Health Chart/Torpor and Final Death

The Health chart on the character sheet helps you track your character's current physical condition. It also lists the penalty imposed on your dice pool for each level of injury that your character sustains. As your character suffers more injuries, her health declines until she becomes incapacitated - or dead.

Every character has seven health levels, ranging from Bruised to Incapacitated. Characters can also be in full health (with no health levels checked off), in torpor, or dead. When an attacker scores a success on a damage roll, your character takes one health level of damage. This is marked on your character sheet in the appropriate box, although the mark you make depends on the type of damage inflicted (see "Applying Damage," below).
The number to the left of the lowest marked box indicates your current dice penalty. As your character gets more and more battered, it's increasingly difficult for him to perform even the simplest of tasks. The dice penalty is subtracted from your dice pool for every action (not reflexives such as soak) until the wound heals. The penalty also indicates impaired movement. For convenience, we reprint the Health chart from Chapter Three.


Health Level Dice Pool Penalty Movement Penalty
Bruised Character is only bruised a bit and suffers no dice pool penalties due to damage.

*Hurt -1 Character is superficially hurt and suffers no movement hindrance.

*Injured -1 Character suffers minor injuries and movement is mildly inhibited, (halve maximum
running speedy).

*Wounded -2 Character suffers significant damage and may not run (though he may still walk). At
this level, a character may not move, then attack; he always loses dice when moving and attacking in the same turn.

*Mauled -2 Character is badly injured and may only hobble about (three yards/turn).

*Crippled -5 Character is catastrophically injured and may only crawl (one yard/turn).

*Incapacitated Character is incapable of movement and is likely unconscious. Incapacitated vampires
with no blood in their bodies enter torpor.

*Torpor Character enters a deathlike trance. He may do nothing, not even spend blood, until a
certain period of time has passed.

*Final Death Character dies again, this time forever.


Incapacitated: The stage immediately before torpor, incapacitation differs from unconsciousness in that your character collapses from the combined effects of physical trauma and pain. She falls to the ground and may do nothing except spend blood points to heal damage. Further damage suffered by an incapacitated vampire sends her into torpor or, if the damage is aggravated, inflicts Final Death on her. 2 levels past incapacitated is Torpor or Final death for humans.

Torpor: Torpor is the deathlike sleep common to the undead, particularly among ancient vampires. Torpor may be entered voluntarily (certain undead, weary of the current age, enter torpor in hopes if reawakening in a more hospitable time) or involuntarily (through wounds or loss of blood). Once in torpor, a character remains dormant for a period of time depending on her Humanity rating. As mentioned, characters with zero blood points in their blood pools begin to lose health levels each time the rules call for them to spend blood. When a vampire falls below Incapacitated in this fashion, she enters torpor. There she will remain until someone feeds her at least a blood point. If this happens, she may rise, regardless of Humanity rating. This sort of revivification works only for vampires who enter torpor from blood loss. Vampires who enter torpor due to wounds must rest for a period depending on their Humanity rating:

Humanity Length of Torpor
10 One day
9 Three days
8 One week
7 Two weeks
6 One month
5 One year
4 One decade
3 Five decades
2 One century
1 Five centuries
0 Millennium+

Following this period of rest, the player may spend a blood point and make an Awakening roll for her character to rise. If the vampire has no blood in her body, she may not rise until she is fed; if the player fails the Awakening roll, she may spend another blood point and make an Awakening roll the following night. If the vampire rises successfully, she is considered Crippled and should either spend blood or hunt immediately. A character may enter torpor voluntarily. This state resembles the character's normal daily rest, but is a deeper form of slumber and should not be entered into lightly. A vampire in voluntary torpor may rise after half the mandatory time period for involuntary torpor, but must make an Awakening roll to do so. A torpid vampire may ignore the nightly need for blood;
she is effectively in hibernation. Mortals have no torpor rating; if reduced below Incapacitated, they simply die.

Final Death: If a vampire is at the Incapacitated health level or in torpor and takes one more level of aggravated damage, he dies permanently and finally. A player's character who meets Final Death is out of the game; the player must create a new character if she wishes to continue play.
An incapacitated or torpid vampire may also be sent to Final Death through massive amounts of bashing or lethal trauma (decapitated, trapped under a 10-ton rock, fed into a wood chipper, caught at ground zero of an explosion, crushed by deepsea pressure, etc.). Typically, this damage must be enough to destroy or dismember the corpse beyond repair.