Burden

Table of Contents
Primary Item (H2)

Your encumbrance—and your light­ness of foot— is deter­mined by your bur­den. 

Bur­den is an abstract, rep­re­sent­ing the fatigue imposed by car­ry­ing items over dis­tance. Reduced to mass, a bur­den point is ~1.25 kilos; the weight of a pis­tol or a full bot­tle of wine.

Burden Points

You may eas­i­ly car­ry bur­den points equal to your bur­den capacity.For most char­ac­ters, this equals Might + 2. Bur­den in excess of capac­i­ty inflicts a speed penal­ty that affects move­ment speed and phys­i­cal coor­di­na­tion.

  • AT CAPACITY & UNDER = 5 km/h
  • OVER 100% = 3.5 km/h, -2 Speed penal­ty
  • 200% OVER = 2.5 km/h, -4 Speed penal­ty
  • 300% OVER = 1.5 km/h, -6 Speed penal­ty
  • 400% = Immo­bile

Speed penal­ty

A penal­ty applied to Agili­ty, Might, Swim, and Scur­ry.

Burdensome Items

If you can hold only 1 of an item in hand, it is prob­a­bly 1 bur­den, unless it is quite light. This includes hel­mets, bot­tles of wine, bricks, large food cans, cans of kerosene, large mag­a­zines, and muni­tions coils, etc.

Some items are always bur­den­some:

  • Weapons larg­er than knives
  • Armor 
  • Equip­ment
  • Heavy cloth­ing
  • Units of fire­wood
  • Strapped items, like packs and bags

While some are nev­er bur­den­some:

  • Indi­vid­ual small items 
  • Nor­mal, worn cloth­ing
  • Emp­ty strapped con­tain­ers

Bur­den nota­tion

The pound sign [#] is used to indi­cate bur­den in-line. For instance, [2#] indi­cates 2 bur­den, and [#] indi­cates just 1 bur­den. S, XS, and XXS denote small, extra small, and extra-extra small items.

Small Items

Indi­vid­ual small items are not bur­den­some. Emp­ty packs, and con­tain­ers like can­teens, are usu­al­ly small [S] items. 

In a pack, small items become bur­den­some once enough of a size are accu­mu­lat­ed:

  • Small [S] items:  3 to a bur­den. Fold­ed clothes, wood­en bowls, tinned food, small books, hand grenades, bot­tles of beer, dag­gers.
  • Extra small [XS] items: 12 to a bur­den. Ban­dages, eggs, sausages, apples, pota­toes, small fléchette mag­a­zines, can­dles, tin cups.
  • Extra-extra small [XXS] items: 64 to a bur­den.  Coins, ammu­ni­tion, yards of rope, small vials, spoons, gems. 

Carrying things

You can car­ry items in one of three ways: In your pock­ets, in a pack, or strapped to your per­son.

POCKETS

Items stored in your pock­ets are acces­si­ble with­out using  an action. Up to 6 indi­vid­ual small items may be pock­et­ed. To get more pock­et space, wear pouch­es, pock­et­ed belts, or ban­doliers. These aren’t bur­den­some, but they do count as 1 strapped item, each.

Wise Cut­ters keep their ammo, throw­ables, and ban­dages in pock­ets or pouch­es for quick access.

STRAPPED ITEMS

Weapons, large items, and packs are worn strapped to the body. Strapped items can be drawn or brought to hand with­out using an action. 

  • You can have 4 items strapped at a time. This includes your pack and weapons.
  • Excess strapped items cause 1 speed penal­ty each.
  • Don’t count non­bur­den­some items as strapped. Small items nev­er count as strapped.
  • Weapons, unless car­ried in hand, are usu­al­ly strapped, as are packs, sacks, and bags.

You may need a rope, net, belt, or lug straps to strap on an item if it doesn’t have a belt, scab­bard, straps, or hol­ster of its own.

PACKS

A pack can hold up to 24 bur­den points, be it a back­pack, bas­ket, ruck­sack, or sim­i­lar. Some hold more, but they may be bur­den­some or unwieldy.

  • Worn packs count as a strapped item.
  • With an action, you may drop your pack, free­ing you of its bur­den.
  • Stowage can light­en bur­den­some packs.

Items with­in packs are not quick­ly acces­si­ble, in per­il. You must use an action to remove your pack, then anoth­er to remove the item you want. 

A pack pro­tects its con­tents, pro­vid­ing resis­tance to blows, fire, and water, depend­ing on its qual­i­ties. It can also pro­tect its wear­er from blows and falls, like­ly to the detri­ment of the inter­ven­ing con­tents. 

AXLES

Bur­den car­ried via a cart or oth­er axeled vehi­cle is effec­tive­ly reduced, usu­al­ly by 75%.

* * *

Bodily Carriage

Lift­ing a body, liv­ing or dead, takes an action and requires two free hands.

  • It impos­es a speed penal­ty on you equal to its For­ti­tude + Might / 2, plus the speed penal­ty applied by the bur­den of its strapped and worn items.
  • Crea­tures cling­ing to or rid­ing upon you impose the same speed penal­ty.

This mas­sive weight may require both the car­ried and car­ry­ing crea­ture to be stripped of heavy gear and back­packs in order to facil­i­tate move­ment.

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