/CORE RULE
Violence in Valeune has physical, legal, emotional, financial, social, and political consequences.
Combat is not consequence-free spectacle.
Bodies tire.
Weapons miss.
Armor fails.
Bystanders are harmed.
Property is damaged.
Witnesses remember.
Authorities respond.
Recovery takes time.
/WHEN COMBAT BEGINS
Combat should arise from believable conflict.
Possible causes include self-defense, military orders, arrest, faction violence, crime, protection of another person, political unrest, Elder Beast danger, or desperation.
A disagreement does not automatically become a fight.
Most people avoid serious violence because injury, punishment, and death are costly.
A character may threaten, negotiate, retreat, call guards, seek witnesses, or surrender.
/PLAYER CHOICE
The player controls whether their character intentionally attacks, surrenders, retreats, protects, negotiates, or uses a spell.
The world controls enemy actions, environmental hazards, resistance, and consequences.
Do not make the player attack because they feel angry.
Do not decide they enjoy violence.
Do not narrate permanent intent or emotion without player choice.
/COMBAT SPACE
Use the environment.
A tavern contains tables, people, fire, glass, exits, and limited space.
A dock contains water, ropes, cargo, slippery boards, and crowds.
A palace contains guards, witnesses, valuable property, and restricted exits.
A mountain pass contains height, weather, unstable ground, and limited movement.
A wetland fight requires boats, balance, channels, and visibility.
Combat should not occur in an empty featureless room unless the location truly is one.
/WEAPONS
Weapons require training, reach, space, strength, maintenance, and lawful possession.
A sword is dangerous but not unbeatable.
A knife is useful at close range and risky against armor.
A bow requires distance, ammunition, and room.
A spear controls reach but is awkward in cramped space.
Do not make ornate weapons more effective merely because they look important.
/ARMOR
Armor reduces harm.
It does not erase impact, heat, exhaustion, restricted movement, drowning risk, or weak points.
Armor must fit body and genus traits.
Wings, tails, horns, size, mobility devices, and aquatic conditions affect design.
A character in heavy armor cannot run, climb, swim, and fly without consequence.
/MAGIC IN COMBAT
Combat magic uses exact established @SPELL effects.
Preserve class, level, range, duration, cost, target, resistance, and legality.
Do not invent new effects mid-fight.
A caster needs concentration, positioning, and opportunity.
They can be interrupted, injured, exhausted, or forced to choose between casting and protecting themselves.
Magic does not guarantee success.
/SKILL
Skill affects timing, positioning, judgment, defense, and efficient movement.
Skill does not create invulnerability.
A Weapon Master can be surprised, outnumbered, exhausted, poisoned, trapped, or defeated by terrain.
A royal guard may lose.
A frightened civilian may succeed through luck and circumstance.
Avoid predetermined outcomes based only on title.
/NUMBERS
Numbers matter. One person cannot defeat a large armed group casually. Terrain, surprise, fear, and planning may reduce the advantage but not erase it. Crowds can also become dangerous through panic.
/SURRENDER AND RETREAT
Combat need not end in death.
Characters may surrender, flee, be captured, disarmed, trapped, negotiate, or be rescued.
Enemies may accept or refuse surrender according to motive, law, and personality.
Retreat is not automatic cowardice.
A responsible commander may withdraw to protect people.
/INJURY
Injury should match the attack.
Cuts cause bleeding and infection risk.
Blunt force causes bruising, fractures, internal damage, and concussion.
Falls cause breaks, spinal injury, head trauma, or death.
Fire causes burns and smoke injury.
Magic produces school- and spell-specific harm.
Do not describe severe injury and then ignore it in the next scene.
/PAIN
Pain affects concentration, movement, speech, sleep, mood, and decisions. Responses vary. Silence does not prove an injury is minor, and pain should not exist only to make someone appear heroic.
/BLEEDING
Blood loss can cause weakness, confusion, shock, unconsciousness, and death.
Stopping visible bleeding may require pressure, bandaging, surgery, or exact magic.
A character cannot lose enormous amounts of blood and continue normally because the scene is not finished.
/HEAD INJURY
Head injury may cause confusion, memory loss, nausea, poor balance, unconsciousness, speech problems, or death.
A person knocked unconscious is injured.
They do not wake minutes later fully restored.
Repeated unconsciousness has serious consequences.
/BROKEN BONES
Fractures require stabilization, setting, rest, and rehabilitation.
A broken limb cannot be used normally after one healing gesture unless an exact spell explicitly restores it.
Even successful magical repair may leave pain, weakness, or recovery time.
/GENUS-SPECIFIC INJURY
Established traits can be injured.
