and escalates over time. Radiation is mission-defining and may itself be sufficient opposition in a low-tier mission.

Exposure

Radiation exposure occurs when characters operate:

• Near the Sun, solar flares, or Solar Alchemy remnants.
• In space around gas giants; hazardous zones grow with the planet’s size.
• Around degraded reactor shielding, isotope work, or breached containment.
• Under sustained beam, flare, or particle storm conditions.
• From certain weapons of mass destruction.

Exposure is rated by Intensity (Low, Moderate, Severe) and Duration (Momentary, Prolonged, Chronic). It is usually predictable, though radiation from the Sun gives very little advance warning in Mercury’s orbital zone.

Radiation Intensity Benchmarks

1 tick — Moderate Weak solar storms, degraded reactor shielding, isotope work

2 ticks — Dangerous Strong solar storms, inner Saturn radiation belts, D–D fusion coolant breach

3 ticks — Severe Jovian radiation belts, close major solar flare exposure, D–T fusion coolant breach

5 ticks — Extreme Inner Jovian belts, major solar flare at Mercury perihelion, reactor core breach

8 ticks — Catastrophic Solar Alchemy catastrophe, weaponized radiation (outside primary blast zone)

13 ticks — Apocalyptic Dedalus-scale failures, unsurvivable plot-scale radiation events

Unprotected characters continue to mark radiation ticks as long as the radiation source remains active.

Personal protective gear can reduce radiation by 1 tick; shutters and shielding may reduce ticks by 1 or more. Water is an especially effective barrier to radiation, but any solid, dense mass provides some protection. Radiation shielding has steep diminishing returns: each additional point of tick reduction requires roughly an order of magnitude (ten times) more mass than the last. Thin shielding helps briefly; deep shielding is effective but quickly becomes impractical. Aegis systems operate on the same scale. Personal Aegis shields reduce radiation by 1 tick, while vehicle-mounted systems can reduce up to 3 ticks, roughly equivalent to a meter of water shielding.

Radiation scenes usually involve characters moving from cover to cover. Starting behind a water tank or other solid barrier, characters must leave cover to act — whether fighting, rescuing victims, or salvaging an objective. In such situations, radiation ticks are an additional consequence of each action, sometimes the only consequence. Likewise, vehicles can hide behind asteroids or terrain but must expose themselves in order to act.

When the Radiation Track fills, start a new track with any overflow and keep count of the number of filled clocks (a second 8-tick clock works well). If the third or later clock fills, also apply immediate Level 1 Harm each time a clock is completed; this stacks normally with existing Harm. Typical effects include fatigue, nausea, headaches, bleeding, burns, and confusion.

The more insidious effects are long-term. After the Operation is completed, the target suffers Harm at a level equal to the number of Radiation Clocks filled. This Harm may be resisted using Prowess, reducing its level by 2. High-level radiation damage includes effects such as bone marrow failure, cancer, neurological deterioration, immune system collapse, and genetic damage—often lasting or permanent rather than immediately lethal.

Electronics Degradation

When a character or vehicle has accumulated three or more full Radiation Clocks, all equipment and vehicles is treated as Unreliable while in the irradiated environment.

Resistance

Radiation ticks are Consequences; each may be resisted, reducing the ticks suffered by 2. This is separate from resisting any other Consequences.

Long-term radiation Harm may also be resisted using Prowess, reducing the level of Harm by 2.

Treatment

Radiation damage is reduced in the same way as other damage. A Neme tracks radiation exposure and provides a prognosis, making delayed after-effects visible even when immediate symptoms are mild.