Below is a list of some of the questions we have been asked, and our answers to them. If there’s something you’d like to know or have clarified that isn’t covered here, please either post a question on our Forum or email us.

Character Design

After reading the rules, I see that humans can only ever wield daggers and staffs due to the fact they are not allowed Rank. Is this true?
You’re kinda half-right. Humans can’t buy Rank, which means that it’s illegal for them to use swords, wear plate armour, or whatever else. However, human characters are welcome to use their starting money to purchase such items, and are welcome to use them during the event. The point is that there may be consequences to that choice, of the nature of heavy-set orcish types coming to talk to you about obedience, compliance, and the fragility of the average human’s kneecaps.

So Rank doesn’t tell you what weapons your character knows how to use?
That’s right. Rank just says what the Commonwealth’s legal system will permit you to use. In Insurrection, any character is considered to have the skills needed to use any one-handed, two-handed or projectile weapons, to use two one-handed weapons at the same time, or to use a one-handed weapon and a shield simultaneously. Rank also doesn’t restrict what you can spend your starting money on; part of the point of Insurrection is that your characters will probably end up breaking the law at some point or other.

Are there any prerequisites for High Magic?
No. You need only buy Artifice, Majesty or Shamanism. However, the mechanics of each of these different forms of magic definitely benefits those who purchase supplementary skills.

What about Thaumaturgy?
In order to buy any Thaumaturgical Spells, you must learn Read Scroll of the same level. You also need at least Basic Thaumaturgical Power. It is worth noting also that a thaumaturge needs to be “powered up” by a High Mage whenever they wish to refresh their Thaumaturgical Power.

Event Rules

What should combat be like?
The longer a combat continues, the more likely it is that your wounds will go Septic before they’re treated. Thus, we imagine that most combats will be quick and dirty. So that they’re not too absurd, however, we’d ask that you leave a pause of at least one second between blows with the same weapon (meaning that someone wielding a weapon in each hand can strike at most twice a second). We’d also ask that you react appropriately to being struck by a weapon.

What does Septic mean? How does it work?
Any wound, from a scratch to a mortal blow, can go Septic. If it’s not treated within (your current Stamina) minutes, it will go Septic, meaning that it will need extra attention before it can be healed and it may develop into other life-threatening diseases (Fever after one hour, and Gangrene two hours after that). Only an Intermediate First Aider using Salve (or the thaumaturgical spell Cure Septic) can fix Septic wounds.

How does Stamina work?
You start off with an allocation of Stamina that depends on your race and whether you have the Stamina skill. The number of Stamina you currently have determines how quickly your wounds go Septic and how fast you bleed to death when you’re critically wounded. You lose one Stamina at the point at which someone heals you up from unconsciousness. You lose an additional Stamina if they healed you using Surgery. You can spend a Stamina bead while you’re unconscious from wounds to be a “conscious non-combatant,” able to move slowly and talk quietly but not use skills, fight, or walk at normal speed.

Certain skills and magical powers also require you to spend Stamina.

What happens when I run out of Stamina?
Nothing. When you reach 0 Stamina, you are still able to walk around and behave normally, assuming you have been healed. But if you take any damage at all, it instantly becomes Septic, and if you’re knocked unconscious by damage (when either your Vitals or any two of your limbs are reduced to zero hit points) then you die instantly.

How do characters die?
Characters fall unconscious when either their Vitals or any two of their Limbs are reduced to 0 hit points (also called “critically wounded”). If these wounds haven’t been treated by (your current Stamina) minutes after you fell unconscious, then you have bled to death and can no longer be healed by any means.

If you are on 0 Stamina and lose or try to spend Stamina for any reason, you die instantly (with the exception of the Berserk skill, where you die immediately after your frenzy).

How do I repair armour?
When your armour has been hit enough times to be out of hit points, it’s basically useless until Time In the next morning. There’s no way to repair normal armour during Time In (because it’s generally pretty boring) but all the hits on a particular piece of armour are refreshed (unless it was Shattered, whereupon it’s utterly destroyed) when Time In is called the next day; we assume that you repair your armour over night.

Between events, any and all armour you had (regardless of whether it took damage) will need repair. Each piece of armour can only be repaired a limited number of times (shown on the lammie) and you will either need to do it yourself (requiring Craft skills and tools) or pay someone else to do it. If you do not repair a piece of armour between events, it is destroyed.

Setting

Why don’t all members of the High Races have Rank?
Because not all High Race members are that important. Prior to the Commonwealth, Rank was a much less formal thing – orcs respected great warriors, leaders and shamans, dwarves used an arcane and complex system based on academic prowess, and elves measured it by purity of blood. For the vast majority of dwarves and orcs, at least, Rank just wasn’t an issue. Only since the formation of the Commonwealth has it become more visible. It’s also worth noting that a dwarf or orc without Rank is still more important than any human.

What about religion?
Leaving aside the question of human Faith for now, each of the High Races has a belief system laid out in their briefing document. For the most part, this is not a blueprint for an evangelical or missionary religion, but is rather the collective view of most of that race’s membership across the continent. The three High Races’ creation beliefs set them up with a spiritual viewpoint, or even a divine purpose. What each dwarf, elf or orc character chooses to do with this structure is up to them.

Downtime

This looks really complicated. Do I have to downtime?
No. Downtime is there to add to your game if you want it to, rather than be an obligation. If you don’t want to do any downtime at all, then you just need to find a teacher at an event to spend your XP. Alternatively, you might only spend your XP in downtime and not do anything else, and that’s fine.

One way to use your downtime is to use it to set yourself and/or your group or faction up with cool things to do in uptime. For example, you might spend ages researching a particular part of the gameworld, in preparation for doing something with that information at an event (e.g. researching a location that you want to raid). While it’s perfectly fine for you to perform the raid in downtime (if you have the resources to do so), it’s probably more fun to do it at an event.