Maelstrom is a role-playing game by Alexander Scott, originally published in 1984 by Puffin Books as a single soft cover book. Maelstrom was published under Puffin's Adventure Gamebooks banner, along with the Fighting Fantasy series, The Cretan Chronicles trilogy, and the Starlight Adventures series. Maelstrom was written while Scott was a teenager in school. The game is set in a 16th to 17th century British setting – the Tudor Period and the Elizabethan era – although the rules can be adapted to other locations or time periods. Firearms (readily available in Europe at this time) are conspicuously absent from the setting, mentioned only in passing in the initial rulebook. Maelstrom has been republished as a PDF in 2008 by Arion Games, under license from Puffin Books. Arion Games also published seven supplementary rulebooks and resources such as The Maelstrom Companion, the Beggars' Companion, and several modules and settings resources. These are all available for online purchase at RPGNow.com in PDF format (see external links, below). The Maelstrom Companion provides guidelines for the in-game purchase and use of period firearms, as well as new livings and other developments. Combat Wounds and healing Characters can easily end up with wounds that would last for months. They can suffer the permanent loss of digits, or limbs. Using the advanced rules a character may well collapse from particular types of mortal wounds, or in combat from sheer exhaustion, especially if wearing heavy armour. They could suffer cuts, bruises or a variety of serious injuries from their opponents' (or their own) weapons. In Maelstrom, wounds are recorded separately and heal in parallel. Damage is rated on a numerical scale, a knife doing 1–6 damage for instance. When the sum of a character's wounds exceed his or her Endurance, that character falls unconscious. Characters heal at the rate of 1 point per week assuming bed rest (and 1 point per month otherwise); this rate is per wound. A character suffering a series of minor wounds will recover much more quickly than one receiving a single significant wound. Treatments from a Doctor, Herbalist, or a Barber-Surgeon will increase the rate of healing – or possibly decrease it if a roll vs skill is critically failed. Experience Experience rolls are on percentile dice and are made against a specific attribute when the character succeeds in an area relevant to that attribute. When a successful experience roll is made