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Mechanics that are not statuses

These never appear on a card above because they are not things a technique applies — they are rules about how a fight works. Most arrive from a bloodline or physique milestone, or from a manual you have comprehended far enough.

Absorb

A milestone can turn one element into food. An attack of that element does you no damage at all and heals you for a quarter of what it would have done. That quarter is a quarter of the mitigated figure — after your defence and resistance — not of what the attacker swung.

Reflect

The rarer answer, and the louder one. The blow is refused in full, exactly as absorb refuses it, and three tenths of it lands on whoever threw it. The return does not go through the attacker's defence: it was mitigated once, by you, and a share of what was left goes back. It pays more than absorb because healing is worth nothing at full health and a return is worth the same whatever shape you are in.

Weakness

The other side of the same coin, and most traits above A rank have one: attacks of that element do 1.5× damage to you. A creature that drinks an element is nearly always frail to another, so there is an answer to it.

Status immunity

Some milestones name a status outright and it simply never lands on you. Not resisted, not shortened — refused. Poison immunity is the common one; the rest are worth reading the trait for.

Stacking

Most statuses answer a second application by resetting their timer. A few — venoms, almost always — pile up instead, and every number on them multiplies by the number of stacks. A card above says which, and what one stack is worth.

Chance to land, and chance to bite

Two different numbers that both read as a percentage. One is the odds the status lands at all; the other is what it does once it is on you, every turn, for its whole duration. A silence that lands half the time and then costs a whole turn is a different proposition from a stun that always lands and costs half of them.

Who opened the wound

A bleed or a poison belongs to whoever inflicted it. Its damage is read from their attack at the moment it lands and does not change afterwards, and both of you have a say in what it costs: anything raising the wounds they open was captured when it landed, anything raising the wounds you carry is read fresh every turn.

Split elements

Some techniques land half in one element and half in another. Each half is checked on its own against resistance, weakness, absorb and reflect — so half a blow can be drunk while the other half lands.

Execution and desperation

Techniques that read the health bar. An execution art hits harder the nearer the target is to dying; a desperation art hits harder the nearer you are. Both are printed on the technique, and both are why a fight that looks decided sometimes is not.

Passives

Known, never cast, and they do not take your turn. Three sorts: one that fires once when a health bar crosses a threshold, one that fires every turn and builds, and one that rides on every blow you land. Cultivators have them from manuals and traits; so do the things you fight.

Refusing to die

The rarest capstone in the game. The first blow that would end you does not: you hold at a single point of health and nothing touches you for a turn. Once per battle, and a creature with one gets it too.

Converting what is on you

A handful of arts do not cleanse a debuff so much as turn it round — the debuff is stripped and replaced with the matching buff, half again as strong as the debuff was. The harder you were hit with it, the better the answer.

Telegraphs

A region's tyrant announces its opening a turn before it throws it. That turn is the whole fight: ward, cleanse, or be somewhere else.

Break

A meter rather than a status. Arts that stagger put points on it, and filling it costs the target its next turn outright and leaves it taking more from everything until it recovers. The way a slow, heavy build answers something far faster than it is.