diff --git a/docs/BESTIARY.md b/docs/BESTIARY.md index 7a8035a..4cf08fe 100644 --- a/docs/BESTIARY.md +++ b/docs/BESTIARY.md @@ -3,7 +3,7 @@ *Generated by `tools/bestiary.mjs`. Do not edit: every number is derived from the statblock or read from the lethality baseline, so this cannot disagree with the game.* -47 creatures. 10 of them are not human-shaped. +184 creatures. 26 of them are not human-shaped. ## At a glance @@ -11,42 +11,141 @@ Sorted by how much of a four-agent party each one puts on the floor, alone. **So | | Creature | Essence | SIZ | Arm | HP | Attack | Down of 4 | |---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| | **Inside out** | The room is inside the thing | 28 | 12 | 28 | Grasping limb 85% | 3.83 | +| | **The fathom** | Something in the deep water that is measuring the deep water | 26 | 12 | 27 | Grasping limb 60% | 3.73 | | | **Quarantine unit** | Sent to contain the same thing you were, and it got here first | 14 | 9 | 17 | Unmaker 75% | 3.69 | +| | **The dun cow** | It has been in the same field since the rib was hung in the church and it is not a cow | 32 | 8 | 31 | Horn / tusk 65% | 3.64 | | | **Long walker** | It has been coming here for a very long time and is nearly arrived | 22 | 10 | 24 | Grasping limb 80% | 3.32 | +| | **The dun cow of the heath** | The cow off the heath that was killed with a rib for a weapon, according to the church, which has the rib | 26 | 7 | 29 | Horn / tusk 70% | 3.20 | +| | **The water bull** | What comes out of the loch and gets among the cattle, and what the calves look like afterwards | 22 | 8 | 25 | Horn / tusk 75% | 3.19 | +| | **The undertow** | The current in the harbour mouth that goes the wrong way and chooses | 22 | 8 | 23 | Grasping limb 70% | 2.94 | +| | **The march stone** | The boundary stone that has been in nine places and each time was always there | 22 | 14 | 26 | Grasping limb 45% | 2.72 | | | **The stanchion** | Something was driven through the floor here to keep the door from shutting | 21 | 12 | 23 | Grasping limb 45% | 2.52 | +| | **Backscatter** | Its geometry is wrong and so is looking at it | 16 | 9 | 19 | Grasping limb 80% | 2.42 | +| | **The master of the hunt** | The rider at the head of it, who has a right of way older than the road | 17 | 6 | 21 | Improvised spear 90% | 2.27 | | | **The supporter** | The winged beast off a borough coat of arms, come down off it | 24 | 9 | 30 | Grasping limb 75% | 2.16 | +| | **The guildhall gryphon** | Eagle in front, lion behind, and six centuries of being kept accurately | 22 | 8 | 26 | Talon 80% | 2.15 | +| | **Black Annis** | What has lived in the cut in the hillside since before the estate was built over it | 16 | 4 | 19 | Grasping limb 85% | 2.00 | | | **Nuckelavee** | It came up out of the firth and everything it breathes on dies | 20 | 5 | 20 | Grasping limb 85% | 1.98 | | | **The arrears** | Something was borrowed from the far side in 1968 and this is the collection | 19 | 7 | 20 | Grasping limb 80% | 1.98 | +| | **The azure bull** | The blue bull off the brewery arms, standing in the yard it was drawn for | 21 | 6 | 23 | Horn / tusk 65% | 1.98 | +| | **Eel mother** | The long thing in the sluice pool that the eel men used to feed | 19 | 5 | 21 | Bite 75% | 1.78 | +| V | **Patient grasp** | It has been holding something on the other side for a long time | 18 | 8 | 21 | Grasping limb 75% | 1.76 | +| | **The overflight** | It is flying over a landscape that is not this one | 21 | 7 | 22 | Talon 80% | 1.75 | +| | **The sump** | What is at the bottom of the reservoir where the village was | 20 | 6 | 23 | Grasping limb 60% | 1.72 | | | **Surveyor** | It is measuring the site and it will finish | 13 | 8 | 16 | Redaction lance 70% | 1.56 | +| | **The dullahan** | The coachman on the lane at two in the morning, carrying his own head | 15 | 5 | 19 | Military flail 85% | 1.52 | +| | **The pooka** | The black thing in the lane that talks, and is not offering you a lift | 19 | 3 | 18 | Hoof / kick 70% | 1.41 | +| | **The bear-ward's bear** | The baiting bear off the inn-yard, old, half-blind, and still chained to a post that rotted away in 1804 | 20 | 5 | 21 | Claw 75% | 1.41 | +| | **Callum Pike** | heavy | 15 | 0 | 15 | Marksman rifle 55% | 1.40 | | | **The apple tree man** | The oldest tree in the orchard, and it has been owed a drink since 1961 | 19 | 8 | 22 | Grasping limb 55% | 1.37 | +| | **Sea mare** | The drowned horse that came up the strand with the tide still on it | 20 | 4 | 20 | Trample 70% | 1.36 | +| | **Tangie** | The thing under the weed at the low-water line, wearing the weed | 17 | 6 | 19 | Grasping limb 75% | 1.25 | +| | **Washland cattle** | The herd that was left out when the washes flooded, still grazing | 24 | 4 | 22 | Horn / tusk 55% | 1.15 | +| | **The boobrie** | The bird on the loch that takes calves off the shore | 21 | 3 | 19 | Beak 70% | 1.08 | | | **Lost property** | It has been collecting for ninety years and it is not only umbrellas now | 18 | 7 | 21 | Grasping limb 60% | 1.06 | +| | **The man-tyger** | A lion with an old man's face, drawn upright on a mayoral chain | 17 | 5 | 19 | Grasping limb 75% | 1.03 | | | **Cuckoo array** | A machine that has decided it is the site | 20 | 7 | 22 | Grasping limb 55% | 1.02 | | V | **The yield** | It is here for the harvest and the harvest is annual | 18 | 5 | 18 | Grasping limb 75% | 1.01 | +| | **The hollow hog** | A tamworth crossed back to wild boar two generations ago, at large in the plantation ever since | 15 | 5 | 18 | Horn / tusk 70% | 1.01 | | C | **The relay** | Cadence machinery holding one end of a crossing open | 17 | 8 | 20 | Grasping limb 55% | 0.94 | +| | **Cu sidhe** | The green hound that hunts silently and barks three times at the end | 17 | 4 | 18 | Bite 80% | 0.91 | +| | **The grey mare** | The riderless horse that joins the road behind you and keeps pace | 20 | 3 | 19 | Hoof / kick 55% | 0.89 | | V | **The courier** | A Vesh carrying something across, and it will not put it down | 16 | 6 | 18 | Grasping limb 80% | 0.80 | +| | **The sign wyvern** | Two legs, two wings and a barbed tail, off a pub sign that has hung there since the turnpike | 18 | 6 | 20 | Talon 70% | 0.77 | | | **Redcap** | The small old man in the ruin, and what he dyes his hat with | 7 | 2 | 13 | Halberd 80% | 0.74 | +| V | **The tideline** | It keeps the mark where one side touches the other | 14 | 6 | 16 | Grasping limb 70% | 0.73 | +| | **The yale** | The horned beast whose horns swivel, off a college gate | 15 | 4 | 17 | Horn / tusk 60% | 0.73 | +| | **The latecomer** | It arrives before it is sent for | 14 | 4 | 15 | Marksman rifle 65% | 0.70 | +| | **Hunky punk** | The carving off the tower that has got down and is on the leads | 13 | 10 | 20 | Grasping limb 60% | 0.68 | +| C | **Five of six** | Five bodies here, one still on the far side, and it wants the set | 13 | 5 | 16 | Grasping limb 75% | 0.65 | | | **Barghest** | The black dog on the road out of the village | 15 | 3 | 16 | Grasping limb 75% | 0.64 | +| | **Mirrorline** | It does what you do, on the other side of a line that is not there | 13 | 6 | 15 | Utility knife 60% | 0.62 | +| | **The menagerie ape** | What was billed as an orang-outang in 1831 and is still in the cage behind the arcade | 16 | 3 | 18 | Grasping limb 70% | 0.60 | +| C | **The iteration** | The same person five times, at five ages, arguing | 13 | 6 | 17 | Grasping limb 55% | 0.53 | +| | **Wrackman** | The shape made of everything the flood left in the hedge | 18 | 5 | 20 | Grasping limb 60% | 0.52 | | | **Church grim** | What was buried at the north door to keep the ground | 14 | 5 | 17 | Grasping limb 70% | 0.49 | | | **Spriggan** | The small ugly thing guarding the barrow, until it is not small | 16 | 4 | 17 | Cudgel 55% | 0.49 | +| | **Recurrence** | The same four minutes, again | 14 | 5 | 16 | Grasping limb 65% | 0.44 | +| | **The crossroads man** | Put in at the meeting of four parishes in 1802 with a stake through him so he would stay | 13 | 3 | 17 | Grasping limb 70% | 0.41 | +| | **The lock keeper** | The man at the gates who has worked the lock since before the lock | 14 | 1 | 16 | Entry bar 70% | 0.41 | +| | **The tup** | The ram that put a farmer through a gate, and has not been caught since | 12 | 4 | 14 | Horn / tusk 65% | 0.41 | +| | **Jenny Greenteeth** | The weed mat on the still water that is not a weed mat | 16 | 3 | 18 | Grasping limb 65% | 0.40 | +| | **Peg Powler** | The green arms in the weir pool that children are warned about | 15 | 2 | 16 | Grasping limb 80% | 0.39 | | | **Kelpie** | The horse standing at the water that is not a horse | 18 | 2 | 17 | Grasping limb 65% | 0.38 | +| V | **Anglesmith** | It adds a corner to a building and the building agrees to it | 15 | 5 | 17 | Grasping limb 60% | 0.38 | +| | **Second pass** | It has already done this once and remembers how it went | 13 | 3 | 14 | Service pistol 70% | 0.35 | +| | **Old Marrow** | An invention that will not come indoors. HP 20, armour 2. The fight. | 22 | 2 | 20 | Billhook 60% | 0.35 | +| V | **Foldwalker** | It is standing in two rooms and only one of them is yours | 13 | 4 | 15 | Grasping limb 65% | 0.34 | +| | **The last talbot** | The white hunting hound off the old arms, bred back for by somebody who should not have managed it | 15 | 3 | 17 | Bite 70% | 0.34 | +| | **Lamprey host** | What was in the intake screen when they finally cleared it | 16 | 3 | 18 | Bite 70% | 0.33 | +| V | **Glass auditor** | It is checking whether this building is the right shape | 14 | 7 | 15 | Grasping limb 35% | 0.32 | +| | **The hinny** | A stallion's foal out of a she-ass, sterile, willing, and no longer going where it is pointed | 18 | 2 | 19 | Hoof / kick 45% | 0.31 | | V | **Precedent** | A Vesh that has already attended the incident you are about to file | 14 | 3 | 15 | Grasping limb 60% | 0.30 | | | **The waiting room** | You will be seen shortly | 17 | 6 | 19 | Grasping limb 40% | 0.30 | | | **Revenant** | What is left when something comes through without a body to come through in | 13 | 4 | 15 | Grasping limb 65% | 0.27 | | V | **The census** | A Vesh counting what is on this side, and it has got to you | 13 | 4 | 15 | Grasping limb 50% | 0.27 | | C | **The overwriter** | It is correcting the record and it does not know the record is us | 15 | 6 | 18 | Grasping limb 35% | 0.25 | +| | **Turnback** | A department dog that came back from the wrong side of a crossing | 12 | 4 | 15 | Bite 75% | 0.25 | +| | **The Conductor** | The service itself, wearing a uniform | 14 | 4 | 15 | Cudgel 60% | 0.25 | | | **Grindylow** | What is in the still water at the bottom of the lock | 11 | 3 | 14 | Grasping limb 70% | 0.24 | +| | **Harbour dog** | The wet dog on the quay that nobody on the quay owns | 13 | 3 | 16 | Bite 70% | 0.24 | +| | **The eagle displayed** | The two-headed eagle off a brass lectern, at full wingspan | 9 | 4 | 11 | Beak 65% | 0.24 | +| | **The moor cat** | A big black cat on the moor, in a country that has not had one for a very long time and possibly does | 14 | 2 | 15 | Bite 75% | 0.24 | +| | **Shellycoat** | The rattling thing in the burn, hung with everything the water took | 12 | 4 | 14 | Grasping limb 55% | 0.23 | +| | **The gaunt grey** | A wolf, in a county that logged its last one in 1621, and thin in a way that does not match how much it has eaten | 13 | 3 | 15 | Bite 70% | 0.23 | +| | **Mara Venn** | overwatch | 12 | 0 | 13 | Anti-materiel rifle 58% | 0.22 | +| | **The enfield** | A fox's head, an eagle's forelegs, a wolf's body and a lion's hindquarters, assembled by a herald who never saw one | 13 | 3 | 14 | Talon 60% | 0.21 | +| | **The heron** | The grey thing standing in the reservoir margin that has not moved since Tuesday | 12 | 2 | 13 | Beak 65% | 0.18 | | | **The auditor** | It has read the file and it has questions | 11 | 4 | 13 | Service pistol 55% | 0.17 | +| | **Melusine** | The twin-tailed mermaid off the font, and the water she came up through | 13 | 3 | 15 | Grasping limb 50% | 0.16 | +| | **Jenny Greenteeth** | The weed on the pond that is arranged to look like weed on a pond | 11 | 1 | 14 | Grasping limb 70% | 0.15 | +| | **Fen hound** | The low thing that runs the droves between the drains | 11 | 2 | 13 | Bite 65% | 0.15 | | | **The night registry** | The filing that gets done after everyone goes home | 13 | 3 | 16 | Grasping limb 50% | 0.14 | | | **The predecessor** | Whoever had this desk before you never quite handed over | 12 | 2 | 14 | Service pistol 60% | 0.13 | +| | **The lych-gate waiter** | The last one buried, standing watch at the gate until the next one comes | 12 | 3 | 15 | Grasping limb 50% | 0.13 | +| | **The cut walker** | What uses the towpath at the hour the towpath is empty | 13 | 1 | 15 | Grasping limb 60% | 0.13 | | | **Cleaner (marksman)** | The one holding the high ground | 12 | 0 | 12 | Marksman rifle 55% | 0.11 | | | **The carrion file** | A case file that has been eating the cases filed next to it | 9 | 6 | 16 | Grasping limb 45% | 0.11 | +| | **Nia Mercer** | lead | 12 | 0 | 13 | Service pistol 55% | 0.11 | +| V | **Half past** | It is forty seconds ahead and cannot be caught up with | 11 | 3 | 12 | Grasping limb 60% | 0.10 | | | **The locum** | Covering a post that nobody appointed and nobody can close | 12 | 1 | 13 | Service pistol 50% | 0.09 | | | **Duplicate (of an agent)** | The single most expensive thing a team can meet | 12 | 0 | 13 | Service pistol 50% | 0.08 | +| | **Selkie** | The one on the rocks that has a skin and knows where it is | 14 | 2 | 15 | Bite 40% | 0.07 | +| | **Hulk haunt** | What stayed aboard after the vessel was condemned and beached | 14 | 4 | 17 | Punch / kick 65% | 0.07 | +| C | **Many hands** | It is working on five things at once and one of them is you | 12 | 4 | 14 | Punch / kick 65% | 0.07 | +| | **Rance Doyle** | 1881, Cordera. Miner. His brother Tom went out on No. 9 and did not come back. | 14 | 0 | 15 | Martini-Henry 45% | 0.07 | +| | **Ticket inspector** | Part of the service, not a person | 12 | 2 | 13 | Cudgel 50% | 0.07 | +| | **Warden Michael Teague** | Head of the site's police. The man sent to fetch them. | 14 | 0 | 14 | Cudgel 60% | 0.07 | | | **The Keepers (waystation)** | Scavengers who bury what comes through — and the only real information network on the far side | 12 | 0 | 13 | Utility knife 55% | 0.06 | +| | **Tom Doyle** | 1881, aboard. Rance's brother. Shot at minute two of every pass. | 12 | 0 | 13 | Martini-Henry 35% | 0.06 | +| | **Cass Merritt** | 1881. Hired guard, the coats. Has the company's letter and the key to the box. | 13 | 1 | 14 | Webley revolver 65% | 0.06 | +| | **Cordera miner** | 1881. One of Ambrose's four. Use for all of them. | 13 | 0 | 14 | Martini-Henry 40% | 0.06 | | | **The understudy** | It has been practising being you and it is nearly ready | 12 | 2 | 13 | Punch / kick 60% | 0.05 | | V | **The margin** | It lives in the space around what was written down | 8 | 2 | 11 | Grasping limb 40% | 0.05 | +| | **Gabriel hounds** | The pack heard passing over the rooftops on a still night | 9 | 2 | 11 | Bite 65% | 0.05 | | | **The Quiet Neighbours** | Near-world locals who have lived beside the threshold for generations | 8 | 0 | 10 | Improvised spear 50% | 0.04 | | | **Cleaner (contractor)** | Human, armed, and working for whoever got here first | 12 | 0 | 12 | Service pistol 45% | 0.04 | +| | **The teind** | Collection is every seventh year and the account is not in your name | 13 | 4 | 16 | Punch / kick 35% | 0.04 | +| | **The white hart** | The badge beast with the crown about its neck, which cannot be taken | 17 | 2 | 17 | Punch / kick 20% | 0.04 | +| | **The gazehound** | A coursing dog bred to see further than a dog should, and it does | 11 | 1 | 12 | Bite 55% | 0.04 | +| | **Bellhouse warden** | One of the site's eleven police, born below. Use for all of them. | 13 | 0 | 13 | Cudgel 50% | 0.04 | +| | **Tatterfoal** | The shaggy foal in the field that follows along the hedge and laughs | 10 | 1 | 11 | Hoof / kick 30% | 0.03 | +| V | **Returned surveyor** | Department surveyor, missing eleven years, back with the wrong limbs | 12 | 2 | 12 | Grasping limb 40% | 0.03 | +| | **The drain heron** | A grey heron standing in the outfall, considerably too large, entirely ordinary in every other respect | 7 | 1 | 9 | Beak 40% | 0.03 | +| | **Mr Shard** | 1881, Cordera. Company detective. Buying drinks and collecting names. | 12 | 0 | 12 | Webley revolver 55% | 0.03 | +| C | **The drowned crew** | Five of a crew of nine, still working the watch they were on | 12 | 2 | 13 | Punch / kick 55% | 0.02 | +| | **Cordera man (town)** | 1881. One of Rance's five in the street. Use for all of them. | 13 | 0 | 13 | Webley revolver 35% | 0.02 | +| | **Josiah Ambrose** | 1881. Miner, the writ men. Carries a court order for the payroll. Dies at minute four. | 14 | 0 | 15 | Webley revolver 45% | 0.02 | +| | **Company guard** | 1881. One of Merritt's three. Use for all of them. | 12 | 1 | 12 | Webley revolver 45% | 0.02 | +| | **Owen Dey** | | 12 | 0 | 12 | Compact pistol 42% | 0.02 | +| | **Sennen Roake** | | 10 | 0 | 11 | Compact pistol 42% | 0.02 | +| | **The cailleach** | An old woman on the pass who decides when the weather stops | 12 | 2 | 16 | Punch / kick 25% | 0.01 | +| | **Wrack gull** | The flock off the tip that follows one person and not the bins | 6 | 1 | 9 | Beak 60% | 0.01 | +| | **Sea crow** | The black bird on the wreck buoy that is counting something | 5 | 1 | 8 | Beak 35% | 0.01 | +| | **The cockatrice** | What came out of the egg the cockerel was sitting on | 5 | 2 | 8 | Beak 45% | 0.01 | +| | **The pelican in her piety** | The bird carved tearing her own breast to feed the young, still doing it | 8 | 1 | 14 | Beak 25% | 0.01 | +| | **Dr Elin Shaw** | | 11 | 0 | 11 | Compact pistol 42% | 0.01 | | | **Boggart** | The thing in the house that was tolerable until it was not | 5 | 0 | 9 | Punch / kick 35% | 0.00 | | | **Hollow man** | Somebody who crossed too often and came back thinner each time | 12 | 1 | 13 | Punch / kick 55% | 0.00 | | | **The tenant** | What moved into the house while it was empty | 10 | 0 | 11 | Punch / kick 25% | 0.00 | @@ -58,6 +157,44 @@ Sorted by how much of a four-agent party each one puts on the floor, alone. **So | C | **The committee** | It went into session in 1953 and has not risen | 12 | 2 | 15 | Punch / kick 30% | 0.00 | | | **The minutes** | A faithful record of a meeting that has not been held | 4 | 0 | 7 | Punch / kick 10% | 0.00 | | | **The switchboard** | It is still connecting calls and some of them are answered | 14 | 4 | 17 | Punch / kick 25% | 0.00 | +| | **Gwrach y Rhibyn** | The hag at the window who gives the name and the date | 10 | 1 | 11 | Punch / kick 20% | 0.00 | +| | **The sin-eater** | The man paid sixpence at the graveside to take what the dead could not carry | 11 | 0 | 12 | Punch / kick 20% | 0.00 | +| | **The foundation child** | What was put under the first pier so the bridge would stand | 5 | 2 | 15 | Punch / kick 15% | 0.00 | +| | **The bog offering** | Taken out of the peat in 1974, and it was not put in the peat to be taken out | 11 | 1 | 15 | Punch / kick 30% | 0.00 | +| | **The hob** | The one behind the range that does the work if the work is