Stressful Situations
The universe of Eclipse Phase is ripe with experiences that will rattle your sanity. Some are as mundane and human as extreme violence, extended isolation, or helplessness. Others are less common, but even more terrifying: encountering alien species, infection by the exsurgent virus, or facing down an extinction threat.
Willpower Stress Tests
Whenever you encounter a situation that might impact your ego’s psyche, make a WIL Check. Some incidents are so horrific that a modifier is applied. If you fail, the experience scars your mental landscape and you suffer stress damage (and possibly trauma) as appropriate to the situation. If you succeed, you cope with the unnerving situation, but it may still rattle and shake you.
A list of stress-inducing scenarios and suggested SVs are listed on the Stressful Experiences table. The GM should use these as a guideline, modifying them as appropriate to the situation at hand.
Stressful Experiences
Alienation SV Resleeving alienation/continuity loss/lack 1d6 Extensive lack 1d10/1 Encountering inexplicably lost memories 1d6 Extended isolation (per week) 1d6 + 2/half Exsurgent virus infection Varies Unwillingly controlled via puppet sock 1d10/half Mind-controlled 1d10 + 2/half Forced to act opposite to Motivation 1d6
Helplessness SV Asphyxiation 1d6 Set on fire 1d6 Awareness of imminent death 1d10/1 Betrayal by a trusted friend 1d6 Cyberbrain hacked 1d6 Drugged against your will 1d6 − 1 Losing a loved one 1d6 Watching a loved one die 1d10 Being responsible for the death of a loved one 1d10 + 1/1 Suffering moderate torture 1d6 + 2/half Suffering severe torture 1d10 + 2/half
The Unknown SV Encountering unusual non-sapient alien life 1d6 − 2 Encountering sapient alien life 1d10/1 Encountering highly advanced technology 1d6 − 1 Pandora gate in operation 1d6 − 2 Encountering exsurgent-infected transhumans 1d6 Encountering full exsurgents 1d10/1 Witnessing async sleights 1d6 − 2 Witnessing psi-epsilon sleights 1d10/half
Violence SV Encountering a gruesome corpse or murder scene 1d6 − 1 Viewing extreme violence/torture 1d6 Committing violence in self-defense 1d6 − 1 Killing in self-defense 1d6 + 1 Committing offensive violence 1d6 Murdering in cold blood 1d10/1 Harming an innocent 1d6 + 2/1 Killing an innocent 1d10 + 2/half Experiencing death via XP 1d10 Popping a cortical stack 1d6 Remember your death 1d10/1
Hardening
The more you are exposed to horrible or terrifying things, the less scary they become. After repeated exposure, you become hardened to such things, able to shake them off without effect.
Every time you suffer a trauma due to stress from alienation, helplessness, or violence (Stress Categories), take note. If you survive such a traumatic situation 5 times without acquiring a disorder, you become effectively immune to that type of stress in the future. You acquired the Hardening trait for that type of stress. You can never become hardened to stress from the unknown. You also cannot become hardened to stress if you currently have a disorder triggered by that type of stress.
The drawback to hardening yourself is that you grow detached and callous. In order to protect yourself, you cut off your emotions — but it is such emotions that make you transhuman. You have erected mental walls that affect your empathy and ability to relate to others. Each Hardening trait means you suffer −10 to both WIL Checks and Persuade Tests.
Psychosurgery can be used to overcome hardening, in the same way a disorder is treated.
Amaru is targeted by a rival cartel that wants info on Nine Lives. They drug and capture him. He wakes up to find himself a prisoner. The GM rules that this calls for a Stress Test against helplessness. Amaru’s WIL Check is 45. He rolls an 02 and succeeds. He’s been in tougher situations than this.
Things get worse for Amaru when the cartel thugs start roughing him up for information. After the GM checks with the players that everyone is OK with playing through the scene (Transhuman Themes), Amaru successfully holds out on giving them any useful intel. The GM rules that this calls for another Stress Test against SV 1d6 +2/half. Amaru rolls a 95 against his WIL Check of 45: a failure. The GM rolls a d6, getting a 4, so Amaru takes 6 stress (even if he had made his WIL Check roll, he would have received 3 stress).
Amaru’s Trauma Threshold is 6, so he suffers a trauma from the experience. This applies a −10 modifier to all tests, and he must make another WIL Check versus disorientation (Trauma Effects). If Amaru survives the experience without acquiring a disorder, he will be one step closer towards being hardened to stress from helplessness.