Adventures in wild spaces, encounters with perilous physical conditions, conflicts with creatures and combatants, or simply stumbling and succumbing to gravity-these and many other experiences may lead to an adventurer acquiring damage. According to the Augur’s Path, damage is the quantified value of peril that a dangerous encounter will impart upon a character or characters within the scenario. A setting will have specific rules for what elements of the game present quantifiable damage. And within the Path, when there is quantifiable damage to a character, that character follows the core system rules for mitigating or sustaining damage.

Any unavoidable damage a character sustains is recorded as injury. Injury can be mitigated with protection (see Protection and Mitigation), but injury will accrue whenever damage cannot be avoided or mitigated. A character’s injuries not only impact movement and actions (see Altered States), they must remain with a character until they slowly heal over time. A character’s natural healing rate will be outlined specifically within a setting, and may be boosted or altered depending on the setting. 

Before the healing process can begin to take its course, new injuries must be bandaged or treated. A wound that goes unbandaged or untreated for more than 4 turns will worsen, meaning that at the start of the third turn with an untreated injury, the character receives +2 additional injury points. A worsening injury will continue to compound every additional 2 turns for a maximum of +6 injury points as a result of the untreated injury.

Additionally, the narrator will request that the player makes an Infection (END) resistance test whenever an injury worsens. As such, it is in any adventurer’s best interest to bandage or treat their injuries as quickly as possible, even if they are engaged in combat. A failed Infection (END) resistance test means the character has an infection from the wound. Infected injuries cannot heal until the infection abates . An infection may pass on its own; after 2 cycles with an infection, the narrator should instruct the player to make another Infection (END) resistance at a +2 difficulty. Success means the infection passed on its own. A failed test here means that the wound will fester. A festering wound will not heal and the injury will continue to compound by +1 injury per cycle until treated by a professional (or until the character’s death).

Bandaging and treating an injury entails cleaning and closing any open wounds, rubbing bruises, setting broken bones, and using healing kits as well as other miscellany to promote healing and guard against infection. Each setting will specify ways to soothe and treat injury that cooperate with the Path’s alleviation of injury.

A character can only sustain injury points up to the value of their capacity, as calculated for their readiness score. For example, an adventurer with a capacity readiness score of 24 can only accumulate up to 24 points of injury. Any accumulated injury exceeding the character’s capacity (in the case of this example, 25 or more injury points) will cause the character to become incapacitated. An incapacitated character falls to the ground, cannot move or act, and effectively has no avoidance or poise. The incapacitated character will drift into unconsciousness 2 turns after the moment of their incapacitation, unless they receive effective treatment that can reduce their injury points below their capacity score. Incapacitated characters who drift into unconsciousness can still be treated for their injuries, but if their injury points cannot be reduced below their capacity value, they will die within 6 turns. Additionally, if an incapacitated character’s injuries are left to worsen (left untreated), they will drift unconscious within 2 turns, and then worsen and die within 6 additional turns.

Any incapacitated character who sustains additional injury from an attack or a similar source will instantly be killed. This is known among combatants as a finishing blow, and it is considered a highly dishonorable move. Trained combatants know that an honorable fighter will rarely if ever deal a finishing blow to an opponent; to incapacitate one’s opponent is more than enough to achieve victory on the field.