left out for it | 4 | 0 | 8 | Punch / kick 20% | 0.00 | +| | **The cauld lad** | The apprentice who died in the works and still turns out for the night shift | 9 | 0 | 11 | Punch / kick 30% | 0.00 | +| | **The changeling** | Left in the cot in 1987 and still four years old | 5 | 1 | 11 | Punch / kick 15% | 0.00 | +| | **The uninvited** | The one who should have been asked to the christening and was not | 12 | 2 | 14 | Punch / kick 25% | 0.00 | +| | **The net mender** | The woman on the harbour steps mending something that is not a net | 10 | 0 | 11 | Punch / kick 25% | 0.00 | +| | **The mudlark** | The child working the foreshore at a tide that was three hours ago | 6 | 0 | 9 | Punch / kick 30% | 0.00 | +| | **The drowned parish** | A congregation that was compulsorily purchased and never left | 11 | 2 | 12 | Punch / kick 40% | 0.00 | +| V | **The unmeasured** | Nothing that measures it agrees with anything else that measures it | 10 | 1 | 11 | Grasping limb 25% | 0.00 | +| C | **Quorate** | It will not act until enough of it agrees, and then all of it acts | 11 | 2 | 13 | Punch / kick 55% | 0.00 | +| C | **The remainder** | A swarm-mind that lost a body somewhere it cannot go back to | 10 | 1 | 11 | Punch / kick 45% | 0.00 | +| C | **Counterpoint** | Five bodies, each in a slightly different minute | 11 | 3 | 13 | Punch / kick 60% | 0.00 | +| C | **The tally** | A distributed clerk counting the party against a number it already has | 12 | 4 | 14 | Punch / kick 20% | 0.00 | +| | **Afterimage** | What is left where somebody was killed twice | 11 | 0 | 10 | Punch / kick 35% | 0.00 | +| | **Carried over** | A wound that came back without the person it was in | 4 | 0 | 9 | Punch / kick 50% | 0.00 | +| | **The martlet** | The little bird drawn with no feet, which therefore has none | 3 | 0 | 6 | Punch / kick 15% | 0.00 | +| | **The cade lamb** | The hand-reared lamb that was never afraid of anybody, and grew up | 7 | 1 | 9 | Punch / kick 10% | 0.00 | +| | **Mr Bewley** | Registry. Holds the case file and signs for the agents. | 11 | 0 | 11 | Punch / kick 0% | 0.00 | +| | **Mr Prosser** | Stores. Takes the modern kit off them. | 12 | 0 | 13 | Punch / kick 0% | 0.00 | +| | **Marius Kell** | Engineer. Has not let go of the regulator since 3 November. | 13 | 0 | 15 | Punch / kick 0% | 0.00 | +| | **Elias Vane** | Surveyor. Signed the chart. Knows exactly what he did. | 11 | 0 | 11 | Punch / kick 0% | 0.00 | +| | **Hester Bligh** | Conductor. Sixty-one aboard, counted hourly. | 11 | 0 | 13 | Punch / kick 0% | 0.00 | +| | **Ada Reyes** | Telegraph operator, Cordera. | 10 | 0 | 11 | Punch / kick 0% | 0.00 | +| | **Leah Hall** | Network Rail engineer, trapped | 11 | 0 | 11 | Punch / kick 0% | 0.00 | +| | **Martin Cole** | Network Rail engineer, concussed | 12 | 0 | 12 | Punch / kick 0% | 0.00 | +| | **Sister Enderby** | An invention that counts. HP 12, no armour. | 11 | 0 | 12 | Punch / kick 55% | 0.00 | +| | **Sammy, the boy in the wall** | An invention that hides. Cannot be hit. | 6 | 0 | 9 | Punch / kick 50% | 0.00 | +| | **Edith Crane** | Housemaid, 22, died in the 1963 fire. Cannot be hurt. Not a monster. | 10 | 0 | 10 | Punch / kick 0% | 0.00 | +| | **Beata Nowak** | Floor manager, holding the night together on a radio. | 11 | 0 | 12 | Punch / kick 0% | 0.00 | +| | **Vic Tunnicliffe** | Operator. Bank loan, forty staff, one dead employee. | 13 | 0 | 13 | Punch / kick 0% | 0.00 | +| | **Douglas Kearsley** | Retired exchange engineer, 71. Does not come out. | 11 | 0 | 11 | Punch / kick 0% | 0.00 | +| | **Councillor Hazel Odame** | Civic society chair. Takes the head count. | 11 | 0 | 11 | Punch / kick 0% | 0.00 | +| | **Tony Vasey** | Site manager. Wants Monday to start. | 13 | 0 | 13 | Punch / kick 0% | 0.00 | +| | **Mrs Ivy Ferrand** | Recruiting officer. Act Three. | 11 | 0 | 12 | Punch / kick 0% | 0.00 | +| | **Mr Bewley** | Registry. Signs things. The briefing. | 12 | 0 | 12 | Punch / kick 0% | 0.00 | **V** = Vesh, **C** = Cadence. Everything else is baseline-human anatomy, including several things that are plainly not human-shaped — see the note at the foot. @@ -71,7 +208,7 @@ costs it **30 points** on the next one, and the whole thing resets when the round does. The median dodge in this book is 45%, which goes **45%** → **15%** → **1%** and is down to the floor after 2 landing hits. -Across 46 creatures that spend defences: **13** are stripped by 1 landing hit, **25** are stripped by 2 landing hits, **8** are stripped by 3 landing hits. +Across 155 creatures that spend defences: **40** are stripped by 1 landing hit, **90** are stripped by 2 landing hits, **25** are stripped by 3 landing hits. Two things follow: @@ -104,11 +241,11 @@ and a fight nobody could win are both left out.)* The ones that take the most stripping: +- **The martlet** — dodge 85%, 3 landing hits to strip - **The margin** — dodge 80%, 3 landing hits to strip +- **Wrack gull** — dodge 80%, 3 landing hits to strip +- **The white hart** — dodge 80%, 3 landing hits to strip - **Lantern man** — dodge 75%, 3 landing hits to strip -- **Hedley Kow** — dodge 70%, 3 landing hits to strip -- **The courier** — dodge 70%, 3 landing hits to strip -- **The Quiet Neighbours** — dodge 68%, 3 landing hits to strip It runs the other way too: agents defend on the same ladder, which is why a second attacker in a round is worth so much more than the first, and why anything that gets @@ -120,6 +257,80 @@ two attacks in before the party acts is far more dangerous than its statblock re Older than the department and largely uninterested in it. Most of these are arrangements rather than fights, and the arrangement is nearly always cheaper. +### The dun cow + +*It has been in the same field since the rib was hung in the church and it is not a cow* + +> **Four-legged** — four legs, no arms. The forequarters are the vital and take the most hits at range; the neck is worth aiming at and the head is hard to reach (1 face in melee). + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 34 | 30 | 32 | 4 | 19 | 8 | 8 | 31 | 16 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Horn / tusk at 65%, 1d8+1 · **dodges** 15% + +**THE CHARGE.** This is not its ordinary attack — standing, it uses the horns, and it kicks whatever gets behind it. The charge is a separate manoeuvre and heavier than anything in the book: once it has decided, it charges in a straight line and cannot turn, 4d6 damage, armour counts, DEXx5 to be somewhere else, and anything it hits that is not a person is destroyed. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 3.64 of 4 down, 82.9% wiped, 10 rounds.* + +### The water bull + +*What comes out of the loch and gets among the cattle, and what the calves look like afterwards* + +> **Four-legged** — four legs, no arms. The forequarters are the vital and take the most hits at range; the neck is worth aiming at and the head is hard to reach (1 face in melee). + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 27 | 28 | 22 | 7 | 21 | 14 | 8 | 25 | 13 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Horn / tusk at 75%, 1d8+1 · **dodges** 35% + +**WET HIDE.** While it is wet its armour is 8 and nothing the team carries reliably beats that. It dries: from the third round out of the water the armour drops by 1 each round, to a floor of 3. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 3.19 of 4 down, 63.2% wiped, 13 rounds.* + +### The undertow + +*The current in the harbour mouth that goes the wrong way and chooses* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 26 | 24 | 22 | 4 | 21 | 15 | 8 | 23 | 12 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Grasping limb at 70%, 1d6+1 · **dodges** 50% + +**SET.** Anybody in the water in the harbour mouth is moved 5 metres seaward a round and held under from the second round — STRx5 to surface, at −20% per round, and the ASPHYXIA rules run from there. Armour and weapons do nothing to it. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 2.94 of 4 down, 52.8% wiped, 14 rounds.* + +### The march stone + +*The boundary stone that has been in nine places and each time was always there* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 28 | 30 | 22 | 3 | 23 | 2 | 14 | 26 | 13 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Grasping limb at 45%, 1d6+1 · **dodges** 5% + +**ALWAYS WAS.** Wherever it stands, every map, deed, and register within a mile agrees it has stood there since enclosure, and the previous line is gone from the record; agents who read the old survey and the new one in the same scene lose 1 Coherence. It cannot be broken by anything the department can carry. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 2.72 of 4 down, 43.5% wiped, 22 rounds.* + +### The master of the hunt + +*The rider at the head of it, who has a right of way older than the road* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 22 | 24 | 17 | 14 | 24 | 16 | 6 | 21 | 11 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Improvised spear at 90%, 1d8+1 · **dodges** 55% + +**RIGHT OF WAY.** Anything standing between it and its quarry is ridden down: 3d6 damage, DEXx5 to throw yourself clear for half, and armour counts. It does not stop, circle back, or finish anybody off. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 2.27 of 4 down, 22.4% wiped, 11 rounds.* + ### The supporter *The winged beast off a borough coat of arms, come down off it* @@ -136,6 +347,20 @@ Older than the department and largely uninterested in it. Most of these are arra *Measured alone against the frozen party: 2.16 of 4 down, 25.1% wiped, 9 rounds.* +### Black Annis + +*What has lived in the cut in the hillside since before the estate was built over it* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 25 | 22 | 16 | 13 | 21 | 20 | 4 | 19 | 10 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Grasping limb at 85%, 1d6+1 · **dodges** 65% + +**THE REACH.** It attacks through any gap an arm will fit, from full concealment, and the agent it reaches for does not get a Dodge that round because there was nothing to see. It will not come out into open ground in daylight. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 2.00 of 4 down, 21.6% wiped, 7 rounds.* + ### Nuckelavee *It came up out of the firth and everything it breathes on dies* @@ -150,6 +375,52 @@ Older than the department and largely uninterested in it. Most of these are arra *Measured alone against the frozen party: 1.98 of 4 down, 20.3% wiped, 7 rounds.* +### Eel mother + +*The long thing in the sluice pool that the eel men used to feed* + +> **Four-legged** — four legs, no arms. The forequarters are the vital and take the most hits at range; the neck is worth aiming at and the head is hard to reach (1 face in melee). + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 22 | 22 | 19 | 7 | 16 | 17 | 5 | 21 | 11 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Bite at 75%, 1d6 · **dodges** 60% + +**THE ROLL.** Its ordinary attack is the bite. The roll is a separate manoeuvre that follows a bite which held: on top of the bite's own damage the subject takes 1d3 and makes a STRx5 roll or they are face down in the pool, whereupon the ASPHYXIA rules apply and breaking free is at −20% per round. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 1.78 of 4 down, 15.6% wiped, 8 rounds.* + +### The dullahan + +*The coachman on the lane at two in the morning, carrying his own head* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 20 | 22 | 15 | 11 | 24 | 18 | 5 | 19 | 10 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Military flail at 85%, 1d10 · **dodges** 50% + +**THE CALL.** When it speaks the name, the named person must make a POWx5 roll or walk to the coach; anyone physically restraining them takes the flail instead, 1d10 and it strikes at 85%. Its eyes see through anything, so concealment is worthless. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 1.52 of 4 down, 9.3% wiped, 6 rounds.* + +### The pooka + +*The black thing in the lane that talks, and is not offering you a lift* + +> **Four-legged** — four legs, no arms. The forequarters are the vital and take the most hits at range; the neck is worth aiming at and the head is hard to reach (1 face in melee). + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 23 | 17 | 19 | 16 | 22 | 19 | 3 | 18 | 9 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Hoof / kick at 70%, 1d6+2 · **dodges** 60% + +**THE RIDE.** Anyone it can get onto its back goes wherever it wants for one hour: hedges, water, a dual carriageway. At the end, one Major Wound check and 1d6 damage, and the agent is somewhere inconvenient and unhurt in every way that matters. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 1.41 of 4 down, 9.7% wiped, 4 rounds.* + ### The apple tree man *The oldest tree in the orchard, and it has been owed a drink since 1961* @@ -164,6 +435,102 @@ Older than the department and largely uninterested in it. Most of these are arra *Measured alone against the frozen party: 1.37 of 4 down, 3.7% wiped, 11 rounds.* +### Sea mare + +*The drowned horse that came up the strand with the tide still on it* + +> **Four-legged** — four legs, no arms. The forequarters are the vital and take the most hits at range; the neck is worth aiming at and the head is hard to reach (1 face in melee). + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 24 | 19 | 20 | 5 | 16 | 12 | 4 | 20 | 10 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Trample at 70%, 1d10 · **dodges** 35% + +**THE TIDE IT CAME IN ON.** Below the high-water mark it takes half damage from anything and recovers 2 hit points a round. Above that line it takes full damage and recovers nothing, so the fight the agents can win is on the sea wall, on the road, or on the car park — anywhere the sea does not reach. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 1.36 of 4 down, 8.6% wiped, 5 rounds.* + +### Tangie + +*The thing under the weed at the low-water line, wearing the weed* + +> **Four-legged** — four legs, no arms. The forequarters are the vital and take the most hits at range; the neck is worth aiming at and the head is hard to reach (1 face in melee). + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 22 | 21 | 17 | 8 | 17 | 14 | 6 | 19 | 10 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Grasping limb at 75%, 1d6+1 · **dodges** 40% + +**WEED.** Its hide is a metre of bladderwrack: edged and piercing weapons do HALF damage rounded down, blunt weapons do full. Burning the wrack off takes a round of open flame and drops its natural armour to 1 for the rest of the scene. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 1.25 of 4 down, 3.1% wiped, 7 rounds.* + +### Washland cattle + +*The herd that was left out when the washes flooded, still grazing* + +> **Four-legged** — four legs, no arms. The forequarters are the vital and take the most hits at range; the neck is worth aiming at and the head is hard to reach (1 face in melee). + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 25 | 20 | 24 | 4 | 14 | 8 | 4 | 22 | 11 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Horn / tusk at 55%, 1d8+1 · **dodges** 20% + +**DRIVEN.** A single animal fights with horn or by trampling one person down, as the statblock's weapons say. DRIVEN is the whole herd going at once and is heavier than any one animal's trample: anybody in front of the herd when it goes takes 2d6 and is knocked down, no roll to avoid if they are in water above the knee — an Athletics roll at −20% to get clear if they are on dry ground. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 1.15 of 4 down, 4.7% wiped, 5 rounds.* + +### The boobrie + +*The bird on the loch that takes calves off the shore* + +> **Four-legged, winged** — as the four-legged, plus wings. **Disable either wing and it cannot fly**, which is the fight the players can win. Wings are 6 faces of 20 at range and 2 in melee, and carry no hide at all. Once it is grounded the hide halves everywhere except the chest, which it keeps turned towards you. + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 22 | 16 | 21 | 6 | 15 | 17 | 3 | 19 | 10 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Beak at 70%, 1d6+1 · **dodges** 55% + +**THE LIFT.** Against a target of SIZ 14 or under it may close its talons and lift at 70%; on a success the target is airborne, and dropped from forty feet a round later for 4d6. The drop is the manoeuvre, not the talons, and no natural attack it has comes near it. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 1.08 of 4 down, 4.5% wiped, 4 rounds.* + +### Cu sidhe + +*The green hound that hunts silently and barks three times at the end* + +> **Four-legged** — four legs, no arms. The forequarters are the vital and take the most hits at range; the neck is worth aiming at and the head is hard to reach (1 face in melee). + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 20 | 18 | 17 | 7 | 21 | 20 | 4 | 18 | 9 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Bite at 80%, 1d6 · **dodges** 65% + +**THREE BARKS.** It barks once when it has the scent, twice when it has closed, and a third time when it is about to take the target; on the third bark every agent who can hear it must make a POWx5 roll or lose their next action. Anybody indoors, behind a shut door, before the third bark is not hunted — it will not enter a building. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.91 of 4 down, 1.5% wiped, 5 rounds.* + +### The grey mare + +*The riderless horse that joins the road behind you and keeps pace* + +> **Four-legged** — four legs, no arms. The forequarters are the vital and take the most hits at range; the neck is worth aiming at and the head is hard to reach (1 face in melee). + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 24 | 18 | 20 | 6 | 17 | 12 | 3 | 19 | 10 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Hoof / kick at 55%, 1d6+2 · **dodges** 35% + +**MOUNT UP.** Any agent who touches its back must make a POWx5 roll or get on; a rider is carried at a flat gallop to the nearest boundary of the parish and put down there, one Major Wound check on landing, and the mare is gone. Nobody has ever been killed by it. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.89 of 4 down, 1.9% wiped, 4 rounds.* + ### Redcap *The small old man in the ruin, and what he dyes his hat with* @@ -178,6 +545,22 @@ Older than the department and largely uninterested in it. Most of these are arra *Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.74 of 4 down, 0.9% wiped, 4 rounds.* +### Hunky punk + +*The carving off the tower that has got down and is on the leads* + +> **Four-legged, winged** — as the four-legged, plus wings. **Disable either wing and it cannot fly**, which is the fight the players can win. Wings are 6 faces of 20 at range and 2 in melee, and carry no hide at all. Once it is grounded the hide halves everywhere except the chest, which it keeps turned towards you. + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 20 | 26 | 13 | 5 | 14 | 10 | 10 | 20 | 10 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Grasping limb at 60%, 1d6+1 · **dodges** 20% + +**MASONRY.