General Labor     Sadly, menial physical labor is not the sole domain of commoners. The grand quests of adventurers may sometimes require mundane work to complete - perhaps the door to the final control room of an Alacrian ruin is obstructed with rubble that must be tediously cleared away, or the captured map of buried treasure leads to a final assault with shovels rather than swords.

    General labor is a process action rolled on STR, and is similar to the rules for searches. General labor process actions typically do not have die size restrictions except for extremely difficult tasks. The roll interval may vary with the size and complexity of the job; typically, the GM will have you roll once to begin the job, then again for every 1 or 2 hours spent on the task. Willpower cannot be used to give a reactive +TN to general labor rolls (including the initial, fast roll). Roll failure does not ruin the job, and multiple characters may help each other (with all rolls contributing to the same point goal).

    The GM will determine the point goal to finish the job, which may or may not be known by the laboring characters. Moving a heavy piece of machinery to block a door might be accomplished within 20 points or so, while totally clearing a whole room of debris might require 100 or more points.

    Low Light environments (or echolocating characters in total darkness) generally add 2 Hindrance to all rolls for general labor, except for characters with shadow vision or some other unaffected sense. General labor tasks are usually impossible for characters completely unable to see.

Exhaustion Cost     Typically, each roll for general labor (including the initial roll) involves a fixed exhaustion cost, regardless of die size; 4 exhaustion per roll is suggested as a default value, but the GM may vary this up or down according to the physical demands of the task.

    Non-organic characters who don't take exhaustion apply double points for any successful roll.

Non-Sentients     Depending on the task, the STR of domesticated/tamed/bound non-sentients may be utilized. Based on the nature of the job, the GM may or may not allow non-sentients to roll, or may allow them to roll but only contribute half the normal points. Typically, techs can be told to do almost any form of labor, but animals (particularly those without "hands") may not be useful. For example, if the work is to dig dirt, reanimators can use shovels for full points, a wolf might contribute half points, and a snake is of no help. If the task is moving rocky debris, techs and goblins can easily pick up and move stones, but a horse cannot - still, the horse might contribute half points if rope can be used to tie it to the larger chunks.Pseudogravitic Labor     Certain pseudogravity devices and Abilities may be able to quickly contribute points directly toward a general labor goal. If the device/Ability includes this, you may expend any amount of pseudogravity points to contribute 50% that amount of points toward a general labor goal, rather than (or in addition to) taking exhaustion and rolling on STR.

    At the GM's discretion, some general labor goals may be invalid for pseudogravitic labor, or pseudogravity points may contribute only 25% to labor points instead of 50%. For example, pickaxing through solid stone has no real use for pseudogravity, but digging a hole in loose dirt certainly does. Most general labor goals entail a lot of "moving stuff," and are thus fully valid for pseudogravity.

    General labor goals met entirely with points from pseudogravity are accomplished in a few minutes at most. If an exact timeframe is needed, simply examine how many pseudogravity points per round that your Ability or device can generate. Contributing points is always a short-range slowing major action in combat, and can only involve a single Ability or device per character at a time.