When the players fail a skill challenge and face mortal peril, all of the players excepting the one who rolled the highest on their skill check in the skill challenge roll a d6 to determine what sort of injury they receive. At the GM’s discretion, failing a skill check might also lead to a player facing mortal peril.

When facing mortal peril, the number you roll determines what sort of injury you receive:

1. Fitness Injury 

2. Dexterity Injury

3. Charisma Injury

4. Learning Injury

5. Awareness Injury 

6. Death

If the players roll 1-5, they gain an injury to the associated attribute. This gives them a -2 penalty to skill checks using that attribute until the injury is cleared (all injuries are cleared on refresh). Players & GM should work together to determine what exactly the nature of the injury is in the narrative - an injury to learning might be a terrible blow to the head, an injury to charisma might be a broken jaw. If the player rolls a 6, or they would gain an injury in an attribute but are already injured in that attribute, they may choose one of the following: (1) they are dying, or (2) they are marked-for-death. If they are already marked for death, they cannot choose the second option.

Dying is a special kind of injury which does not impose a penalty to skill checks. When a character is dying, they cannot act or participate in further skill challenges, and if their condition is not stabilized (perhaps by some kind of medicine related skill check) within 10 minutes, flip a coin. On tails, the character is dead. On heads, they recover and are ready to move after one hour of rest, and are marked-for-death. If their condition is stabilized, they recover and are ready to move after one hour of rest.

Marked-for-death is a special kind of injury which does not impose a penalty to skill checks. When a character is marked for death, they cannot lose the injury by any means, cannot refresh, and cannot re-gain adventure points by any means (including by refreshing). Whenever they fail a skill check, or another nearby character fails a skill check, or they fail a skill challenge, they may choose to add +10 to the roll (or the roll of each character involved, in the case of a skill challenge) by heroically sacrificing themself, dying in the attempt. At the GM’s discretion, instead of adding +10, the heroic sacrifice results in an automatic success.

SPENDING AN ADVENTURE POINT - You may spend 1 adventure point to re-roll your roll on the injury table and get a new result, once per roll.

Facing mortal peril does not mean that the players are out of danger. Indeed in the context of a fight, the things attacking them will likely continue, necessitating another skill challenge of some kind immediately either to fight off the attackers or to escape them.