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Conditions

11. Conditions

Conditions represent harm, fear, sickness, debt, and compromise.

Conditions are not tracked on a separate sheet. They are cards that enter your deck and reduce what you can do cleanly.

In this game, “draw” means: a card enters your Ready Hand and becomes Ready. Deck order is not mechanically important.

11.1 What a Condition Is

A Condition is a card that: • occupies readiness • triggers when it becomes Ready • persists until removed by recovery or a rule effect • creates pressure without GM judgment

11.2 When Conditions Trigger

A Condition triggers when it becomes Ready.

Timing is immediate: if a Condition becomes Ready during a Scene for any reason, it triggers immediately.

11.3 Resolving a Condition Trigger

When a Condition triggers:

  1. Read the Condition text
  2. Apply its effect using existing systems: • Tags (Section 6) • Fatigue (Section 10) • Trauma & Scars if specified (Section 12) • Attention or Doom only if the Condition says so (Sections 18–19)
  3. The Condition remains in your Ready Hand unless it says it is discarded

If unclear, resolve via World Arbitration (Section 23).

11.4 Conditions and Readiness

A Condition card in your Ready Hand is still a card.

It may: • be discarded when a rule tells you to discard a Ready card • be discarded to pay costs when a rule allows discarding a Ready card (example: supporting with Action Cards in Section 7.6)

Unless a Condition explicitly says it can be played, it cannot be used as an Action.

11.5 Gaining Conditions

Conditions are gained only when a mechanic creates them, such as: • COST results (Sections 3 and 5) • failure consequences (Section 2 + Scene framing in Section 13) • Exposure (Section 17) • Catastrophes (Section 20) • world procedures (Section 14) and any World Card instructions

When you gain a Condition: • add it to your deck as Unready (Section 7.2) unless the effect explicitly says it becomes Ready immediately.

11.6 Removing Conditions

Conditions are removed only when: • downtime in a Safe Location removes them (Sections 13 and 15) • an explicit card/tag/relic/world effect removes them

Removed Conditions are trashed unless the effect says otherwise.

11.7 Design Intent

Conditions ensure: • harm persists between Scenes • pressure is felt through constrained readiness • recovery is meaningful and scarce • the deck becomes a record of what the world did to you