** Bullets do minimum damage to it and edged weapons do none at all; a prybar, a hammer, or a fall onto flags does full. It is ten points of armour that walks at a stroll — leave the roof and it does not follow past the gutter. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.68 of 4 down, 0.7% wiped, 5 rounds.* + ### Barghest *The black dog on the road out of the village* @@ -224,6 +607,48 @@ Older than the department and largely uninterested in it. Most of these are arra *Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.49 of 4 down, 0.3% wiped, 4 rounds.* +### The crossroads man + +*Put in at the meeting of four parishes in 1802 with a stake through him so he would stay* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 21 | 21 | 13 | 8 | 19 | 13 | 3 | 17 | 9 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Grasping limb at 70%, 1d6+1 · **dodges** 40% + +**NO PARISH.** It cannot be stopped by anything that works by jurisdiction — a cordon, a warrant, a Borrowed Authority, a boundary of any kind — because it was buried precisely where four of them fail to meet. It fights with its hands, 1d6+1, and it is strong. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.41 of 4 down, 0.1% wiped, 3 rounds.* + +### Jenny Greenteeth + +*The weed mat on the still water that is not a weed mat* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 19 | 20 | 16 | 11 | 17 | 10 | 3 | 18 | 9 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Grasping limb at 65%, 1d6+1 · **dodges** 25% + +**IT LOOKS LIKE GROUND.** Anybody who steps on it goes through and is held: STRx5 to get out, −20% per round, and duckweed closes over the hole in one round so nobody watching can see where they went. From the second round under, run the ASPHYXIA rules. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.40 of 4 down, 0.1% wiped, 3 rounds.* + +### Peg Powler + +*The green arms in the weir pool that children are warned about* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 23 | 17 | 15 | 9 | 18 | 16 | 2 | 16 | 8 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Grasping limb at 80%, 1d6+1 · **dodges** 40% + +**UNDER.** A successful grasp is not damage — it is a grapple at STR 23 and the subject is under the surface at the end of that round. Breaking free is STRx5 or Athletics, at −20% per round already held. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.39 of 4 down, 0.1% wiped, 3 rounds.* + ### Kelpie *The horse standing at the water that is not a horse* @@ -254,6 +679,202 @@ Older than the department and largely uninterested in it. Most of these are arra *Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.24 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 3 rounds.* +### Harbour dog + +*The wet dog on the quay that nobody on the quay owns* + +> **Four-legged** — four legs, no arms. The forequarters are the vital and take the most hits at range; the neck is worth aiming at and the head is hard to reach (1 face in melee). + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 17 | 18 | 13 | 6 | 15 | 16 | 3 | 16 | 8 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Bite at 70%, 1d6 · **dodges** 55% + +**HEEL.** Anyone it has touched must roll POWx5 at the end of every scene spent within sight of that harbour; on a failure they walk to the edge of the quay before they notice they have stood up, and a second agent must physically stop them. Two failures in one night means they go in. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.24 of 4 down, 0.1% wiped, 3 rounds.* + +### Shellycoat + +*The rattling thing in the burn, hung with everything the water took* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 16 | 15 | 12 | 10 | 16 | 13 | 4 | 14 | 7 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Grasping limb at 55%, 1d6+1 · **dodges** 45% + +**SOMETHING OF YOURS.** It steals one carried object per round from anyone it touches — GM picks, and it picks the useful one — and hangs it on itself. Everything it holds is on its body: kill it and everything comes back, and until then the item is simply gone. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.23 of 4 down, 0.1% wiped, 3 rounds.* + +### Jenny Greenteeth + +*The weed on the pond that is arranged to look like weed on a pond* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 19 | 16 | 11 | 8 | 15 | 17 | 1 | 14 | 7 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Grasping limb at 70%, 1d6+1 · **dodges** 40% + +**UNDER.** A successful grasp puts the target in the water: STRx5 each round to get out, at −20% cumulative, and run the ASPHYXIA rules from there rather than a combat. It will let go of anybody who costs it a Major Wound. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.15 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 2 rounds.* + +### Fen hound + +*The low thing that runs the droves between the drains* + +> **Four-legged** — four legs, no arms. The forequarters are the vital and take the most hits at range; the neck is worth aiming at and the head is hard to reach (1 face in melee). + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 16 | 15 | 11 | 6 | 15 | 19 | 2 | 13 | 7 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Bite at 65%, 1d6 · **dodges** 70% + +**OFF THE PATH.** Any agent who runs from it must make an Athletics roll each round; a failure puts them in water up to the chest and they drop one carried item, GM's choice. Walking, at a walk, needs no roll at all and the hound will not close on somebody walking. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.15 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 3 rounds.* + +### The lych-gate waiter + +*The last one buried, standing watch at the gate until the next one comes* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 14 | 17 | 12 | 9 | 18 | 9 | 3 | 15 | 8 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Grasping limb at 50%, 1d6+1 · **dodges** 25% + +**THE WATCH.** Anything carried out through the lych-gate that came from inside the ground — remains, grave goods, a coffin plate — is held: the carrier makes a STRx5 roll against its STR to get past, and a failure means it takes the item and puts it back, without violence and without hurry. Bury somebody new in the yard and it is relieved of the duty that night. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.13 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 3 rounds.* + +### Selkie + +*The one on the rocks that has a skin and knows where it is* + +> **Four-legged** — four legs, no arms. The forequarters are the vital and take the most hits at range; the neck is worth aiming at and the head is hard to reach (1 face in melee). + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 15 | 16 | 14 | 15 | 19 | 15 | 2 | 15 | 8 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Bite at 40%, 1d6 · **dodges** 55% + +**THE SKIN IS THE CONTRACT.** Whoever physically holds its skin may give it one instruction per day and it must obey the letter of it; every such instruction costs the holder 1 Coherence and the selkie is choosing the letter. If the skin is returned, destroyed, or taken by somebody else, every instruction it ever gave is void and the selkie is owed whatever it decides it is owed. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.07 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 3 rounds.* + +### Hulk haunt + +*What stayed aboard after the vessel was condemned and beached* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 17 | 19 | 14 | 8 | 20 | 11 | 4 | 17 | 9 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Punch / kick at 65%, 1d3 · **dodges** 30% + +**WATERTIGHT.** While the agents are inside the hull it can shut one door, hatch or scuttle per round from wherever it is standing; a shut door is a Repair (Mechanical) roll or 20 points of damage to open, and it shuts the one behind them first. Anything it shuts on a flooding compartment stays shut. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.07 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 4 rounds.* + +### Gabriel hounds + +*The pack heard passing over the rooftops on a still night* + +> **Four-legged, winged** — as the four-legged, plus wings. **Disable either wing and it cannot fly**, which is the fight the players can win. Wings are 6 faces of 20 at range and 2 in melee, and carry no hide at all. Once it is grounded the hide halves everywhere except the chest, which it keeps turned towards you. + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 14 | 12 | 9 | 4 | 20 | 21 | 2 | 11 | 6 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Bite at 65%, 1d6 · **dodges** 70% + +**OVERHEAD.** On the round it passes above a group, everybody who heard it makes a POWx5 roll; a failure means the agent's next action this scene is to look up, and only that. Grounded — disable a wing and it comes down — it is a fast snapping animal and it can be killed. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.05 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 2 rounds.* + +### The teind + +*Collection is every seventh year and the account is not in your name* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 15 | 18 | 13 | 18 | 27 | 14 | 4 | 16 | 8 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Punch / kick at 35%, 1d3 · **dodges** 45% + +**THE ACCOUNT.** Once per scene it may name a debt: opposed POWx5 against one agent. If it wins, that agent is the payment, walks out of the scene under their own power, and is a missing person until the department settles the account. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.04 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 4 rounds.* + +### Tatterfoal + +*The shaggy foal in the field that follows along the hedge and laughs* + +> **Four-legged** — four legs, no arms. The forequarters are the vital and take the most hits at range; the neck is worth aiming at and the head is hard to reach (1 face in melee). + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 13 | 12 | 10 | 10 | 16 | 20 | 1 | 11 | 6 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Hoof / kick at 30%, 1d6+2 · **dodges** 75% + +**THE HEDGE.** It is always on the other side of something: any ranged attack on it is at −40% because the hedge, wall, or fence it is behind is always exactly where it needs to be. Ignore it and it stops at the parish line. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.03 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 2 rounds.* + +### The cailleach + +*An old woman on the pass who decides when the weather stops* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 13 | 20 | 12 | 17 | 28 | 8 | 2 | 16 | 8 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Punch / kick at 25%, 1d3 · **dodges** 20% + +**THE PASS IS SHUT.** Anybody she has refused takes 1 point of damage per ten minutes of exposure on the high ground, no roll, no armour, and their compass and their handset both stop being useful; the cold is the whole weapon and it does not miss. She refuses anyone who walks past without speaking, and she has never refused anyone who asked. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.01 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 2 rounds.* + +### Wrack gull + +*The flock off the tip that follows one person and not the bins* + +> **Four-legged, winged** — as the four-legged, plus wings. **Disable either wing and it cannot fly**, which is the fight the players can win. Wings are 6 faces of 20 at range and 2 in melee, and carry no hide at all. Once it is grounded the hide halves everywhere except the chest, which it keeps turned towards you. + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 9 | 12 | 6 | 4 | 18 | 20 | 1 | 9 | 5 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Beak at 60%, 1d6+1 · **dodges** 80% + +**BY ACCLAMATION.** While the flock is on a subject, that subject's Dodge and Athletics are at −30%, because they are covering their face. Kill or drive off half of it — 8 or more points of damage in a single round does this — and the whole flock breaks for the sea and does not come back that day. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.01 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 2 rounds.* + +### Sea crow + +*The black bird on the wreck buoy that is counting something* + +> **Four-legged, winged** — as the four-legged, plus wings. **Disable either wing and it cannot fly**, which is the fight the players can win. Wings are 6 faces of 20 at range and 2 in melee, and carry no hide at all. Once it is grounded the hide halves everywhere except the chest, which it keeps turned towards you. + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 7 | 10 | 5 | 12 | 20 | 18 | 1 | 8 | 4 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Beak at 35%, 1d6+1 · **dodges** 70% + +**THE COUNT.** Every time the agents lose somebody to water in this case, the crow says that person's name once, aloud, in their own voice, and adds it to a list it recites at dusk. Any agent who hears their own name on the list loses 1 Coherence immediately and is on the list from then on, whether they drowned or not. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.01 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 1 rounds.* + ### Boggart *The thing in the house that was tolerable until it was not* @@ -326,12 +947,550 @@ Older than the department and largely uninterested in it. Most of these are arra *Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.00 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 2 rounds.* +### Gwrach y Rhibyn + +*The hag at the window who gives the name and the date* + +> **Four-legged, winged** — as the four-legged, plus wings. **Disable either wing and it cannot fly**, which is the fight the players can win. Wings are 6 faces of 20 at range and 2 in melee, and carry no hide at all. Once it is grounded the hide halves everywhere except the chest, which it keeps turned towards you. + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 9 | 11 | 10 | 15 | 26 | 14 | 1 | 11 | 6 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Punch / kick at 20%, 1d3 · **dodges** 45% + +**THE NAMING.** The named person loses 1 Coherence and every roll they make to avoid harm for the next twenty-four hours is at −10%, because they now know. It is never wrong and it is never early. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.00 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 2 rounds.* + +### The sin-eater + +*The man paid sixpence at the graveside to take what the dead could not carry* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 10 | 13 | 11 | 14 | 22 | 11 | 0 | 12 | 6 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Punch / kick at 20%, 1d3 · **dodges** 30% + +**SIXPENCE.** Any agent who accepts food from his hands recovers 2 Coherence immediately and permanently loses the ability to make a Religion roll; the transaction is real, it is recorded somewhere, and it cannot be given back. He will not take by force and he will not take from anybody who says no out loud. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.00 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 1 rounds.* + +### The foundation child + +*What was put under the first pier so the bridge would stand* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 8 | 24 | 5 | 10 | 25 | 12 | 2 | 15 | 8 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Punch / kick at 15%, 1d3 · **dodges** 45% + +**THE PIER.** While it is in the footing the structure above cannot fail — no flood, no subsidence, no lorry strike. Remove it, and the structure is only as sound as its engineering, which is the department's problem and not a monster's; three surveys since 1990 say the viaduct goes down in under a year. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.00 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 3 rounds.* + +### The bog offering + +*Taken out of the peat in 1974, and it was not put in the peat to be taken out* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 12 | 19 | 11 | 12 | 24 | 7 | 1 | 15 | 8 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Punch / kick at 30%, 1d3 · **dodges** 20% + +**STANDING WATER.** Every room within thirty yards of it floods slowly with peat-coloured water that no drain accounts for, one inch a day, and every electrical and paper record in those rooms is ruined in the order they were created. Nothing stops this but distance. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.00 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 2 rounds.* + +### The hob + +*The one behind the range that does the work if the work is left out for it* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 9 | 11 | 4 | 14 | 16 | 18 | 0 | 8 | 4 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Punch / kick at 20%, 1d3 · **dodges** 60% + +**THE DISH.** If the household gives it anything that could be mistaken for payment — money, new clothes, thanks in writing — it leaves that night and every mechanical thing in the building fails within the month; nothing repairs and nothing stays repaired. There is no way to call it back. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.00 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 1 rounds.* + +### The cauld lad + +*The apprentice who died in the works and still turns out for the night shift* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 11 | 12 | 9 | 12 | 17 | 16 | 0 | 11 | 6 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Punch / kick at 30%, 1d3 · **dodges** 55% + +**COLD WORK.** Any room it is working in drops enough that hands stop being reliable: all fine manual rolls at −20% and a Repair or First Aid roll there takes twice as long. It has never touched anybody. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.00 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 2 rounds.* + +### The changeling + +*Left in the cot in 1987 and still four years old* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 7 | 16 | 5 | 20 | 22 | 15 | 1 | 11 | 6 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Punch / kick at 15%, 1d3 · **dodges** 55% + +**THE SUBSTITUTION.** It knows exactly where the real child is and it will say, once, to one agent, alone. Acting on what it says is a crossing, priced as one. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.00 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 2 rounds.* + +### The uninvited + +*The one who should have been asked to the christening and was not* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 12 | 15 | 12 | 19 | 25 | 15 | 2 | 14 | 7 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Punch / kick at 25%, 1d3 · **dodges** 40% + +**THE GIFT.** It gives one person present something they did not ask for and cannot refuse: roll 1d6 — 1-2 a skill goes to 95% and one other skill of the GM's choice goes to 5%; 3-4 they cannot be lied to for a year and cannot sleep in a building with more than one door; 5-6 they are lucky, once, at a time not of their choosing, and they lose 2 Coherence knowing it is spent. The gift is permanent and it is not a curse; it is a gift, and that is what makes it a problem. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.00 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 2 rounds.