Splatbook*

CONVALESCE

When you rest for a few days in safety and comfort, set your HP back to your max and clear all your debilities. When you rest for a few weeks under the care of a healer, you heal any problematic wounds that can heal. If you have suffered a permanent injury or impairment, either retire or Make a Plan to adapt to it.

This move lets the PCs "reset" between expeditions. It's an opportunity to let time pass and have the seasons change. It's also a great time to ask questions and use your homefront moves.

Convalescing will heal most wounds, but it can't regrow lost limbs or repair a shattered knee. The character can either retire or Make a Plan and adapt.

If a PC retires, the player stops actively playing them. The character has lost the edge and nerve that makes them a PC. The player should make a new character, and the retired character becomes an NPC.

If the player wants their PC to adapt, then use the Make a Plan move (page 530) to clarify their goal and what's required to reach it. This might involve something extraordinary (like getting a clockwork hand from the Ustrina) but usually it's a matter of ingenuity, practice, and grit.

Don't make the requirements unduly hard. Your job is to be a fan of the player characters and punctuate their lives with adventure. It is not to penalize them for getting hurt. You want to see these tough, determined, resourceful characters adapt to their setbacks. Give them a path to recovery and see how they handle it.

Rhianna lost her right arm at Three Coven Lake (and she got off easy; Andras didn't make it home at all). Some quick thinking saved her life, but she's unsure how she'll be an effective warrior and archer. She's not about to retire, though.

So, we Make a Plan. "What do you hope to accomplish? Are you looking to replace or regrow the arm through magic? Or learn to shoot one-handed?" Rhianna's practical to a fault, and doesn't even consider a magical option. I look at the list of possible requirements, and write down:

  • O You must design and make some prosthetic or device for drawing & releasing a bow one-handed
  • O You must learn to use the device
  • O It'll take months of practice

We decide that a leather mouth-bit attached to the bowstring would let her pull and release. It's a simple thing to make with help from Sawyl the tanner.

Later, I frame a scene with Rhianna practicing her new setup. I ask what it looks like, what she's struggling with. Then Andras's mom comes by and thanks Rhianna for taking him under her wing, saying how proud she was to have Andras protecting the village. Rhianna's left feeling all sorts of bitter over losing him in search of Vahid's damn fire-jewel.

Autumn comes before Rhianna's had the months of practice she needs, and the PCs end up hunting a dark presence that's been stalking the Wood. "For now," I say, "your bow will have the reload tag and you'll Let Fly with disadvantage. But once you get another month of practice, you'll shoot and Let Fly without penalty."