Death Side Pool

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Death Side Pool

Many speak of the forces of life and death, an all-encompassing duality in constant flux. However, life and death do not work like as a scale, tipping one way and then the other, and death is not the state of rest that many think it is. When there is a death life is not restored to another instantaneously, and when something is brought into life, death is not the instant result. There is some inefficiency in that translation, a vacuum that is formed whenever something crosses the barrier of life into death or from death into life. This lack of balance is known as death side.

A certain few can transport this power and wield it. They are the agents of balance, the travelers of the middle road. Often they persist as a force, an entity neither living nor dead. It has been said that mortals who have experienced great amounts of translation between the sides (such as emergency surgeons or battlefield medics) can occasionally wield this power as well. Be warned, though, for the true rest calls to all, even those who carry the space between, the death side.

System Information: 

Death side has a permanent and temporary rating. The player's permanent death side rating is equal to their number of health levels.

In order to regain death side, the player must be near (within 30 ft) of something crossing the barrier between life and death. Examples of this crossing include death, birth, and (very rarely) true necromantic revival. When an event like this occurs within his range, Bernard must roll a dice with success granting him a temporary point of death side. The difficulty of this roll is 9 for animals, 5 for humans, and the gain is automatic for awakened creatures or supernatural beings. Through this method, death side can be raised above the permanent rating. The temporary death side pool is set equal to the permanent score when Bernard becomes incapacitated.

Death side temporary points can be spent on abilities or to auto-soak one damage of any kind.

If the temporary rating of death side exceeds the permanent one, the wielder takes the difference in aggravated unsoakable damage each turn. For example, in one turn you kill three people while you have full Death Side. After your rolls you are two points over. At the beginning of next turn you would take two aggravated unsoakable damage, and this will continue until those overflow points were spent.

Having less then one death side will harm those around you causing an aggravated non physical damage as the pool desperately tries to re assert itself. Each point of damage done in this way is returned as temporary Death Side points. Ex. Bernard, Pulse, and Dorian are fighting back to back. Bernard drops down to zero Death side after making a decoy. The next turn Pulse and Dorian both take one aggravated non physical damage. Dorian has the chance to roll his counter magic to protect himself. Dorian succeeds but Pulse takes full damage. This returns one Death Side to Bernard putting him at 1 point once again.