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

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.

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 Near 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.

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.