Gaddr GamesStaying alive
Health, stamina and mana; hunger, thirst and warmth; sleep, afflictions, spoiling food, and what happens when you fall.
The vitals
The HUD shows your vitals in gilt grooves, each with a trail of what was just lost.
| Vital | Starts at | Grows by |
|---|---|---|
| Health | 100 | 9 a level, the wheel’s maximum health, and 2 for each point of constitution |
| Stamina | 100 | 4 a level and the wheel’s maximum stamina |
| Mana | 50 | 6 a level and the wheel’s and gear’s maximum mana |
| Hunger | 0 to 100 | food |
| Thirst | 0 to 100 | drink |
Running, dodging, guarding, swinging and weapon arts spend stamina, which returns when you rest from them. Health returns slowly on its own (0.6 a second) as long as hunger and thirst are both above 25; the wheel’s health per second adds to it. Spells spend mana, which flows back once you hold off casting for a moment: 2.5 a second plus a little more each level, faster with mana recovery.
Hunger and thirst
Hunger and thirst fall by the world’s clock, not by real time: about two good meals and a few drinks a world day, however long you set the day to be. That keeps what the fields give and what a body eats in step at any day length.
- Hunger falls by 50 a day and thirst by 72 (faster in heat: see below).
- Above 25 in both, health regenerates. At zero in either, you lose half a point of health a second until you eat or drink.
- Food and drink restore hunger and thirst by their own amounts; the Artisan’s food potency makes food go further. Some dishes and drinks also lay a buff for a while.
- Food gone bad turns the stomach (it makes you sick).
Warmth
The air temperature follows the local climate, the season, the hour and your height above the sea. What you feel is that air plus:
- Fires within six metres: a campfire, a kitchen hearth or oven, and hotter still a forge, bloomery, kiln or glass furnace, falling off with distance.
- Clothing: your everyday tunic, a hood and a cloak keep some chill off, and every worn piece adds its own warmth.
- Exertion: moving briskly warms you.
- Weather, out from under a roof: wind chill, and being soaked by rain (worse, by sleet or snow). Swimming chills you badly.
- Cold resistance from the wheel and gear narrows the gap below comfort.
Comfort runs from 6 °C to 26 °C felt. Below it your stamina comes back slowly (down to under half its pace in deep cold), and the feed warns you. Below −4 °C felt the cold harms you, more the colder it is, until you find a fire, warmer clothes or shelter. Above 26 °C you grow thirsty faster.
Sleep
Sleeping in a bed (an inn’s rented room, or a bed in your own house) carries the clock on to morning and wakes you rested, with health, stamina and mana full. Hunger and thirst fall over the hours you sleep, but never below 5. Innkeepers let rooms; talk to them.
Afflictions
Some harm leaves something behind. Each shows on the HUD and passes of itself in time, or can be cured.
| Affliction | What it does | Comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Poisoned | Venom eats at your health | Venomous bites, poison spells and arrows |
| Burning | Flames eat at your health | Fire, fire spells, pitch |
| Chilled | A deathly chill slows your limbs | Frost |
| Cursed | The mana will not come | Curses of the dead and the Sidhe |
| Sick | Your stomach turns over | Bad food, too many potions too fast |
Resistances from the wheel and gear (fire, frost, lightning, poison, curse) cut both the blow and what it leaves. Potions, poultices and some dishes cure afflictions; priests heal. See Crafting, alchemy.
Toxicity. Every potion is hard on the body in its own measure. Its toxicity builds in your blood and ebbs away slowly (about half a point a second). Past 100 you sicken until it ebbs. Constitution lessens how much each potion adds.
Food that keeps, and food that spoils
Food carries its freshness. It keeps or spoils by where it is stored and the season: carried in the pack, in a chest under a roof, in a larder, in a granary (best for grain), or in a cellar dug into the ground. When a stack’s freshness runs out it turns to rot (a jar or phial gives back the empty vessel). Stacking fresh food with stale takes the average. Keeping times follow the world’s season length like the harvests do, so a granary’s grain sees a winter through at any season length. Rats and mice come to stores no cat or terrier keeps down.
Potions fade too: light gets at a tincture in clear glass, amber or cobalt glass keeps it longer, and milk glass longest.
Falls, drowning and the weather
Falls harm by how far you drop (the Wanderer’s fall damage reduction softens them). Hail falls as real stones: pea hail does nothing, marbles sting a bare head, and the biggest stones can kill; a helm keeps most of it off. Lightning finds whatever stands exposed on high ground in a thunderstorm. See The Isles.
When you fall
At zero health you fall. The screen offers two choices:
- Rise at your landing: you get up where you came ashore, with half your health and full stamina, and keep what you carried.
- Leave for the title.
Old age is different: everyone ages with the world’s years, and when yours run out your named heir takes up your line. See Fame, rank, home and family.
Written from the game's source and content as of commit 02e81b2 (2026-11-01).