* + +--- + +## Beasts and heraldry + +Animals, and the things off the coats of arms that are shaped like animals. Nearly all of these are hit-located as quadrupeds or winged beasts rather than as people, so a wing or a foreleg is a real place to aim. + +### The dun cow of the heath + +*The cow off the heath that was killed with a rib for a weapon, according to the church, which has the rib* + +> **Four-legged** — four legs, no arms. The forequarters are the vital and take the most hits at range; the neck is worth aiming at and the head is hard to reach (1 face in melee). + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 30 | 32 | 26 | 4 | 18 | 8 | 7 | 29 | 15 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Horn / tusk at 70%, 1d8+1 · **dodges** 15% + +**MILKED DRY.** It cannot be killed by anything it has already been killed by: edged steel, firearms and energy do half damage, because the story says it went down to a rib bone and the story is the load-bearing part. THE WAY THROUGH IT: bone, or a blunt improvised weapon, does full damage — the rib in the church is the correct answer and the file expects the team to go and get it. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 3.20 of 4 down, 64.2% wiped, 10 rounds.* + +### The guildhall gryphon + +*Eagle in front, lion behind, and six centuries of being kept accurately* + +> **Four-legged, winged** — as the four-legged, plus wings. **Disable either wing and it cannot fly**, which is the fight the players can win. Wings are 6 faces of 20 at range and 2 in melee, and carry no hide at all. Once it is grounded the hide halves everywhere except the chest, which it keeps turned towards you. + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 28 | 30 | 22 | 9 | 20 | 15 | 8 | 26 | 13 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Talon at 80%, 1d6+1 · **dodges** 40% + +**STOOP AND DROP.** This is a special manoeuvre, distinct from the talon attack above, and the fall is the damage rather than the creature: on a successful talon attack against a target of SIZ 16 or less it carries them 15m up and releases for 3d6, no armour, and the agent is now somewhere else. THE WAY THROUGH IT: 8 armour is more than a service pistol beats, and the wings carry none of it. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 2.15 of 4 down, 23.5% wiped, 8 rounds.* + +### The azure bull + +*The blue bull off the brewery arms, standing in the yard it was drawn for* + +> **Four-legged** — four legs, no arms. The forequarters are the vital and take the most hits at range; the neck is worth aiming at and the head is hard to reach (1 face in melee). + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 26 | 24 | 21 | 4 | 14 | 10 | 6 | 23 | 12 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Horn / tusk at 65%, 1d8+1 · **dodges** 25% + +**THE CHARGE.** This is a special manoeuvre and not its ordinary attack: if it moves 10m or more in a straight line before the horns connect, that gore does double damage. Break the line — cover, a parked car, a scattered team — and it is an ordinary large animal goring at 1d8+1, or walking over a downed agent at 1d10, plus its considerable damage bonus either way. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 1.98 of 4 down, 21.4% wiped, 8 rounds.* + +### The bear-ward's bear + +*The baiting bear off the inn-yard, old, half-blind, and still chained to a post that rotted away in 1804* + +> **Four-legged** — four legs, no arms. The forequarters are the vital and take the most hits at range; the neck is worth aiming at and the head is hard to reach (1 face in melee). + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 24 | 22 | 20 | 6 | 16 | 9 | 5 | 21 | 11 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Claw at 75%, 1d6 · **dodges** 20% + +**THE DOGS ARE STILL COMING.** It is fighting animals that are not there, and it will not stop while it can hear anything it takes for dogs: barking, a whistle, a radio, a team shouting to each other. Total silence for three full rounds and it lies down. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 1.41 of 4 down, 5.9% wiped, 6 rounds.* + +### The man-tyger + +*A lion with an old man's face, drawn upright on a mayoral chain* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 21 | 20 | 17 | 12 | 18 | 15 | 5 | 19 | 10 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Grasping limb at 75%, 1d6+1 · **dodges** 50% + +**THE FACE.** While it is talking, no agent may attack it without spending a round overcoming the fact that it has a face; declare the attack, lose the round, act on the next one. Attacking it from surprise, or while it is already fighting somebody else, skips this entirely. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 1.03 of 4 down, 2.2% wiped, 6 rounds.* + +### The hollow hog + +*A tamworth crossed back to wild boar two generations ago, at large in the plantation ever since* + +> **Four-legged** — four legs, no arms. The forequarters are the vital and take the most hits at range; the neck is worth aiming at and the head is hard to reach (1 face in melee). + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 21 | 20 | 15 | 5 | 12 | 13 | 5 | 18 | 9 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Horn / tusk at 70%, 1d8+1 · **dodges** 40% + +**GONE.** Any round in which it is not engaged, it is out of sight and the team must Spot at −30% to know where it went; it re-enters the fight from a new direction. It is killed by ordinary means and it is a genuinely bad idea to wound it and follow it into the plantation, which is where every previous casualty happened. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 1.01 of 4 down, 2.5% wiped, 5 rounds.* + +### The sign wyvern + +*Two legs, two wings and a barbed tail, off a pub sign that has hung there since the turnpike* + +> **Four-legged, winged** — as the four-legged, plus wings. **Disable either wing and it cannot fly**, which is the fight the players can win. Wings are 6 faces of 20 at range and 2 in melee, and carry no hide at all. Once it is grounded the hide halves everywhere except the chest, which it keeps turned towards you. + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 20 | 22 | 18 | 7 | 17 | 16 | 6 | 20 | 10 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Talon at 70%, 1d6+1 · **dodges** 50% + +**A FOOT OF PAINT.** Attacks against it from directly in front or behind are at −30%; from the side it is an ordinary target. It has only two legs, so crippling either one puts it on the ground for good — that is the fast way through the 6 armour, which halves to 3 once it is down. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.77 of 4 down, 1.2% wiped, 5 rounds.* + +### The yale + +*The horned beast whose horns swivel, off a college gate* + +> **Four-legged** — four legs, no arms. The forequarters are the vital and take the most hits at range; the neck is worth aiming at and the head is hard to reach (1 face in melee). + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 19 | 18 | 15 | 5 | 15 | 14 | 4 | 17 | 9 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Horn / tusk at 60%, 1d8+1 · **dodges** 45% + +**BOTH WAYS AT ONCE.** It may not be flanked. Attacks from behind or the side get no bonus and it defends against two attackers in the same round at no penalty; against three or more the ordinary cumulative defence penalty applies again, so the answer is a fourth agent, not a cleverer angle. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.73 of 4 down, 1.4% wiped, 4 rounds.* + +### The menagerie ape + +*What was billed as an orang-outang in 1831 and is still in the cage behind the arcade* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 23 | 19 | 16 | 11 | 14 | 16 | 3 | 18 | 9 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Grasping limb at 70%, 1d6+1 · **dodges** 55% + +**HANDS.** It opens any mechanical lock, catch or bolt it can reach in one round, disarms on a successful brawl attack (the weapon goes over the railing), and climbs anything. Fight it in the open and it flees. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.60 of 4 down, 0.7% wiped, 4 rounds.* + +### The tup + +*The ram that put a farmer through a gate, and has not been caught since* + +> **Four-legged** — four legs, no arms. The forequarters are the vital and take the most hits at range; the neck is worth aiming at and the head is hard to reach (1 face in melee). + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 18 | 16 | 12 | 5 | 14 | 15 | 4 | 14 | 7 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Horn / tusk at 65%, 1d8+1 · **dodges** 45% + +**THE BLIND SIDE.** This is the charge and it is a special manoeuvre, not the ordinary butt: against any target who is not currently looking at it, the hit knocks down automatically and the gore does its 1d8+1 plus a further 1d4 for the run-up — no defence roll, because there was no warning. Standing to face it, it is 1d8+1 and nothing more. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.41 of 4 down, 0.1% wiped, 3 rounds.* + +### The last talbot + +*The white hunting hound off the old arms, bred back for by somebody who should not have managed it* + +> **Four-legged** — four legs, no arms. The forequarters are the vital and take the most hits at range; the neck is worth aiming at and the head is hard to reach (1 face in melee). + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 20 | 19 | 15 | 6 | 15 | 14 | 3 | 17 | 9 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Bite at 70%, 1d6 · **dodges** 40% + +**IT DOES NOT LOSE THE LINE.** Once it has an agent's scent no stealth, water, vehicle or transposition breaks the track — it arrives, hours later, wherever they went. It can be BEATEN rather than broken: it answers to kennel discipline, and anybody who makes a Persuade roll while using the right tone and the right words (the kennel book is in the estate archive) can call it off entirely. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.34 of 4 down, 0.1% wiped, 3 rounds.* + +### The hinny + +*A stallion's foal out of a she-ass, sterile, willing, and no longer going where it is pointed* + +> **Four-legged** — four legs, no arms. The forequarters are the vital and take the most hits at range; the neck is worth aiming at and the head is hard to reach (1 face in melee). + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 22 | 20 | 18 | 8 | 19 | 12 | 2 | 19 | 10 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Hoof / kick at 45%, 1d6+2 · **dodges** 30% + +**IT KNOWS THE ROUTE.** It is on a round it has walked for sixty years and it will not deviate: lead it, drive it, or load it, and it comes back to the lane by the next scene. Follow it instead and it takes the team along a route that is on no map and through at least one gateway that should not open, which is either the point of the scenario or the end of it. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.31 of 4 down, 0.1% wiped, 3 rounds.* + +### The eagle displayed + +*The two-headed eagle off a brass lectern, at full wingspan* + +> **Four-legged, winged** — as the four-legged, plus wings. **Disable either wing and it cannot fly**, which is the fight the players can win. Wings are 6 faces of 20 at range and 2 in melee, and carry no hide at all. Once it is grounded the hide halves everywhere except the chest, which it keeps turned towards you. + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 16 | 13 | 9 | 6 | 19 | 20 | 4 | 11 | 6 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Beak at 65%, 1d6+1 · **dodges** 70% + +**TWO HEADS.** It cannot be surprised and it watches two directions at once: every agent in the room is being observed, so no stealth approach works while it is airborne. The wings carry none of its 4 armour and are three ranged faces each; put a hole in one and it comes down, at which point it is a brass bird the size of a goose with armour 2 and no way back up. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.24 of 4 down, 0.1% wiped, 3 rounds.* + +### The moor cat + +*A big black cat on the moor, in a country that has not had one for a very long time and possibly does* + +> **Four-legged** — four legs, no arms. The forequarters are the vital and take the most hits at range; the neck is worth aiming at and the head is hard to reach (1 face in melee). + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 17 | 15 | 14 | 7 | 14 | 20 | 2 | 15 | 8 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Bite at 75%, 1d6 · **dodges** 70% + +**ONE PASS.** Its first attack in a scene is from ambush at +30% and knocks the target prone; after that it is either away into the bracken or it is in a fight it does not want. Any real injury and it leaves for good. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.24 of 4 down, 0.1% wiped, 3 rounds.* + +### The gaunt grey + +*A wolf, in a county that logged its last one in 1621, and thin in a way that does not match how much it has eaten* + +> **Four-legged** — four legs, no arms. The forequarters are the vital and take the most hits at range; the neck is worth aiming at and the head is hard to reach (1 face in melee). + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 18 | 17 | 13 | 9 | 18 | 17 | 3 | 15 | 8 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Bite at 70%, 1d6 · **dodges** 55% + +**STILL HUNGRY.** It is not eating what it kills, and it does not stop for wounds: ignore all penalties from crippled legs, and it fights on at any hit point total above zero. What stops it is the total — it has no special defence and 3 armour, so it dies to concentrated fire like any large dog. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.23 of 4 down, 0.1% wiped, 3 rounds.* + +### The enfield + +*A fox's head, an eagle's forelegs, a wolf's body and a lion's hindquarters, assembled by a herald who never saw one* + +> **Four-legged** — four legs, no arms. The forequarters are the vital and take the most hits at range; the neck is worth aiming at and the head is hard to reach (1 face in melee). + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 15 | 14 | 13 | 8 | 16 | 18 | 3 | 14 | 7 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Talon at 60%, 1d6+1 · **dodges** 65% + +**BADLY ASSEMBLED.** Its parts do not share a nervous system: a crippled limb costs it nothing in initiative or attack, because the other three were never coordinating with it anyway. What does stop it is the forequarters — one good broadside and the fox's head goes down with the wolf's chest. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.21 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 3 rounds.* + +### Melusine + +*The twin-tailed mermaid off the font, and the water she came up through* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 18 | 17 | 13 | 14 | 21 | 16 | 3 | 15 | 8 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Grasping limb at 50%, 1d6+1 · **dodges** 40% + +**THE FONT IS A DOOR.** Any standing water deeper than a foot within sight of her carving is somewhere she can be, and she may move between any two such bodies of water in the building as a single action. Drain the font, or break the line of sight to the carving with something opaque, and she is confined to whichever pool she is standing in. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.16 of 4 down, 0.1% wiped, 3 rounds.* + +### The white hart + +*The badge beast with the crown about its neck, which cannot be taken* + +> **Four-legged** — four legs, no arms. The forequarters are the vital and take the most hits at range; the neck is worth aiming at and the head is hard to reach (1 face in melee). + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 17 | 16 | 17 | 9 | 24 | 19 | 2 | 17 | 9 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Punch / kick at 20%, 1d3 · **dodges** 80% + +**THE CHASE IS THE POINT.** Anybody who sets out after it must make a POWx5 roll each hour to break off; failure means another hour, and every agent still following after three hours is lost — they arrive somewhere the case did not include and their own route back does not work. It is ended by nobody following it. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.04 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 4 rounds.* + +### The gazehound + +*A coursing dog bred to see further than a dog should, and it does* + +> **Four-legged** — four legs, no arms. The forequarters are the vital and take the most hits at range; the neck is worth aiming at and the head is hard to reach (1 face in melee). + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 13 | 12 | 11 | 5 | 13 | 21 | 1 | 12 | 6 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Bite at 55%, 1d6 · **dodges** 70% + +**IT SEES YOU FIRST.** It automatically spots anything that moves within 400m, in any light, and it starts running. It is a HERALD, not a fight: whatever owns it knows where the team is about forty seconds later. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.04 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 2 rounds.* + +### The drain heron + +*A grey heron standing in the outfall, considerably too large, entirely ordinary in every other respect* + +> **Four-legged, winged** — as the four-legged, plus wings. **Disable either wing and it cannot fly**, which is the fight the players can win. Wings are 6 faces of 20 at range and 2 in melee, and carry no hide at all. Once it is grounded the hide halves everywhere except the chest, which it keeps turned towards you. + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 11 | 10 | 7 | 4 | 12 | 17 | 1 | 9 | 5 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Beak at 40%, 1d6+1 · **dodges** 60% + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.03 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 2 rounds.* + +### The cockatrice + +*What came out of the egg the cockerel was sitting on* + +> **Four-legged, winged** — as the four-legged, plus wings. **Disable either wing and it cannot fly**, which is the fight the players can win. Wings are 6 faces of 20 at range and 2 in melee, and carry no hide at all. Once it is grounded the hide halves everywhere except the chest, which it keeps turned towards you. + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 8 | 11 | 5 | 4 | 22 | 18 | 2 | 8 | 4 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Beak at 45%, 1d6+1 · **dodges** 70% + +**THE LOOK.** Any agent who meets its eyes makes a POWx5 roll; failure means that limb or that side goes stiff and cold — one location of the GM's choice is treated as crippled for the rest of the scene, with no wound and no blood. Two failures and the agent cannot move at all, and must be carried. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.01 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 2 rounds.* + +### The pelican in her piety + +*The bird carved tearing her own breast to feed the young, still doing it* + +> **Four-legged, winged** — as the four-legged, plus wings. **Disable either wing and it cannot fly**, which is the fight the players can win. Wings are 6 faces of 20 at range and 2 in melee, and carry no hide at all. Once it is grounded the hide halves everywhere except the chest, which it keeps turned towards you. + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 9 | 20 | 8 | 6 | 23 | 12 | 1 | 14 | 7 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Beak at 25%, 1d6+1 · **dodges** 35% + +**PIETY.