Many game effects require you to discard resources, cards or Determination tokens; to have a specific Weapon level; to reduce the Roof, Palisade, or Weapon level; to cover a particular source; and so on.

As a general rule, if any such demand cannot be fulfilled, you suffer 1 Wound for each resource or level you cannot fulfill.

Remember that resources already assigned to other planned Actions during the Action Phase are not available for discarding. So the rule of unfulfilled demand can be triggered even if there are resources elsewhere on the board, simply because those resources are already tied up with other Actions.

If something can be discarded to meet a demand, it must be. You cannot decide to suffer Wounds in order to avoid discarding something that you are supposed to discard. However, you are not forced to trade in a Discovery token, or use any Starting Equipment, Item, Treasure or special ability to avoid a loss.

Who suffers the Wounds?

When Wounds must be suffered because of unfulfilled demand, all characters suffer the Wounds, except in the following circumstances:

• During the Action Phase, only the character resolving the Action suffers the Wound(s).

• In the specific case of combat that takes place during the Event Phase, the outcome of the combat (including any unfulfilled demand) only affects the First Player.

What does not count as unfulfilled demand

The following do not count as unfulfilled demand:

• If Morale must be lowered and is already at the lowest level, nothing happens.

• Some cards have effects that only apply ‘if possible’. If that effect cannot be applied, nothing happens.

• No character can ever be reduced to 0 Action pawns. If you would lose your second Action pawn, ignore this.

• When you lose an Item and flip it back to its Invention side, you must revert any benefit it gives you as far as possible. If there are some benefits that you are unable to revert, there is no further penalty.

• If you're told to increase the Roof or Palisade level, but you can't because you don't have a Shelter, just ignore the instruction with no penalty.

• If you are supposed to add a token to a space, but you can’t because there is already an identical token there, there is no penalty. However, this does not apply to markers: if you are supposed to place a (wooden) marker, but you can’t because there is already a marker with the same meaning there, this is unfulfilled demand and characters suffer 1 Wound.

• During the Night Phase, if a character cannot eat, they suffer 2 Wounds. This is not unfulfilled demand.

• If you are asked to halve some value, but that value is already at 1 and due to rounding it stays at 1, there is no penalty. (You have, in effect, halved the value as instructed; it just didn't make a difference.) But if the value is already at 0, you are unable to halve it and so unfulfilled demand applies.

• In scenario 6, if you don't have enough food to feed all the children, you lose the game immediately.