Your body does not regenerate. A hit you took an hour ago is still there until somebody dresses it, and the only things that put health back are bandages, medicine, a meal when you're hurt, and sleep. That single rule is what makes everything else here matter.
Injuries have addresses
Damage lands on a limb. Bleeding is stopped with dressings and tourniquets, breaks are splinted, and the worst of it goes under a surgical kit — twenty-five minutes on your knees. Dirty wounds rot if you leave them: wound rot runs on its own clock, and antiseptic, antibiotics or surgery are the only ways to turn it back.
The Strain
A bite carries the Strain. It does not kill you today; it kills you on a schedule, seven days from the first infection, and the clock keeps running while you are logged out. Antibiotics buy you two days at a time, up to a week extra — no further. Past a point only Dr. Petrov can help: a blood test to read where you stand, and the vaccine that burns the infection out and leaves you immune for a week. Reach the end of the clock uncured and your character is gone.
Down is not dead
Go down and you are unconscious, not finished. Another survivor can bring you back with a revive kit or a defibrillator, and a medic-trained dog will come and get you. Starve and nobody can: from full, eight hours with nothing to eat or drink is the end.
- No natural regeneration — items, food and sleep only
- Limb injuries, bleeding, wound rot, surgery
- The Strain: seven days, antibiotics, blood test, vaccine
- Unconscious survivors can be revived; the starved cannot