** Her blood heals: a mouthful closes one wound completely, restoring hit points to a single location in full and lifting a crippled result, and she gives it freely to anybody who asks. Each mouthful taken costs her 3 hit points that she does not recover, and she will empty herself for a team that keeps asking. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.01 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 2 rounds.* + +### The martlet + +*The little bird drawn with no feet, which therefore has none* + +> **Four-legged, winged** — as the four-legged, plus wings. **Disable either wing and it cannot fly**, which is the fight the players can win. Wings are 6 faces of 20 at range and 2 in melee, and carry no hide at all. Once it is grounded the hide halves everywhere except the chest, which it keeps turned towards you. + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 3 | 8 | 3 | 5 | 16 | 22 | 0 | 6 | 3 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Punch / kick at 15%, 1d3 · **dodges** 85% + +**IT CANNOT COME DOWN.** It will follow one agent, the one who looked at it longest, for the rest of the case, and it cries continuously. Anybody trying to sleep within earshot recovers nothing that night. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.00 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 1 rounds.* + +### The cade lamb + +*The hand-reared lamb that was never afraid of anybody, and grew up* + +> **Four-legged** — four legs, no arms. The forequarters are the vital and take the most hits at range; the neck is worth aiming at and the head is hard to reach (1 face in melee). + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 8 | 10 | 7 | 6 | 17 | 11 | 1 | 9 | 5 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Punch / kick at 10%, 1d3 · **dodges** 30% + +**IT WANTS TO COME IN.** It will get through any door left ajar and it is inside the building by the next scene whatever the team does short of killing it. While it is in the room, everyone's Listen and Spot are at −20%, because it is standing there and they keep looking at it. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.00 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 1 rounds.* + --- ## Horror The department's own. Every one is a piece of administration that kept going after the reason for it stopped. +### Inside out + +*The room is inside the thing* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 26 | 27 | 28 | 9 | 27 | 4 | 12 | 28 | 14 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Grasping limb at 85%, 1d6+1 · **dodges** 5% + +**CONTAINED.** Everyone in the location is inside it. There is no exit except the one it has: every round, each agent takes 1d6 with no roll to avoid and no armour, and the walls are 12 points of natural armour that heals. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 3.83 of 4 down, 91.9% wiped, 10 rounds.* + +### Backscatter + +*Its geometry is wrong and so is looking at it* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 19 | 21 | 16 | 8 | 25 | 15 | 9 | 19 | 10 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Grasping limb at 80%, 1d6+1 · **dodges** 55% + +**WRONG ANGLES.** Anybody who aims at it is at −30% on that attack, because the part of it they are looking at is not the part that is there; firing blind, by sound, or into a doorway it must pass through carries no penalty. Anybody who studies it deliberately for a full round loses 1 Coherence and takes the −30% for the rest of the fight even when shooting blind. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 2.42 of 4 down, 22.1% wiped, 17 rounds.* + +### The sump + +*What is at the bottom of the reservoir where the village was* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 21 | 26 | 20 | 10 | 22 | 7 | 6 | 23 | 12 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Grasping limb at 60%, 1d6+1 · **dodges** 15% + +**DRAWDOWN.** While the reservoir is above 60% capacity the sump reaches the surface: any agent within 20 metres of the water's edge at dusk rolls POWx5 or hears the village — bells, a dog, their own family — and must then roll again to not enter the water, the second roll at −20%. Two failures and they are swimming out, and the ASPHYXIA rules apply at 200 metres from shore. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 1.72 of 4 down, 12.5% wiped, 8 rounds.* + ### Lost property *It has been collecting for ninety years and it is not only umbrellas now* @@ -346,6 +1505,154 @@ The department's own. Every one is a piece of administration that kept going aft *Measured alone against the frozen party: 1.06 of 4 down, 2.1% wiped, 8 rounds.* +### The latecomer + +*It arrives before it is sent for* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 16 | 16 | 14 | 14 | 19 | 14 | 4 | 15 | 8 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Marksman rifle at 65%, 1d10+2 · **dodges** 50% + +**THE CALL NOT MADE.** It knows one thing about the next hour and will say it if asked — the GM answers one player question about what is coming, truthfully. In exchange it will insist on taking command, and its orders are for the incident it was sent to, not the one happening. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.70 of 4 down, 0.8% wiped, 5 rounds.* + +### Five of six + +*Five bodies here, one still on the far side, and it wants the set* + +> **Cadence** — five bodies, no vital, no head. Cannot be dropped; each body lost costs it −10% to everything. + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 16 | 19 | 13 | 15 | 24 | 16 | 5 | 16 | 8 | 5 | + +**Attacks with** Grasping limb at 75%, 1d6+1 · **dodges** 60% + +**THE SIXTH PLACE.** Any agent it grapples and holds for two consecutive rounds is taken — not killed, taken: they walk to the crossing with it under no compulsion anyone can see, and they become the sixth body. A POWx1 roll each round is the only resistance, and the player rolls it in the open. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.65 of 4 down, 0.4% wiped, 5 rounds.* + +### Mirrorline + +*It does what you do, on the other side of a line that is not there* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 15 | 16 | 13 | 10 | 20 | 16 | 6 | 15 | 8 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Utility knife at 60%, 1d4+2 · **dodges** 60% + +**REFLECTED.** It uses the copied agent's Brawl, Dodge and best melee skill instead of its own, whichever are higher, for as long as that agent is the nearest. Whatever damage it takes this round, the copied agent takes half, rounded down, with armour applying normally — this is the part players must be told after the first exchange, not before. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.62 of 4 down, 0.2% wiped, 6 rounds.* + +### Wrackman + +*The shape made of everything the flood left in the hedge* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 20 | 22 | 18 | 5 | 14 | 8 | 5 | 20 | 10 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Grasping limb at 60%, 1d6+1 · **dodges** 20% + +**FLOOD LINE.** Any wound that is not fire heals at 3 hit points a round while it stands in standing water, and the fens are standing water. Fire does full damage and it does not heal that at all; one round of sustained flame on a dry part of it does 1d6+2 and sets the whole thing going. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.52 of 4 down, 0.2% wiped, 5 rounds.* + +### Recurrence + +*The same four minutes, again* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 15 | 17 | 14 | 12 | 23 | 12 | 5 | 16 | 8 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Grasping limb at 65%, 1d6+1 · **dodges** 45% + +**AGAIN.** At the end of every fourth round, the four minutes restart: everything in the location returns to where it was, doors reclose, spent rounds are back in the magazine — and so is every hit point the party lost, and every hit point this thing lost. Nothing carries over except what the players remember and what they carried OUT of the room. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.44 of 4 down, 0.2% wiped, 5 rounds.* + +### The lock keeper + +*The man at the gates who has worked the lock since before the lock* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 19 | 17 | 14 | 14 | 19 | 12 | 1 | 16 | 8 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Entry bar at 70%, 1d10 · **dodges** 40% + +**THE CHAMBER.** Anyone inside the lock — in the water or on a boat in it — is subject to his hand on the paddle gear: he can raise or drop the chamber 2 metres a round. A boat rising to the cill takes 2d6 hull damage a round; a person in a dropping chamber is against a wall with no ladder and gets an Athletics roll at −30% to get out before the ASPHYXIA rules apply. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.41 of 4 down, 0.1% wiped, 2 rounds.* + +### Anglesmith + +*It adds a corner to a building and the building agrees to it* + +> **Vesh** — no head, so no killing shot; the sensory ridge is the vital and is hit on 3 of 20. + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 17 | 18 | 15 | 16 | 20 | 11 | 5 | 17 | 9 | 6 | + +**Attacks with** Grasping limb at 60%, 1d6+1 · **dodges** 35% + +**THE NEW CORNER.** Each round it works, one wall of the location gains a corner that was not there: anybody crossing the room must make a DEXx5 roll or lose their move and end prone. After four rounds the corner is permanent and the room has one more exit than the plans show, leading somewhere the plans do not name. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.38 of 4 down, 0.1% wiped, 4 rounds.* + +### Second pass + +*It has already done this once and remembers how it went* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 14 | 15 | 13 | 16 | 18 | 15 | 3 | 14 | 7 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Service pistol at 70%, 1d8+2 · **dodges** 55% + +**I KNOW HOW THIS GOES.** Three times per encounter it may declare that an agent's action fails — a lock that was going to open does not, a radio call does not connect, a covering shot is out of ammunition — with no roll. It spends these early, not late. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.35 of 4 down, 0.1% wiped, 4 rounds.* + +### Foldwalker + +*It is standing in two rooms and only one of them is yours* + +> **Vesh** — no head, so no killing shot; the sensory ridge is the vital and is hit on 3 of 20. + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 15 | 16 | 13 | 12 | 18 | 15 | 4 | 15 | 8 | 6 | + +**Attacks with** Grasping limb at 65%, 1d6+1 · **dodges** 55% + +**HALF PRESENT.** Every attack against it is resolved twice and the LOWER result stands, because half of it is elsewhere; its own attacks are unaffected. Close both exits from the room it is half in and the power stops — it has to pick a side, and it picks the one with a way out. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.34 of 4 down, 0.1% wiped, 4 rounds.* + +### Lamprey host + +*What was in the intake screen when they finally cleared it* + +> **Four-legged** — four legs, no arms. The forequarters are the vital and take the most hits at range; the neck is worth aiming at and the head is hard to reach (1 face in melee). + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 18 | 20 | 16 | 3 | 15 | 14 | 3 | 18 | 9 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Bite at 70%, 1d6 · **dodges** 45% + +**IT COMES APART.** Any single hit of 8 or more damage splits off a second, smaller host: halve the parent's current hit points between the two, and each half keeps the parent's skills. Below 4 hit points a fragment is just eels on the floor and stops acting. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.33 of 4 down, 0.1% wiped, 3 rounds.* + ### The waiting room *You will be seen shortly* @@ -360,6 +1667,52 @@ The department's own. Every one is a piece of administration that kept going aft *Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.30 of 4 down, 0.1% wiped, 6 rounds.* +### Turnback + +*A department dog that came back from the wrong side of a crossing* + +> **Four-legged** — four legs, no arms. The forequarters are the vital and take the most hits at range; the neck is worth aiming at and the head is hard to reach (1 face in melee). + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 17 | 18 | 12 | 5 | 16 | 17 | 4 | 15 | 8 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Bite at 75%, 1d6 · **dodges** 50% + +**STILL TRAINED.** It will obey any correctly given department recall — the whistle, the word, the hand sign — and then it will not stop obeying: whoever gave the order has it for the rest of the scene and cannot dismiss it, including out of a room they need to leave. It tracks by a scent trail laid on the far side, so it follows people who have not been where it is going. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.25 of 4 down, 0.1% wiped, 4 rounds.* + +### The Conductor + +*The service itself, wearing a uniform* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 16 | 16 | 14 | 9 | 17 | 14 | 4 | 15 | 8 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Cudgel at 60%, 1d6+1 · **dodges** 45% + +**ALL PASSENGERS REMAIN ABOARD.** Once per fight, as its action, it shuts and seals every door in one carriage. Opening one costs an action and Athletics, an entry bar or the bolt-cutters. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.25 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 4 rounds.* + +### The heron + +*The grey thing standing in the reservoir margin that has not moved since Tuesday* + +> **Four-legged, winged** — as the four-legged, plus wings. **Disable either wing and it cannot fly**, which is the fight the players can win. Wings are 6 faces of 20 at range and 2 in melee, and carry no hide at all. Once it is grounded the hide halves everywhere except the chest, which it keeps turned towards you. + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 13 | 13 | 12 | 9 | 21 | 16 | 2 | 13 | 7 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Beak at 65%, 1d6+1 · **dodges** 60% + +**THE STRIKE.** Against any target that did not move on its previous turn, its attack is at +30% and does double damage. Against a target that moved it is at −20%. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.18 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 2 rounds.* + ### The night registry *The filing that gets done after everyone goes home* @@ -388,6 +1741,20 @@ The department's own. Every one is a piece of administration that kept going aft *Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.13 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 2 rounds.* +### The cut walker + +*What uses the towpath at the hour the towpath is empty* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 18 | 16 | 13 | 13 | 18 | 12 | 1 | 15 | 8 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Grasping limb at 60%, 1d6+1 · **dodges** 40% + +**PASSING PLACE.** Anybody still on the towpath when it arrives at them must give ground into the hedge, the water, or a moored boat before it gets there — a Dodge roll or an Athletics roll, declared. Fail and they are in the cut, 1d3 from the fall and the ASPHYXIA rules if they cannot get out, which in a lined canal with no ladder is an Athletics roll at −20%. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.13 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 2 rounds.* + ### The carrion file *A case file that has been eating the cases filed next to it* @@ -402,6 +1769,22 @@ The department's own. Every one is a piece of administration that kept going aft *Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.11 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 5 rounds.* +### Half past + +*It is forty seconds ahead and cannot be caught up with* + +> **Vesh** — no head, so no killing shot; the sensory ridge is the vital and is hit on 3 of 20. + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 13 | 13 | 11 | 13 | 19 | 18 | 3 | 12 | 6 | 6 | + +**Attacks with** Grasping limb at 60%, 1d6+1 · **dodges** 70% + +**FORTY SECONDS.** It acts first every round regardless of Reaction, and the first attack made against it each round automatically misses. Both stop the moment it takes a Major Wound — being hurt puts it back in step with everybody else, and after that it is an ordinary fast thing. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.10 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 3 rounds.* + ### The locum *Covering a post that nobody appointed and nobody can close* @@ -416,6 +1799,36 @@ The department's own. Every one is a piece of administration that kept going aft *Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.09 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 2 rounds.* +### Many hands + +*It is working on five things at once and one of them is you* + +> **Cadence** — five bodies, no vital, no head. Cannot be dropped; each body lost costs it −10% to everything. + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 15 | 16 | 12 | 12 | 16 | 18 | 4 | 14 | 7 | 5 | + +**Attacks with** Punch / kick at 65%, 1d3 · **dodges** 55% + +**TAKEN TO PIECES.** Each round, one body attempts Sleight of Hand at 80% against a different agent; success removes one carried item — a magazine, a key, a radio handset, a dressing — and it is gone, put down somewhere in the building. Nothing is stolen for gain and nothing is broken. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.07 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 4 rounds.* + +### Ticket inspector + +*Part of the service, not a person* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 13 | 13 | 12 | 7 | 12 | 13 | 2 | 13 | 7 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Cudgel at 50%, 1d6+1 · **dodges** 40% + +**NO DESTINATION SHOWN.** It will not strike anyone holding out a valid ticket, a warrant card presented flat, or any other document formally offered — one round of grace, and waiting costs it nothing. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.07 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 2 rounds.* + ### The understudy *It has been practising being you and it is nearly ready* @@ -430,6 +1843,38 @@ The department's own. Every one is a piece of administration that kept going aft *Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.05 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 2 rounds.* +### Returned surveyor + +*Department surveyor, missing eleven years, back with the wrong limbs* + +> **Vesh** — no head, so no killing shot; the sensory ridge is the vital and is hit on 3 of 20. + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 12 | 12 | 12 | 14 | 15 | 12 | 2 | 12 | 6 | 6 | + +**Attacks with** Grasping limb at 40%, 1d6+1 · **dodges** 35% + +**THE ELEVEN YEARS.** Any agent who reads its survey notes learns one true fact about the far side of the crossing and loses 1 Coherence; the notes are correct and were taken from the inside. It fights only if restrained, badly, and stops the moment someone uses its name. