The Long Dark Diseases, Injuries and Medical Guide

Bleeding is the only condition that drains Condition fast enough to kill you during a walk home, so it is always first. Apply a bandage immediately, and if you have no bandage, improvise from cloth where the game allows. Animal bites also carry infection risk, which is a separate problem: after bandaging, use antiseptic or an old man beard wound dressing to cut that risk. Painkillers do not heal you, but they let an injured survivor move and work, which matters when the nearest bed is a long walk away.

Food poisoning comes from eating raw or ruined food. Its symptoms are Condition loss and stomach trouble, and it is treated with antibiotics or reishi mushroom tea, plus rest, food, and water. Dysentery comes from drinking unsafe water, and it is treated with antibiotics or birch bark tea. Intestinal parasites come from eating raw predator meat, and they are treated with antibiotics or reishi tea, but they last longer and drain Condition steadily, which is why predator meat must always be cooked. The prevention for all three is one sentence: cook meat, boil water, and never eat ruined food.

Hypothermia happens when your body stays cold for too long: Warmth empties, Condition falls, and you need heat urgently. Treat it with fire, a warm building, warm food and drink, and dry clothes, and do not go back out until Warmth is fully recovered. Frostbite is different and worse: it happens when exposed skin freezes, it causes permanent Condition loss that never heals, and it is the reason clothing coverage matters. Never travel with exposed skin in extreme cold and wind, and if you feel frostbite risk rising, shelter immediately: no loot is worth a permanent penalty.

Sprains come from falls and from struggling on steep ground, and they slow you down and cause pain. Treat a sprain with a bandage and painkillers, and rest it: sprinting on a sprain makes it worse and can strand you. Broken ribs come from bear and moose attacks and from hard falls, and they limit what you can carry and do until they heal with rest and painkillers. Burns come from touching a fire or stove carelessly, and they are treated with a bandage and rest. All three share one rule: an injured survivor should head for base, not push on to the next region.

Cabin fever is the risk of spending too much consecutive time indoors. Its warning is a growing risk meter, and its result is that you cannot sleep indoors until you spend time outside. The cure is simple and counterintuitive for a game about cold: go outside. Even a short outdoor walk, or time in a cave or a car, resets the risk. Plan long crafting and resting sessions with outdoor breaks built in, especially in late-game runs where you live mostly indoors.

A travelling medical kit is small: two bandages, antiseptic, painkillers, a course of antibiotics, and a reishi tea and a birch bark tea if you have them. Herbal teas are made from plants you gather, which makes them renewable in a way manufactured medicine is not, so learn the plants in your starting region early. Keep the bulk of your medicine at base, carry the small kit always, and restock the kit every time you return, the same way you restock matches.

Abandon the trip when any of these are true: you are bleeding and out of bandages, you have hypothermia and no fire kit, you have a broken rib and a long walk ahead, or you have parasites and no antibiotics or reishi tea. The game rewards the player who goes home sick and returns healthy, and it kills the player who pushes one more region while ill. A sick day at base, with food, water, warmth, and rest, is not a wasted day. It is the reason there are more days.

No. Frostbite causes permanent Condition loss. Prevention, full clothing coverage and sheltering from wind and cold, is the only answer.

Food poisoning comes from raw or ruined food; dysentery comes from unsafe water. They share symptoms but need different herbal teas: reishi for poisoning, birch bark for dysentery, while antibiotics treat both.

Rest helps, but most illnesses need their specific treatment as well. Sleep without treatment for parasites or dysentery just burns food and water while Condition keeps falling.