This is a short introduction to an equally short supplement for Call of Cthulhu I released a day or so ago, Memorable Major Wounds – Critical Tables and Expanded Injuries.

It aims to do what it says on the tin. Make major wounds memorable. I’ve always been a big fan of games with critical or fumble tables, and if a game didn’t have them, it would be one of the first house rules we’d add in. And coming off of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, the lack of injury tables in Call of Cthulhu felt like a bit like a gaping wound in itself.

When one of my players threw their investigator out a window, suffering a major wound for their failed Jump roll, I described it as a broken leg. The players asked what that meant, and I thought they should probably have a penalty die if they tried anything strenuous on that leg until it healed. They accepted it like the good player they are, but not without a grumble or two about how arbitrary it was.

Fine, I thought, let’s fix that then. I didn’t entirely disagree with him either, I don’t particularly like simply describing major injuries superfluously, and adding any mechanical penalties entirely on a whim. And, of course, my table likes rolling on big ol’ tables that might end up giving them a broken nose or taking their jaw off.

So, here’s Memorable Major Wounds – Critical Tables and Expanded Injuries. It has some optional rules that can be mixed and matched to make major wounds more eventful without overcomplicating things, and some talents and luck spending options to make major wounds work in Pulp Cthulhu. And for those that want the full Critical table experience, there are 5 tables with 15 results each, ranging from sprained ankles and broken fingers to punctured lungs and severed limbs, with 4 conditions added as well for good measure.

I’m going to give a run down on the optional rules and conditions, then roll a couple times on the major wounds tables to give a feel for how they work – but, because I’m a little scamp that wants to sell his trinkets, all the mechanical goodies are stripped out. Enjoy.

The main optional rules are:

• Impaired: if you take a major wound, whatever body part the wound applies to is difficult to use, giving a penalty for any associated roll until the major wound heals. Pretty straight forward.
• Scars: receiving a major wound on the face comes with the chance of it affecting your Appearance, either positively or negatively. Again, fairly straight forward, but adds an extra dice roll.
• Traumatic Wounds: suffering a major wound comes with the chance of a SAN loss. Again, fairly simple, but would add yet another dice roll.
• Impaling Weapons & Bleeding: suffering an impale causes you to bleed, with Bleeding being one of the 4 new conditions.
• Major Pulp Wounds: Pulp Cthulhu does away with major wounds, so I tried adding them back in, with the HP threshold being less, but also removing the effect on dying. This makes major wounds easier to cause, but overall less impactful for a Pulp Hero, and are generally just an excuse to wedge the major wound tables into Pulp.
• Talents: 5 talents related to major wounds for Pulp Cthulhu, such as gaining advantages when rolling on the major wound table, gaining skill points whenever suffering a major wound, spending Luck to automatically cause major wounds on opponents, recovering from conditions faster, and always gaining APP from scars.
• Luck Spending: two luck spending options for Pulp Cthulhu, allowing for softening the results on a major wound table, or stopping bleeding.

And a few more little optional rules and suggestions, but those 7 are the main ones. Again, they are intended to be mixed and matched. Using all of them might be a bit much, as a single major wound would end up requiring the vanilla CON roll to avoid falling unconscious, a hit location roll, then a SAN roll, then potentially a roll to see if a facial wound affects APP, and finally rolling on the full major wound table if using them. If someone did want to use everything, like a crazy person, I’d suggest making combining all the D100 rolls into one. It would suck if you rolled a 99 on a combined CON, SAN, and Major Wound roll, but hey, could be funny?

There 4 new conditions are:

• Bleeding: relatively straight forward, you lose HP per round until the bleeding is healed.
• Broken: the body part is broken, suffering heavy penalties to use until professionally healed.
• Debilitated: the body part is damaged, but not broken, taking penalties until healed.
• Severed: the body part is gone.

Depending on the body part, different conditions can have more or less severe effects. Some, like severed or a badly healed broken bone, can leave permanent penalties.

There are 5 major wound tables, one for each body part in the Keeper Rulebook (leg, abdomen, chest, arm, and head), with each using a D100 to pick one of 15 results. To show off a couple results, and how to apply them, I’ll do a couple example runs.

• Clarence the nurse gets nicked by a speeding car, unfortunately dealing 6 damage, more than half his piddly total HP of 8. We roll D20 for hit location, getting an 18 – the car smacked Clarence’s left arm. Now rolling a D100 on the arm wound table, we get a 22. Lucky for Clarence, he stumbles away from the incident with only a sprained wrist, imparting a Regular Debilitated (Arm) condition. Any action using that arm will be difficult, but with an appropriate First Aid or Medicine check the penalty will be reduced, and after the major wound heals, he’ll be good as new.
• Naomi the antiquarian ends up on the wrong side of a Dark Young’s stomp, taking a whopping 9 damage. The location roll is a 5, her left leg, and the table roll is a hefty 74. The beast’s hoof splits Naomi’s femur. Driven to the ground, she then has to deal with a Hard Broken (Leg) condition, giving a painful penalty to any action involving her left leg and reducing her MOV until she can get professional medical attention and enough time for the wound to heal.
• Francis the detective finds himself looking down the barrel of a cultist’s shotgun, and takes enough buckshot damage to trigger a major wound to the face (20 on the hit location roll). He rolls an unfortunate 93 on the major wound table, giving him the unenviable Severed Nose result. The shotgun blast takes his nose clean off, resulting in an immediate Hard Bleeding condition, a Severed (Nose) condition, and a permanent loss of 1D10 APP. While there aren’t any skills associated with the nose, he won’t be able to smell much anymore, and it may be difficult to staunch the bleeding without the help of someone with a good First Aid or Medicine skill. A Keeper may have Francis’ lack of a nose influence future Interpersonal Skill rolls, either by giving bonus or penalty dice depending on the situation.

And that’s the basics of the Memorable Major Wounds. If you’re interested in it, check it out on DriveThruRPG. It’s $1, but you can use this link to get it for $.75.

And if all this seems unnecessarily complex but you still want to pump up injury in Call of Cthulhu, Jon Hook’s Visceral and Emotional Damage supplement does something similar but with less mechanical shenanigans.

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