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.03 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 2 rounds.* + +### The drowned crew + +*Five of a crew of nine, still working the watch they were on* + +> **Cadence** — five bodies, no vital, no head. Cannot be dropped; each body lost costs it −10% to everything. + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 14 | 14 | 12 | 8 | 17 | 11 | 2 | 13 | 7 | 5 | + +**Attacks with** Punch / kick at 55%, 1d3 · **dodges** 35% + +**ALL HANDS.** Every round an agent is aboard and in their way, that agent rolls POWx5 or joins the watch — they pick up the nearest tool and work, for 1d3 rounds, and they do not hear anybody. The roll is at −10% per body still upright. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.02 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 2 rounds.* + ### Hollow man *Somebody who crossed too often and came back thinner each time* @@ -518,12 +1963,160 @@ The department's own. Every one is a piece of administration that kept going aft *Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.00 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 4 rounds.* +### The net mender + +*The woman on the harbour steps mending something that is not a net* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 9 | 12 | 10 | 16 | 19 | 18 | 0 | 11 | 6 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Punch / kick at 25%, 1d3 · **dodges** 40% + +**UNPICKED.** Name a person to her and pay her price, and within a day the record and the memory of that person's last return from water is gone: they went out and did not come back, and everybody believes it, including the department. Reversing it requires the physical net, which she keeps, and an hour of somebody unpicking her work while she watches. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.00 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 1 rounds.* + +### The mudlark + +*The child working the foreshore at a tide that was three hours ago* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 8 | 11 | 6 | 12 | 20 | 17 | 0 | 9 | 5 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Punch / kick at 30%, 1d3 · **dodges** 65% + +**COME AND SEE.** It shows an agent something genuinely valuable to the case — a real clue, and the GM should give a real one — that is a hundred metres further out on the foreshore than it looks. Anyone who goes to it is on soft mud: an Athletics roll to leave, at −20%, and the tide in this estuary comes in at walking pace, so the second failure means the ASPHYXIA rules with both legs held. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.00 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 2 rounds.* + +### The drowned parish + +*A congregation that was compulsorily purchased and never left* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 12 | 13 | 11 | 12 | 21 | 9 | 2 | 12 | 6 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Punch / kick at 40%, 1d3 · **dodges** 25% + +**THE SERVICE IS AT SIX.** Any agent who is inside the parish boundary at six in the evening must roll POWx5 or attend: they walk to the drowned church, and walking to it means walking into the reservoir. −20% on the roll for each previous evening attended, and the ASPHYXIA rules apply once they are past the shallows. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.00 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 2 rounds.* + +### The unmeasured + +*Nothing that measures it agrees with anything else that measures it* + +> **Vesh** — no head, so no killing shot; the sensory ridge is the vital and is hit on 3 of 20. + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 9 | 11 | 10 | 6 | 16 | 9 | 1 | 11 | 6 | 6 | + +**Attacks with** Grasping limb at 25%, 1d6+1 · **dodges** 30% + +**NO TWO AGREE.** Every instrument within ten metres returns a different reading, and no measurement taken in its presence can be used as evidence — Chain of Custody fails automatically on anything logged while it is in the room. Bag it in a stasis box and the readings settle. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.00 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 2 rounds.* + +### Quorate + +*It will not act until enough of it agrees, and then all of it acts* + +> **Cadence** — five bodies, no vital, no head. Cannot be dropped; each body lost costs it −10% to everything. + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 12 | 14 | 11 | 13 | 17 | 14 | 2 | 13 | 7 | 5 | + +**Attacks with** Punch / kick at 55%, 1d3 · **dodges** 50% + +**THE VOTE.** It takes no action at all until three of its five bodies have line of sight to the same target; on the round that happens, it makes FIVE attacks at once against that target, one per surviving body. Break the sight lines — smoke, a closed door, a scattered party — and it goes back to conferring. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.00 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 2 rounds.* + +### The remainder + +*A swarm-mind that lost a body somewhere it cannot go back to* + +> **Cadence** — five bodies, no vital, no head. Cannot be dropped; each body lost costs it −10% to everything. + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 10 | 12 | 10 | 11 | 15 | 13 | 1 | 11 | 6 | 5 | + +**Attacks with** Punch / kick at 45%, 1d3 · **dodges** 45% + +**THE GAP.** Once per encounter it puts a body through the place the lost one went; that body is gone for two rounds and returns in any space within fifty metres, ignoring walls and locks. Feed it, and it will show a team where the gap is. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.00 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 2 rounds.* + +### Counterpoint + +*Five bodies, each in a slightly different minute* + +> **Cadence** — five bodies, no vital, no head. Cannot be dropped; each body lost costs it −10% to everything. + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 13 | 15 | 11 | 14 | 20 | 17 | 3 | 13 | 7 | 5 | + +**Attacks with** Punch / kick at 60%, 1d3 · **dodges** 65% + +**OUT OF SEQUENCE.** Damage done to one body arrives on a delay: note it, and apply it at the END of the following round rather than now, which means a body can act after the hit that disables it. Area damage hits every body at once and defeats the trick entirely, which is the intended answer and should be discoverable. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.00 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 3 rounds.* + +### Afterimage + +*What is left where somebody was killed twice* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 8 | 9 | 11 | 5 | 18 | 13 | 0 | 10 | 5 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Punch / kick at 35%, 1d3 · **dodges** 40% + +**THE SECOND TIME.** Any agent who watches the loop to the end learns exactly how the person died, including who was in the room, which is usually the case broken open. It costs 1 Coherence to watch and it is worth it. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.00 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 1 rounds.* + +### Carried over + +*A wound that came back without the person it was in* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 6 | 14 | 4 | 3 | 19 | 14 | 0 | 9 | 5 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Punch / kick at 50%, 1d3 · **dodges** 55% + +**IT NEEDS SOMEWHERE TO BE.** On a successful attack it does no damage; instead it enters the target and reopens as an injury they have already had — roll the location, and that location is at the hit points it was at the worst moment of that agent's career, bleeding 1 per round. First Aid stops the bleeding but not the wound. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.00 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 1 rounds.* + --- ## The far side The far side, and what it sends. This is where the non-human anatomies are: a Vesh has no head to shoot off, a Cadence has no vital at all. +### The fathom + +*Something in the deep water that is measuring the deep water* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 25 | 28 | 26 | 18 | 24 | 13 | 12 | 27 | 14 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Grasping limb at 60%, 1d6+1 · **dodges** 45% + +**SOUNDING.** Once a scene it takes one reading of anything in the water above it: that subject's exact depth, mass and remaining air, and every agent within earshot in the water takes 1d4 from the pressure pulse with no roll to avoid and no armour, and is deafened for the rest of the scene. Ear defenders reduce it to 1 point and cancel the deafness — the department has lost divers to not issuing them. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 3.73 of 4 down, 88.5% wiped, 14 rounds.* + ### Quarantine unit *Sent to contain the same thing you were, and it got here first* @@ -658,6 +2251,38 @@ The far side, and what it sends. This is where the non-human anatomies are: a Ve *Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.80 of 4 down, 1% wiped, 9 rounds.* +### The iteration + +*The same person five times, at five ages, arguing* + +> **Cadence** — five bodies, no vital, no head. Cannot be dropped; each body lost costs it −10% to everything. + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 14 | 20 | 13 | 23 | 26 | 13 | 6 | 17 | 9 | 5 | + +**Attacks with** Grasping limb at 55%, 1d6+1 · **dodges** 50% + +**THE LONG VIEW.** Once a round, it names one action an agent has not taken yet and describes how it went; the GM writes that down. If the agent takes that action this scene, the described outcome happens — no roll — and the agent loses 1 Coherence. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.53 of 4 down, 0.4% wiped, 6 rounds.* + +### Glass auditor + +*It is checking whether this building is the right shape* + +> **Vesh** — no head, so no killing shot; the sensory ridge is the vital and is hit on 3 of 20. + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 14 | 16 | 14 | 20 | 21 | 12 | 7 | 15 | 8 | 6 | + +**Attacks with** Grasping limb at 35%, 1d6+1 · **dodges** 40% + +**BROUGHT INTO COMPLIANCE.** Once every three rounds it corrects one measurement of the location — a corridor is now eleven metres and always was, a doorway is now too narrow for a stretcher, a stair has one fewer step. No roll resists it and the change is retroactive. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.32 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 6 rounds.* + ### Precedent *A Vesh that has already attended the incident you are about to file* @@ -736,12 +2361,100 @@ The far side, and what it sends. This is where the non-human anatomies are: a Ve *Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.05 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 3 rounds.* +### The tally + +*A distributed clerk counting the party against a number it already has* + +> **Cadence** — five bodies, no vital, no head. Cannot be dropped; each body lost costs it −10% to everything. + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 9 | 15 | 12 | 21 | 19 | 10 | 4 | 14 | 7 | 5 | + +**Attacks with** Punch / kick at 20%, 1d3 · **dodges** 25% + +**THE RECONCILIATION.** At the end of the scene, whatever its count says is what the record will show: if it counted three agents where four came in, the fourth has no attendance and no pay and a great deal of explaining to do, and the department believes the register. Correcting it is paperwork, not violence. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.00 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 3 rounds.* + --- ## Uncategorised People, mostly — contractors, locals, and the ones who were already here. +### Patient grasp + +*It has been holding something on the other side for a long time* + +> **Vesh** — no head, so no killing shot; the sensory ridge is the vital and is hit on 3 of 20. + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 22 | 24 | 18 | 5 | 17 | 6 | 8 | 21 | 11 | 6 | + +**Attacks with** Grasping limb at 75%, 1d6+1 · **dodges** 10% + +**DO NOT LET GO.** Anything entering its reach — three metres — is seized on a successful Brawl and held at STR 22; it will not strike, only hold, and it holds until the held agent is at 0 hit points from exhaustion or somebody else cuts the limb off. Destroying the grasping limb (melee 16–18) frees everyone and opens whatever it was holding shut. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 1.76 of 4 down, 8% wiped, 11 rounds.* + +### The overflight + +*It is flying over a landscape that is not this one* + +> **Four-legged, winged** — as the four-legged, plus wings. **Disable either wing and it cannot fly**, which is the fight the players can win. Wings are 6 faces of 20 at range and 2 in melee, and carry no hide at all. Once it is grounded the hide halves everywhere except the chest, which it keeps turned towards you. + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 23 | 22 | 21 | 7 | 20 | 14 | 7 | 22 | 11 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Talon at 80%, 1d6+1 · **dodges** 45% + +**THE OTHER GROUND.** It ignores terrain that exists on this side: walls, roofs and closed vehicles are not cover against it, because on its side they are not there. Solid earth is — a cellar, a tunnel, a ditch deeper than a man is the only cover that works, and a party that works that out survives the four minutes without a fight. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 1.75 of 4 down, 14.1% wiped, 6 rounds.* + +### Callum Pike + +*heavy* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 16 | 15 | 15 | 11 | 11 | 13 | 0 | 15 | 8 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Marksman rifle at 55%, 1d10+2 · **dodges** 53% + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 1.40 of 4 down, 6.4% wiped, 14 rounds.* + +### The tideline + +*It keeps the mark where one side touches the other* + +> **Vesh** — no head, so no killing shot; the sensory ridge is the vital and is hit on 3 of 20. + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 16 | 17 | 14 | 10 | 22 | 13 | 6 | 16 | 8 | 6 | + +**Attacks with** Grasping limb at 70%, 1d6+1 · **dodges** 45% + +**THE MARK.** Anyone who crosses the line is marked, and the mark does not come off: while marked, the agent is found again within a day wherever they go, by this creature or the next one. A crossing regulator run in reverse on the same spot clears the mark. + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.73 of 4 down, 0.9% wiped, 6 rounds.* + +### Old Marrow + +*An invention that will not come indoors. HP 20, armour 2. The fight.* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 16 | 18 | 22 | 8 | 13 | 10 | 2 | 20 | 10 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Billhook at 60%, 1d8+2 + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.35 of 4 down, 0.1% wiped, 3 rounds.* + ### Revenant *What is left when something comes through without a body to come through in* @@ -754,6 +2467,18 @@ People, mostly — contractors, locals, and the ones who were already here. *Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.27 of 4 down, 0.1% wiped, 3 rounds.* +### Mara Venn + +*overwatch* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 12 | 13 | 12 | 13 | 12 | 16 | 0 | 13 | 7 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Anti-materiel rifle at 58%, 2d6+2 · **dodges** 53% + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.22 of 4 down, 0.1% wiped, 2 rounds.* + ### Cleaner (marksman) *The one holding the high ground* @@ -766,6 +2491,18 @@ People, mostly — contractors, locals, and the ones who were already here. *Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.11 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 2 rounds.* +### Nia Mercer + +*lead* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 11 | 13 | 12 | 14 | 13 | 15 | 0 | 13 | 7 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Service pistol at 55%, 1d8+2 · **dodges** 53% + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.11 of 4 down, 0.1% wiped, 2 rounds.* + ### Duplicate (of an agent) *The single most expensive thing a team can meet* @@ -778,6 +2515,30 @@ People, mostly — contractors, locals, and the ones who were already here. *Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.08 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 2 rounds.* +### Rance Doyle + +*1881, Cordera. Miner. His brother Tom went out on No. 9 and did not come back.* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 15 | 15 | 14 | 12 | 15 | 13 | 0 | 15 | 8 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Martini-Henry at 45%, 2d6+2 + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.07 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 2 rounds.* + +### Warden Michael Teague + +*Head of the site's police. The man sent to fetch them.* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 14 | 14 | 14 | 12 | 13 | 13 | 0 | 14 | 7 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Cudgel at 60%, 1d6+1 · **dodges** 40% + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.07 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 2 rounds.* + ### The Keepers (waystation) *Scavengers who bury what comes through — and the only real information network on the far side* @@ -790,6 +2551,42 @@ People, mostly — contractors, locals, and the ones who were already here. *Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.06 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 2 rounds.* +### Tom Doyle + +*1881, aboard. Rance's brother. Shot at minute two of every pass.* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 13 | 13 | 12 | 11 | 12 | 12 | 0 | 13 | 7 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Martini-Henry at 35%, 2d6+2 · **dodges** 30% + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.06 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 2 rounds.* + +### Cass Merritt + +*1881. Hired guard, the coats. Has the company's letter and the key to the box.* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 13 | 14 | 13 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 1 | 14 | 7 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Webley revolver at 65%, 1d10 · **dodges** 40% + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.06 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 2 rounds.* + +### Cordera miner + +*1881. One of Ambrose's four. Use for all of them.* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 14 | 14 | 13 | 10 | 12 | 11 | 0 | 14 | 7 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Martini-Henry at 40%, 2d6+2 · **dodges** 30% + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.06 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 2 rounds.* + ### The Quiet Neighbours *Near-world locals who have lived beside the threshold for generations* @@ -814,6 +2611,318 @@ People, mostly — contractors, locals, and the ones who were already here. *Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.04 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 2 rounds.* +### Bellhouse warden + +*One of the site's eleven police, born below. Use for all of them.* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 13 | 13 | 13 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 0 | 13 | 7 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Cudgel at 50%, 1d6+1 · **dodges** 30% + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.04 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 2 rounds.* + +### Mr Shard + +*1881, Cordera. Company detective. Buying drinks and collecting names.* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 12 | 12 | 12 | 14 | 13 | 13 | 0 | 12 | 6 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Webley revolver at 55%, 1d10 + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.03 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 1 rounds.* + +### Cordera man (town) + +*1881. One of Rance's five in the street. Use for all of them.* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 14 | 13 | 13 | 10 | 11 | 11 | 0 | 13 | 7 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Webley revolver at 35%, 1d10 · **dodges** 30% + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.02 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 2 rounds.* + +### Josiah Ambrose + +*1881. Miner, the writ men. Carries a court order for the payroll. Dies at minute four.* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 15 | 15 | 14 | 13 | 15 | 12 | 0 | 15 | 8 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Webley revolver at 45%, 1d10 + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.02 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 2 rounds.* + +### Company guard + +*1881. One of Merritt's three. Use for all of them.* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 12 | 12 | 12 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 1 | 12 | 6 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Webley revolver at 45%, 1d10 · **dodges** 30% + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.02 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 2 rounds.* + +### Owen Dey + +** + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 12 | 12 | 12 | 17 | 11 | 14 | 0 | 12 | 6 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Compact pistol at 42%, 1d6+2 · **dodges** 40% + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.02 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 2 rounds.* + +### Sennen Roake + +** + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 11 | 12 | 10 | 13 | 11 | 17 | 0 | 11 | 6 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Compact pistol at 42%, 1d6+2 · **dodges** 58% + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.02 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 2 rounds.* + +### Dr Elin Shaw + +** + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 10 | 11 | 11 | 16 | 12 | 12 | 0 | 11 | 6 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Compact pistol at 42%, 1d6+2 · **dodges** 40% + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.01 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 2 rounds.* + +### Mr Bewley + +*Registry. Holds the case file and signs for the agents.* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 9 | 11 | 11 | 16 | 14 | 10 | 0 | 11 | 6 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Punch / kick at 0%, 1d3 + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.00 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 1 rounds.* + +### Mr Prosser + +*Stores. Takes the modern kit off them.* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 12 | 13 | 12 | 12 | 13 | 11 | 0 | 13 | 7 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Punch / kick at 0%, 1d3 + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.00 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 1 rounds.* + +### Marius Kell + +*Engineer. Has not let go of the regulator since 3 November.* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 14 | 16 | 13 | 12 | 16 | 12 | 0 | 15 | 8 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Punch / kick at 0%, 1d3 + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.00 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 2 rounds.* + +### Elias Vane + +*Surveyor. Signed the chart. Knows exactly what he did.* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 10 | 11 | 11 | 16 | 14 | 11 | 0 | 11 | 6 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Punch / kick at 0%, 1d3 + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.00 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 1 rounds.* + +### Hester Bligh + +*Conductor. Sixty-one aboard, counted hourly.* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 11 | 14 | 11 | 13 | 15 | 12 | 0 | 13 | 7 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Punch / kick at 0%, 1d3 + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.00 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 1 rounds.* + +### Ada Reyes + +*Telegraph operator, Cordera.* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 10 | 12 | 10 | 15 | 13 | 14 | 0 | 11 | 6 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Punch / kick at 0%, 1d3 + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.00 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 1 rounds.* + +### Leah Hall + +*Network Rail engineer, trapped* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 12 | 11 | 11 | 13 | 11 | 12 | 0 | 11 | 6 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Punch / kick at 0%, 1d3 + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.00 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 1 rounds.* + +### Martin Cole + +*Network Rail engineer, concussed* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 12 | 12 | 12 | 12 | 10 | 11 | 0 | 12 | 6 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Punch / kick at 0%, 1d3 + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.00 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 1 rounds.* + +### Sister Enderby + +*An invention that counts. HP 12, no armour.* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 13 | 13 | 11 | 8 | 14 | 12 | 0 | 12 | 6 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Punch / kick at 55%, 1d3 + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.00 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 1 rounds.* + +### Sammy, the boy in the wall + +*An invention that hides. Cannot be hit.* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 17 | 12 | 6 | 8 | 13 | 15 | 0 | 9 | 5 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Punch / kick at 50%, 1d3 + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.00 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 1 rounds.* + +### Edith Crane + +*Housemaid, 22, died in the 1963 fire. Cannot be hurt. Not a monster.* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 9 | 10 | 10 | 13 | 18 | 11 | 0 | 10 | 5 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Punch / kick at 0%, 1d3 + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.00 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 1 rounds.* + +### Beata Nowak + +*Floor manager, holding the night together on a radio.* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 11 | 12 | 11 | 14 | 13 | 12 | 0 | 12 | 6 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Punch / kick at 0%, 1d3 + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.00 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 1 rounds.* + +### Vic Tunnicliffe + +*Operator. Bank loan, forty staff, one dead employee.* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 12 | 12 | 13 | 13 | 12 | 11 | 0 | 13 | 7 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Punch / kick at 0%, 1d3 + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.00 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 1 rounds.* + +### Douglas Kearsley + +*Retired exchange engineer, 71. Does not come out.* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 9 | 10 | 11 | 15 | 13 | 10 | 0 | 11 | 6 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Punch / kick at 0%, 1d3 + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.00 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 1 rounds.* + +### Councillor Hazel Odame + +*Civic society chair. Takes the head count.* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 10 | 11 | 11 | 14 | 13 | 10 | 0 | 11 | 6 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Punch / kick at 0%, 1d3 + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.00 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 1 rounds.* + +### Tony Vasey + +*Site manager. Wants Monday to start.* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 13 | 12 | 13 | 11 | 10 | 11 | 0 | 13 | 7 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Punch / kick at 0%, 1d3 + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.00 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 1 rounds.* + +### Mrs Ivy Ferrand + +*Recruiting officer. Act Three.* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 10 | 12 | 11 | 16 | 15 | 11 | 0 | 12 | 6 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Punch / kick at 0%, 1d3 + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.00 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 1 rounds.* + +### Mr Bewley + +*Registry. Signs things. The briefing.* + +| STR | CON | SIZ | INT | POW | DEX | Armour | HP | Major wound | Locations | +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +| 10 | 11 | 12 | 16 | 14 | 10 | 0 | 12 | 6 | 7 | + +**Attacks with** Punch / kick at 0%, 1d3 + +*Measured alone against the frozen party: 0.00 of 4 down, 0% wiped, 1 rounds.* + --- ## Reading the measured column @@ -837,15 +2946,15 @@ modes, and every one of those makes a fight worse for whoever is losing. Read al as a floor. **And it fights most of these creatures without their powers.** 2 of the -41 POWERS in this book are in the -simulator; **14** are fight rules it cannot express — a grapple into +142 POWERS in this book are in the +simulator; **78** are fight rules it cannot express — a grapple into drowning, a Coherence drain, an initiative it takes by right — and the rest are not -fight rules at all. Every figure above for one of those 14 is the +fight rules at all. Every figure above for one of those 78 is the creature with its best trick taken away. `tools/powers.mjs` says which is which and why. ## A known gap -22 creatures fight with nothing but their own bodies and still carry +93 creatures fight with nothing but their own bodies and still carry baseline-human anatomy. Some of those are people and that is fine. Several plainly are not — a black dog, a case file that eats the cases filed next to it, a machine that has decided it is the site — and all of them are hit-located as people, so you can shoot the diff --git a/tools/bestiary.mjs b/tools/bestiary.mjs index d6c0a6e..e5c5e4d 100644 --- a/tools/bestiary.mjs +++ b/tools/bestiary.mjs @@ -24,7 +24,7 @@ import { writeFile, readFile } from "node:fs/promises"; import { existsSync } from "node:fs"; import path from "node:path"; -import { NPCS } from "./content.mjs"; +import { collectSpecs } from "./all-specs.mjs"; import { POWERS, combatPowerFor } from "./powers.mjs"; const wiredPowers = Object.values(POWERS).filter(p => p.kind === "wired").length; @@ -54,13 +54,32 @@ const focus = existsSync(FOCUS) /* ---------------------------------------------------------------- shaping */ -const TAG_ORDER = ["FOLKLORE", "HORROR", "FORWARD", ""]; +const TAG_ORDER = ["FOLKLORE", "BEAST", "HORROR", "FORWARD", ""]; const TAG_TITLE = { FOLKLORE: "Folklore", + BEAST: "Beasts and heraldry", HORROR: "Horror", FORWARD: "The far side", "": "Uncategorised" }; + +/* Twelve role tags, five sections. + * + * The document grouped on the raw tag against a list of four, and `if (!group.length) + * continue` meant any tag not on that list was not mis-filed — it was DROPPED. Nine of + * the twelve tags the bestiary now uses were absent, so those creatures would simply not + * have appeared, in a document whose entire purpose is that a GM can look at them. + * + * Unmapped tags fall to "" rather than vanishing, and the completeness assertion below + * makes dropping one impossible rather than unlikely. */ +const SECTION_OF = { + FOLKLORE: "FOLKLORE", + HERALDRY: "BEAST", BEAST: "BEAST", LIVESTOCK: "BEAST", + MENAGERIE: "BEAST", HYBRID: "BEAST", + HORROR: "HORROR", ANOMALOUS: "HORROR", REVENANT: "HORROR", ECHO: "HORROR", + FORWARD: "FORWARD", "FAR-SIDE": "FORWARD" +}; +const sectionOf = tag => SECTION_OF[tag] ?? ""; const TAG_BLURB = { FOLKLORE: "Older than the department and largely uninterested in it. Most of these are " + "arrangements rather than fights, and the arrangement is nearly always cheaper.", @@ -68,6 +87,9 @@ const TAG_BLURB = { + "after the reason for it stopped.", FORWARD: "The far side, and what it sends. This is where the non-human anatomies are: " + "a Vesh has no head to shoot off, a Cadence has no vital at all.", + BEAST: "Animals, and the things off the coats of arms that are shaped like animals. " + + "Nearly all of these are hit-located as quadrupeds or winged beasts rather than as " + + "people, so a wing or a foreleg is a real place to aim.", "": "People, mostly — contractors, locals, and the ones who were already here." }; @@ -111,7 +133,20 @@ function rowFor(spec) { }; } -const rows = NPCS.map(rowFor); +/* Read the shared list, not content.mjs. + * + * This built the document from NPCS, so when the bestiary moved into its own files it + * went on describing 47 creatures out of 147 and check-bestiary agreed with it, because + * the guard compares the document against this generator rather than against the game. + * Two things agreeing with each other is not verification when both read the same wrong + * source. Scenario casts come in too, as they do for check-lethality: the Uncategorised + * section already exists for "people, mostly", which is what they are. */ +const rows = (await collectSpecs()).filter(r => r.kind === "npc").map(r => rowFor(r.spec)); + +/* focusParagraph() declares its own local `rows` for the focus-fire data, so the creature + list is not reachable by that name inside it. Keyed lookup rather than a search, so the + shadowing cannot bite again. */ +const nameByKey = new Map(rows.map(r => [r.spec.key, r.spec.name])); const danger = r => r.measured ? r.measured.down : -1; /* Which of them are the wrong shape. @@ -166,7 +201,7 @@ function focusParagraph() { const clear = rows.filter(r => r.gain > r.noise).length; const best = rows.reduce((a, b) => (b.gain > a.gain ? b : a)); const bestKey = Object.keys(focus.creatures).find(k => focus.creatures[k] === best); - const bestName = (NPCS.find(n => n.key === bestKey) ?? {}).name ?? bestKey; + const bestName = nameByKey.get(bestKey) ?? bestKey; const every = helped === rows.length && clear === rows.length; return `**What you can do is kill them one at a time.** Against a pack, every agent putting\n` + `their attacks into the same creature beats spreading them \u2014 in ${every ? "**every one**" : `${helped}`} of the\n` @@ -244,8 +279,27 @@ function focusParagraph() { /* --- the entries themselves --- */ +/* Nothing may be dropped. + * + * sectionOf() falls back to "" and "" is in TAG_ORDER, so at the moment nothing can be. + * That is an argument, not a guarantee: it stops holding the day somebody reorders + * TAG_ORDER or adds a section and forgets the fallback, and the failure mode is a + * creature quietly missing from a reference document — exactly what was happening + * before, and exactly the kind of thing nobody notices. Count them instead. */ +{ + const placed = new Set(TAG_ORDER.flatMap(tag => + rows.filter(r => sectionOf(r.tag) === tag).map(r => r.spec.key))); + const dropped = rows.filter(r => !placed.has(r.spec.key)); + if (dropped.length) { + console.error(`bestiary: FAILED — ${dropped.length} creature(s) belong to no section and ` + + `would not appear in the document: ` + + dropped.map(r => `${r.spec.key} (tag "${r.tag}")`).join(", ")); + process.exit(1); + } +} + for (const tag of TAG_ORDER) { - const group = rows.filter(r => r.tag === tag).sort((a, b) => danger(b) - danger(a)); + const group = rows.filter(r => sectionOf(r.tag) === tag).sort((a, b) => danger(b) - danger(a)); if (!group.length) continue; md += `## ${TAG_TITLE[tag]}\n\n${TAG_BLURB[tag]}\n\n`; for (const r of group) { @@ -330,5 +384,5 @@ if (CHECK) { await writeFile(OUT, md, "utf8"); console.log(`bestiary: wrote ${path.relative(ROOT, OUT)} — ${rows.length} creatures across ` - + `${TAG_ORDER.filter(t => rows.some(r => r.tag === t)).length} groupings, ` + + `${TAG_ORDER.filter(t => rows.some(r => sectionOf(r.tag) === t)).length} groupings, ` + `${rows.filter(r => r.measured).length} with measured lethality`); diff --git a/tools/check-powers.mjs b/tools/check-powers.mjs index bc7051d..3de3ca4 100644 --- a/tools/check-powers.mjs +++ b/tools/check-powers.mjs @@ -21,7 +21,17 @@ */ import { existsSync, readFileSync } from "node:fs"; import path from "node:path"; -import { NPCS } from "./content.mjs"; +import { collectSpecs } from "./all-specs.mjs"; + +/* Read the same list BESTIARY is generated from. + * + * This imported NPCS from content.mjs and reconciled its counts against docs/BESTIARY.md. + * That held only while the two had the same source. Once the bestiary moved into its own + * files, the document described 184 creatures and this guard checked 47 of them, so it + * reported the document wrong when the document was right — the fifth consumer found + * bypassing all-specs.mjs, after build-packs, bestiary, check-lethality and the art + * tools. A guard reconciling two numbers must read the population both of them describe. */ +const NPCS = (await collectSpecs()).filter(r => r.kind === "npc").map(r => r.spec); import { ROSTER } from "./roster.mjs"; import { POWERS, EFFECT_KINDS, combatPowerFor } from "./powers.mjs"; import { runFight, makeRng, seedFor, buildCombatant } from "./simulate.mjs"; diff --git a/tools/powers-anomalous.mjs b/tools/powers-anomalous.mjs new file mode 100644 index 0000000..eff7562 --- /dev/null +++ b/tools/powers-anomalous.mjs @@ -0,0 +1,113 @@ +/** + * POWER classification for the ANOMALOUS AND FAR-SIDE band (tools/bestiary-anomalous.mjs). + * + * Merged into POWERS in tools/powers.mjs, which holds the scheme, the three kinds and the + * three effects the simulator understands. Read that header first; this file is only the + * twenty-five verdicts for this band. + * + * Nothing here is wired, and that is the finding rather than an omission. Two things make + * this band unwirable almost by construction: + * + * The three effects only describe THIS creature's own attack rating, the damage IT takes, + * and whether IT feels the cumulative defence penalty. Several powers below look like a + * halving or a nullification until you ask who the number lands on — mirrorline's half + * damage lands on an AGENT, carried_over's attack still lands and does something worse + * than damage. Wiring either as damageFactor/attackFactor would be R-275 again: the + * supporter's wipe rate moved 25.1% to 75.2% because a conditional power was applied as + * an unconditional factor. + * + * Every power in the band carries a condition — a room, a sight line, a nearest agent, a + * Major Wound, a grapple held for two rounds, an uses-per-encounter count, a Coherence + * price. The harness has no ground, no agents it can name, no Coherence and no scene + * state, so