Growth and Endings

Investigators change because of what they survive, what they learn, and what they choose to protect.

Improving skills

At the end of a session, choose up to three skills you used successfully and that mattered to the investigation. Roll d100 against each current skill. A success grants an improvement: usually 1d4%, or 1d6%+1% on a critical. A failure grants nothing. No skill may gain more than 5% in one session or exceed 99%.

You can also train between investigations. One week of instruction, materials, and practice usually costs about CR × 10. Make an EDU × 5 check at the end: success generally grants 1d6%, while failure grants +1%. The Keeper may require a teacher, library, sparring partner, tools, or a suitable place to practice.

Major accomplishments may grant a milestone increase to a relevant skill or a new contact. These rewards should reflect the story, not replace the normal improvement process.

Recovery and downtime

Downtime is part of play. Rest, treatment, research, work, therapy, and relationships all take time. A week spent healing may keep you alive but let a cult advance its plans. A week spent studying may reveal a weakness while reducing your Sanity. Choose what your investigator values.

When an investigator dies

Death occurs at negative CON HP. Until then, an ally may stabilize you, but the danger is real. If your investigator dies, you may create a replacement, take over an NPC, or remain involved as the group decides. The dead leave equipment, debts, unfinished research, and people who remember them.

A death should change the investigation. Their notes may contain the next lead. Their family may demand answers. Their sacrifice may give the survivors one chance to act.

When an investigator breaks

At 0 Sanity, Indefinite Insanity removes you from ordinary investigation until recovery or a new character is arranged. This is not a failure of roleplaying. It is a consequence the game has promised from the beginning. Work with the Keeper to decide whether your investigator enters treatment, becomes an NPC, returns later, or leaves the story.

The point of survival

The Mythos cannot be defeated by becoming untouched. Every investigator carries evidence of the encounter: scars, lost sleep, forbidden knowledge, a new fear, or a person saved at terrible cost. Advancement is not becoming safe. It is becoming capable of making a meaningful choice in an unsafe world.

When the case ends, record what was learned, what was lost, and what remains unresolved. Those unanswered questions are often where the next story begins.