Worse Than The Disease OOC 2

[Volthawk]

Nah, Guilt Complex triggers if anything bad happens to people it covers, regardless of the details - it not being your fault just reduces the duration of the depression a bunch and makes self-control easier.

The question really is whether the visiting merchants are among those covered by it - it covers "those who play a significant role in your life. This includes adventuring companions, employers, subordinates, Allies, Dependents, and those toward whom you have a Duty or a Sense of Duty". The mechanical ones aren't relevant, I think (Richard has a party-level Sense of Duty, but that's about the same as adventuring companions, I suppose, and shouldn't cover these guys), and they're not employers (I'm guessing that's supposed to mean long-term employers, rather than our PCs becoming strangely attached to everyone who pays them to do something) or members of our team, so I guess it depends on if they count as subordinates or being significant in some other way. IIRC last time we discussed heirarchy with the merchants, they were quite insistent on keeping independent, so they're probably not subordinates, and as for the general significance...well, I mean, the fact that they've been described as three nameless merchants mean they probably weren't individually significant to the exiles.

Richard's not going to be happy about it either way, of course, but I think he and Sean are spared from the heavy depression.

Although for future reference, hm. It saying "If anything bad happens" with that emphasis on the anything means it probably should've come up in the near-death scares we've had before - not every battlefield injury, of course, but the couple of times we've had someone go down to 0 or even into low negatives. Something to note for the future, I suppose.