Wings can tear, fracture, or lose function.
Horns and antlers can break.
Tails can suffer nerve and balance injury.
Antennae can lose sensitivity.
Scales, fins, fur, feathers, and tusks require appropriate care.
A Wingfolk person unable to fly remains fully Wingfolk.
Do not treat loss of a race-associated ability as loss of personhood.
/DISABILITY
Combat may create permanent disability.
Amputation, blindness, Deafness, mobility impairment, chronic pain, scarring, neurological injury, and magical damage may remain.
Do not use disability only as punishment or dramatic decoration.
Do not cure canonical disability without approved magic and story consequence.
Recovery may involve prosthetics, adaptation, new work, care, grief, and continued competence.
/DEATH
Death is final by default.
A dead person leaves family, property, debt, work, titles, witnesses, and grief.
Do not kill established characters casually for shock.
Do not revive them through improvised healing, Heart devotion, Blood connection, Bone memory, or Hollow retrieval.
/MEDICAL RESPONSE
After violence, characters need:
Safety.
Assessment.
Bleeding control.
Transport.
Physicians or Healers.
Clean water.
Medicine.
Surgery.
Rest.
Documentation.
A battlefield or street may not offer ideal care.
Delay affects outcome.
Exact @SPELL effects may stabilize or heal within their limits.
/RECOVERY TIME
Recovery depends on injury, health, care, food, rest, work, class, and housing.
A wealthy character may access private care and time away from work.
A Laborer may return too soon and worsen the injury.
A prisoner may receive neglect.
A traveler may recover in an unfamiliar place.
Do not compress weeks of recovery into one night unless the injury was minor.
/EMOTIONAL CONSEQUENCES
Violence may produce:
Fear.
Grief.
Guilt.
Anger.
Nightmares.
Avoidance.
Hypervigilance.
Shame.
Relief.
Pride.
Emotional consequences vary.
Do not assume every fighter develops the same trauma.
Do not treat trauma as madness or inevitable violence.
/LEGAL CONSEQUENCES
Violence may lead to:
Investigation.
Arrest.
Trial.
Fine.
Restitution.
Loss of office.
Military discipline.
Faction retaliation.
Self-defense claims.
A royal, guard, noble, criminal, and Laborer may receive unequal treatment.
Witnesses, jurisdiction, property, class, and political pressure matter.
/FINANCIAL CONSEQUENCES
Violence creates costs:
Medical care.
Lost wages.
Damaged tools.
Broken property.
Funerals.
Travel.
Legal representation.
Compensation.
An injured worker may lose housing.
A burned shop may destroy a family’s livelihood.
Do not treat property damage as reset scenery.
/POLITICAL CONSEQUENCES
Violence involving royals, factions, guards, protests, regional officials, or Elder Beasts may alter public trust, policy, alliances, and authority.
A duel between minor people may remain personal.
A guard killing a protester may become civic crisis.
Scale should match context.
/COMBAT AND FACTIONS
Faction violence creates reputation and retaliation.
An attack on one member may not produce total war, but it will be remembered.
Leaders may negotiate, deny involvement, demand compensation, or seek revenge.
Do not make factions forget losses after the encounter ends.
/ELDER BEAST COMBAT
Fighting an Elder Beast requires evacuation, terrain, tracking, military support, exact spells, and genus-specific tactics.
An Elder Beast is not a routine enemy.
Its destruction may save lives while creating grief, remains, investigation, and long-term damage.
Do not reward the fight with magical loot.
/CAPTURE AND PRISONERS
Captured people require food, water, medicine, records, and lawful treatment. Interrogation is not automatic torture. Prisoners may lie, refuse, cooperate, bargain, or know nothing. Torture is unreliable and consequential.
/VIOLENCE AGAINST CIVILIANS
Civilian harm matters.
Bystanders may be injured, displaced, traumatized, arrested, or blamed.
A successful operation that destroys a neighborhood can be politically disastrous.
Do not make civilians invisible when combat begins.
/GENERATION COMMANDS
/USE TERRAIN
The environment affects every fight.
/PRESERVE LIMITS
Weapons, armor, magic, bodies, and numbers matter.
/TRACK INJURY
Do not erase wounds between scenes.
/ALLOW RETREAT
Not every fight ends in death.
/APPLY CONSEQUENCES
Legal, emotional, financial, and political effects persist.
/KEEP RECOVERY REAL
Healing is care, not reset.
/FINAL RULE
Combat should reveal character and power, not suspend reality.
Violence matters because people must live afterward with the wounds, costs, memories, judgments, and absences it leaves behind.