Damage, healing and capture · Codex

14.1Damage

14.1.1
Damage comes from attacks, from a Realm's counterblow and from effects. It lowers the card's current HP.
14.1.2
Damage is always a step of 5, rounded down. An amount below 5 is no damage at all.
14.1.3
Damage stays. A card does not heal by itself, not even at the end of a turn; only effects remove damage.
14.1.4
Damage from an effect only reaches a Soul that still has HP. A Soul already at 0 HP, waiting to be captured, takes none.
14.1.5
Effects that trigger "when this Soul is damaged" trigger only when it actually takes damage, more than 0.

14.2.1
Healing removes damage, never more than the card has. A Soul with 5 damage healed by 10 loses those 5 and no more. A card without damage can be healed; nothing happens.
14.2.2
Healing also comes in steps of 5, rounded down.

14.3.1
When a Soul pays HP, it takes that much damage. It counts as damage for every rule, and it can capture the Soul.
14.3.2
Paying 0 HP (for example ten times the rank of a rank-0 Soul) is allowed and costs nothing.

14.4.1
A Soul whose current HP is 0 is captured: it is turned face down and stays on its slot.
14.4.2
The game captures such Souls after every step of play, whatever brought them to 0 HP. The one exception is a battle: between the attack damage and the capture step nothing is captured (9.5.6).
14.4.3
A Soul whose maximum HP falls to its damage or below (because it lost a bonus, for example) is at 0 HP and is captured too.
14.4.4
An effect may capture a Soul directly ("Capture the targeted Soul"), whatever its HP.
14.4.5
When a Soul is captured, its Armament goes to the Elysium. Ambushes at its slot stay where they are.
14.4.6
A Realm whose current HP is 0 shatters the same way: face down, on its slot.

14.5.1
A captured Soul is not active: it has no effects, it can't attack or be attacked, and it can only be targeted by effects that ask for a captured Soul.
14.5.2
It still occupies its slot, so nothing can be recruited onto it, nor onto an empty slot hanging directly under it (5.3.3).
14.5.3
It no longer counts for the lines: the Soul behind it may step into the Front Line (5.2.4). It still counts as a "captured Underling" for cards that count those, such as Sylva.
14.5.4
A captured Soul stays until an effect removes it, such as Final Resting Place, which exiles it and so frees the slot.