Downed and bleeding out

Downed

An exile who drops to zero HP is downed, not dead. A downed exile can't act, sees nothing and steadies nobody, and the enemy ignores them. They still hold their tile. Every standing mate who sees the fall rolls for panic.

Enemies die at zero HP.

Bleeding out

A downed exile bleeds out and dies after 2 squad turns. If they fall during the squad's own turn, that turn doesn't count, so the squad always gets 2 whole turns to reach them. A splint from the workshop buys one more turn, once per fall.

Getting them up

Only two things bring a downed exile back to their feet in a normal fight:

• Mend, at touch, brings them up with Mend's heal of 4 HP. A Mender short of Will can still do it (see Will).
• Field Dressing, from an exile with Medicine 3 or more, at touch, brings them up with 2 HP.

A revived exile acts again from the next squad turn. Dressing kits, poultices and Rift med-kits heal, but they never get a downed mate up. A Mender at Zenith on the reach branch can learn Second Life, which raises every downed mate within 3 tiles at 3 HP. Hold Fast stops a mate going down in the first place, once.

The end of a mission

• Won: every downed exile is carried out alive at 1 HP.
• Lost: the mission is lost when no exile is left standing, and the downed die where they lie.

Wounds

An exile carried out downed is wounded for 2 weeks. They still work at camp, but they deploy at 1 less HP until it heals. Each week heals one week of it. A staffed infirmary heals 1 more, and one more again if its carer has Medicine 3 or better. See facilities.