You’ve got poison inside you. It’s tearing you apart from the inside; burning like acid in your gut and making your head swim.
Effect: This Tilt applies a general sense of being poisoned to a character without worrying about Toxicity during combat. For the purposes of this Tilt, a poison is either “moderate” or “grave” — a moderate poison causes one point of bashing damage per turn of combat, while a grave poison ups that to one point of lethal damage per turn. If the Storyteller cares to continue the effects of the poison outside of combat, he can apply the standard rules for handling poisons and toxins when combat is complete.
Causing the Tilt: It’s possible for a character to not know that he’s been poisoned. It could be as innocuous as switching drinks with a pretty girl who is the target of a mob hit, or as simple as walking into a house with a carbon monoxide leak. That said, the main time poison comes up in combat is when one combatant inflicts it on another. Injecting your opponent with a syringe full of drain cleaner or snake venom is a Dexterity + Weaponry attack, suffering a –1 modifier for the improvised weapon.
Ending the Tilt: Short of immediate medical attention — and how many fights take place in an emergency room? — all a victim can do is struggle on. Roll Stamina + Resolve as a Reflexive Action each turn that your character is poisoned. If your character intends to act (meaning, takes a non-Reflexive Action), the roll suffers a –3 penalty. Success counteracts the damage for one turn only.