each condition is exactly the thing it cannot check. + * + * The Cadence per-body arithmetic is NOT a power. −10% to everything per disabled body, + * no vital, no head and destructionOutcomeFor returning "none" are the CADENCE location + * table doing its job (bestiary-anomalous.mjs header). quorate, five_of_six, the_remainder, + * counterpoint and the_iteration all restate it in prose; the classification below covers + * only the extra rule each one puts on top. Likewise the Vesh headlessness that + * returned_surveyor and five_of_six talk about is the VESH table, not a power, and + * turnback's neck kill is the quadruped table. + */ +export const POWERS_ANOMALOUS = { + + /* ---- vesh geometry ---- */ + foldwalker: { name: "HALF PRESENT", kind: "notSimulable", + why: "every incoming attack is rolled twice and the lower result stands, and it stops once both exits " + + "are closed; the harness resolves one roll and has no exits" }, + anglesmith: { name: "THE NEW CORNER", kind: "notSimulable", + why: "it edits the room each round — a DEXx5 to cross, prone on a failure, a permanent extra exit after " + + "four — and the harness has no room, no movement and no prone" }, + halfpast: { name: "FORTY SECONDS", kind: "notSimulable", + why: "acts first regardless of Reaction and voids the first attack on it each round, both only until it " + + "takes a Major Wound; the harness has no initiative order and no per-round attack counter" }, + returned_surveyor: { name: "THE ELEVEN YEARS", kind: "outOfCombat", + why: "reading its survey notes trades 1 Coherence for a true fact about the far side; its own entry says " + + "talk to it, and it fights only if restrained" }, + unmeasured: { name: "NO TWO AGREE", kind: "outOfCombat", + why: "it breaks instruments and fails Chain of Custody — a case problem, and its entry says it does not attack" }, + patient_grasp: { name: "DO NOT LET GO", kind: "notSimulable", + why: "it never strikes; it seizes on a Brawl and holds at STR 22 until the held agent reaches 0 from " + + "exhaustion, and the harness models neither grapples nor exhaustion" }, + the_tideline: { name: "THE MARK", kind: "outOfCombat", + why: "the mark is a clock that finds the agent again within a day, cleared by a reversed crossing " + + "regulator; nothing about the fight it is in" }, + glass_auditor: { name: "BROUGHT INTO COMPLIANCE", kind: "notSimulable", + why: "2d6 every third round, but only to whoever is standing where a wall has retroactively always been, " + + "and the harness has no positions to stand in" }, + + /* ---- cadence swarms ---- */ + quorate: { name: "THE VOTE", kind: "notSimulable", + why: "it does nothing until three bodies share line of sight to one target and then makes five attacks at " + + "once; the harness has no sight lines and cannot gate a round on them" }, + five_of_six: { name: "THE SIXTH PLACE", kind: "notSimulable", + why: "a grapple held two consecutive rounds removes an agent from the case entirely, resisted by POWx1; " + + "the harness has no grapple, no multi-round hold and no agent to lose" }, + the_remainder: { name: "THE GAP", kind: "notSimulable", + why: "once per encounter a body leaves the fight for two rounds and returns anywhere within fifty metres; " + + "the harness has no ground and cannot suspend and restore a body" }, + counterpoint: { name: "OUT OF SEQUENCE", kind: "notSimulable", + why: "damage is applied at the end of the FOLLOWING round so a disabled body still acts, unless the damage " + + "was area damage; the harness applies damage immediately and has no area attacks" }, + the_tally: { name: "THE RECONCILIATION", kind: "outOfCombat", + why: "its count becomes the department record at the end of the scene; its entry says it will not fight and " + + "cannot win one, and the fix is paperwork" }, + many_hands: { name: "TAKEN TO PIECES", kind: "notSimulable", + why: "each round a body removes one carried item on Sleight of Hand rather than doing damage, and the " + + "harness has no inventory to take anything out of" }, + the_iteration: { name: "THE LONG VIEW", kind: "notSimulable", + why: "it fixes the outcome of a named future action with no roll and charges 1 Coherence, and the harness " + + "models neither declared actions nor Coherence" }, + + /* ---- echoes and revenants ---- */ + backscatter: { name: "WRONG ANGLES", kind: "notSimulable", + why: "−30% to attacks AGAINST it, but only when aimed — blind fire is unpenalised — and there is no effect " + + "for penalising incoming attacks, only attackFactor for its own" }, + afterimage: { name: "THE SECOND TIME", kind: "outOfCombat", + why: "watching the loop costs 1 Coherence and hands over how the death happened; its entry says it is not " + + "a threat and cannot leave the room" }, + second_pass: { name: "I KNOW HOW THIS GOES", kind: "notSimulable", + why: "three no-roll cancellations of an agent's action per encounter, forfeited if the party changes the " + + "scene; the harness has no agent actions to cancel and no scene to change" }, + turnback: { name: "STILL TRAINED", kind: "outOfCombat", + why: "a correctly given department recall hands it to whoever gave the order for the rest of the scene — " + + "whether it is an enemy at all is a handler question, not a fight rule" }, + the_overflight: { name: "THE OTHER GROUND", kind: "notSimulable", + why: "it ignores cover that exists on this side and is stopped only by solid earth; the harness has no " + + "cover and no terrain to distinguish" }, + recurrence: { name: "AGAIN", kind: "notSimulable", + why: "every fourth round the location resets and restores all hit points on BOTH sides; the harness has no " + + "reset and no way to give the party its hit points back" }, + inside_out: { name: "CONTAINED", kind: "notSimulable", + why: "1d6 a round to everyone in the location with no roll and no armour, 12 points of regenerating armour, " + + "and the win condition is a Spot at −40% to leave — none of which is an attack the harness rolls" }, + latecomer: { name: "THE CALL NOT MADE", kind: "outOfCombat", + why: "it answers one truthful question about the next hour and demands command in exchange; it stands down " + + "if the party makes the call it came for" }, + mirrorline: { name: "REFLECTED", kind: "notSimulable", + why: "it borrows the NEAREST agent's skills and half the damage it takes is dealt to that agent — the " + + "halving lands on an agent, not on itself, so damageFactor 0.5 would be the wrong creature" }, + carried_over: { name: "IT NEEDS SOMEWHERE TO BE", kind: "notSimulable", + why: "a hit does no damage and instead sets a rolled location to that agent's worst historical hit points " + + "with 1 bleed a round; attackFactor 0 would make it harmless when it is the opposite" } +}; diff --git a/tools/powers-beasts.mjs b/tools/powers-beasts.mjs new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d618a38 --- /dev/null +++ b/tools/powers-beasts.mjs @@ -0,0 +1,89 @@ +/** + * What each POWER in bestiary-beasts.mjs does in a fight — the beasts, heraldry and + * hybrids share of the classification, merged into POWERS in powers.mjs. + * + * Same three kinds, same rule: read the header of powers.mjs first, and in particular the + * `supporter` entry, which is the nearest relative of everything in this file. Its ARGENT + * AND GULES was wired as a flat half-damage because the harness has no ground, and the + * condition "while it stands on ground the borough holds" therefore applied always — the + * wipe rate moved from 25.1% to 75.2%, a fifty-point error caused entirely by wiring a + * conditional power. R-275. + * + * Nothing in this file is wired, and the reason is worth stating because this band is + * where the temptation is worst. Half of these creatures have a route through their + * armour written into the tactics, and every one of those routes is a condition: + * + * heath_cow half damage from edged, firearms and energy, FULL from bone or blunt + * water_bull armour 8 wet, dropping 1 a round from round three to a floor of 3 + * sign_wyvern / gryphon armour halves once a wing or a leg is out + * + * damageFactor is a single unconditional number with no notion of what hit the creature, + * which round it is, or whether the thing is still standing up. Wiring any of the above + * would repeat the supporter's mistake exactly. + * + * Nor are the armour routes powers in the first place. Grounding a flyer halves its hide + * everywhere but the vital, and a wing carries none at all: that is `exposedHideFor` and + * the `bare` flag in anatomy.mjs already doing the work through the location table, and + * simulate.mjs applies it per location in armourAt(). The tactics of the eagle, the + * gryphon and the wyvern only describe it. So the classification below is about what each + * power adds ON TOP of that, and where the answer is "nothing", the entry says so. + * + * The charges and the drops — the azure bull's doubled gore, the tup's extra 1d4 on the + * run-up, the gryphon's 15m stoop for 3d6 — are extra damage DEALT on a named manoeuvre. + * The three effects the harness understands cover the creature's defence stacking, the + * damage it takes, and its own attack rating. None of them is a bonus to the damage it + * deals, and none of them can be gated on a straight line, a blind side or a target's SIZ. + */ +export const POWERS_BEASTS = { + /* ---- notSimulable: fight rules the harness cannot express ---- */ + bull_azure: { name: "THE CHARGE", kind: "notSimulable", + why: "a named manoeuvre that doubles the gore only after 10m or more in a straight line, which the tactics itself says can be broken with cover or a scattered team — the harness has no ground to run across and no effect that multiplies damage dealt" }, + enfield: { name: "BADLY ASSEMBLED", kind: "notSimulable", + why: "a crippled limb costs it nothing in initiative or attack, and the harness has no key that waives a wound penalty — woundPenaltyFrom is what simulate.mjs charges for a ruined limb, and defenceStacking: \"ignores\" waives the cumulative penalty instead, which is not the penalty this power waives" }, + yale: { name: "BOTH WAYS AT ONCE", kind: "notSimulable", + why: "it defends two attackers in the same round at no penalty but the ordinary cumulative penalty returns at three or more, and defenceStacking: \"ignores\" has no attacker count — wiring it would waive the penalty against a whole party, which is the answer the tactics explicitly denies" }, + man_tyger: { name: "THE FACE", kind: "notSimulable", + why: "costs each attacker a round to overcome the fact that it has a face, only while it is talking, and not at all from surprise or while it is already engaged — the harness has no talking, no surprise, and no way for an agent to lose a round" }, + eagle_displayed: { name: "TWO HEADS", kind: "notSimulable", + why: "it cannot be surprised and no stealth approach works while it is airborne; the harness has neither surprise nor stealth, and the wings carrying none of its armour is the `bare` flag in anatomy.mjs, not this power" }, + gryphon: { name: "STOOP AND DROP", kind: "notSimulable", + why: "a manoeuvre gated on the target being SIZ 16 or less, whose damage is a 15m fall for 3d6 ignoring armour and which then removes the agent from the fight — the harness cannot gate on a target's SIZ, has no height to drop from, and has no effect for damage dealt" }, + sign_wyvern: { name: "A FOOT OF PAINT", kind: "notSimulable", + why: "−30% to attacks made against it from directly in front or behind and nothing from the side; the harness has no facing, and the only attack effect it has is the creature's own attackFactor, not a penalty on its attackers" }, + cockatrice: { name: "THE LOOK", kind: "notSimulable", + why: "a POWx5 on meeting its eyes that cripples a location with no wound, ends when it dies, and is void for anybody working by touch or a mirror — the harness rolls no characteristics and has no eye contact to avoid" }, + bearward_bear: { name: "THE DOGS ARE STILL COMING", kind: "notSimulable", + why: "it fights on while it can hear anything it takes for dogs and lies down after three full rounds of total silence; the harness has no sound, and a party in it never stops shouting or stops fighting" }, + heath_cow: { name: "MILKED DRY", kind: "notSimulable", + why: "half damage from edged steel, firearms and energy but FULL from bone or a blunt improvised weapon, plus a foreleg-and-hind-leg route on the same side — damageFactor is one number with no notion of what hit it, and wiring 0.5 would make the rib in the church useless and halve the blunt hits too" }, + tup: { name: "THE BLIND SIDE", kind: "notSimulable", + why: "a charge manoeuvre against a target who is not looking at it: automatic knockdown, a further 1d4 for the run-up and no defence roll, and nothing at all against anybody facing it — the harness has no facing and no effect for damage dealt" }, + hollow_hog: { name: "GONE", kind: "notSimulable", + why: "any round it is not engaged it is out of sight at a −30% Spot and re-enters from a new direction; the harness has no positions to vanish into, never looks, and has no disengagement" }, + water_bull: { name: "WET HIDE", kind: "notSimulable", + why: "armour 8 while wet, then 1 less each round from the third out of the water down to a floor of 3, so the whole power is a round count and a place — the harness has no clock on armour and damageFactor cannot decay; its 8 is already on the statblock" }, + moor_cat: { name: "ONE PASS", kind: "notSimulable", + why: "its FIRST attack in a scene only, from ambush at +30% and knocking the target prone, after which any real injury sends it away for good — attackFactor is unconditional and permanent, so wiring 1.3 would give it the ambush bonus every round of a fight it does not want" }, + gaunt_grey: { name: "STILL HUNGRY", kind: "notSimulable", + why: "ignores the penalties from crippled legs and fights on at any hit point total above zero; neither is one of the three effects — simulate.mjs charges the leg through woundPenaltyFrom and stops a combatant at hp 2 through conditionFor, and no key waives either" }, + menagerie_ape: { name: "HANDS", kind: "notSimulable", + why: "opens any mechanical lock in a round, climbs anything, and disarms on a successful brawl attack — the harness has no doors and no inventory to take a weapon out of, and it flees an open fight rather than pressing one" }, + + /* ---- outOfCombat: not fight rules ---- */ + white_hart: { name: "THE CHASE IS THE POINT", kind: "outOfCombat", + why: "it does not fight at all — an hourly POWx5 to break off a pursuit, and everybody still following after three hours is somewhere the case did not include" }, + melusine: { name: "THE FONT IS A DOOR", kind: "outOfCombat", + why: "a movement rule between bodies of standing water within sight of her carving, confined by draining the font or breaking the line of sight; on land her own entry says she is a conversation" }, + martlet: { name: "IT CANNOT COME DOWN", kind: "outOfCombat", + why: "it does not attack and is not a threat to anybody — a mark on one agent for the rest of the case and no recovery for anybody sleeping in earshot, ended by giving it somewhere to be" }, + piety_pelican: { name: "PIETY", kind: "outOfCombat", + why: "she will not fight and cannot be driven off the nest; it is a healing bargain priced in her own hit points and in 1 Coherence permanently for every drinker if she dies of it" }, + talbot: { name: "IT DOES NOT LOSE THE LINE", kind: "outOfCombat", + why: "an unbreakable track across hours and a Persuade off-switch out of the kennel book; its own entry says the fight itself is an 8-stone dog with a bite that four armed agents can kill" }, + gazehound: { name: "IT SEES YOU FIRST", kind: "outOfCombat", + why: "its own entry says it is a HERALD, not a fight — automatic detection at 400m and whatever owns it knowing where the team is, and killing it is easy and pointless" }, + cade_lamb: { name: "IT WANTS TO COME IN", kind: "outOfCombat", + why: "it cannot hurt anybody; the power is getting through a door left ajar, plus a −20% to Listen and Spot, and the harness never looks or listens" }, + hinny: { name: "IT KNOWS THE ROUTE", kind: "outOfCombat", + why: "it does not attack — a sixty-year round it will not deviate from, and following it is the scenario rather than a fight" } +}; diff --git a/tools/powers-folklore.mjs b/tools/powers-folklore.mjs new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ad4405c --- /dev/null +++ b/tools/powers-folklore.mjs @@ -0,0 +1,70 @@ +/** + * What each POWER in bestiary-folklore.mjs does in a fight — the folklore share of the + * classification, merged into POWERS in powers.mjs. + * + * Same three kinds, same rule: read the header of powers.mjs first, and in particular the + * `supporter` entry. Its power was wired unconditionally because the harness has no ground, + * and that moved its wipe rate from 25.1% to 75.2% — R-275. Nothing in this file is wired. + * Every one of these twenty-five powers either is not about the exchange of blows at all, or + * turns on something the harness does not have: a place (a road, a pass, a cut, a pond, a + * church roof), a characteristic roll, a damage type, a target's SIZ, Coherence, a named + * quarry, or a manoeuvre that takes more than one round to land. The three effects the + * harness understands all describe the creature's own defences, damage taken, or attack + * rating; a penalty aimed at the agent's roll is not one of them, however tempting the + * arithmetic looks. + */ +export const POWERS_FOLKLORE = { + /* ---- notSimulable: fight rules the harness cannot express ---- */ + hunt_master: { name: "RIGHT OF WAY", kind: "notSimulable", + why: "only against whatever stands between it and one named quarry, and the ride-down is its own 3d6 with a DEXx5 for half — the harness has no quarry, no ground to stand between, and rolls no characteristics" }, + gabriel_hounds: { name: "OVERHEAD", kind: "notSimulable", + why: "fires on the round it passes above a group and costs a failed POWx5 the agent's next action; the harness has no fly-over, no action to lose and rolls no characteristics" }, + black_annis: { name: "THE REACH", kind: "notSimulable", + why: "denies the target its Dodge, and only from full concealment in a cut it will not leave in daylight — the harness has no concealment, and none of the three effects touches the agent's defence" }, + jenny_greenteeth: { name: "UNDER", kind: "notSimulable", + why: "only within arm's reach of water it cannot leave, and it resolves as a cumulative STRx5 grapple handed off to the ASPHYXIA rules rather than a combat" }, + hunky_punk: { name: "MASONRY", kind: "notSimulable", + why: "the factor depends on the damage type — minimum from bullets, none from edged, full from a hammer or a fall — and damageFactor is a single number with no notion of what hit it; its ten points of armour are already on the statblock" }, + the_teind: { name: "THE ACCOUNT", kind: "notSimulable", + why: "once per scene, an opposed POWx5 that removes an agent from the scene rather than injuring them, and is voidable by a volunteered substitution or by paying the debt — the harness rolls no characteristics and cannot lose a combatant to a bargain" }, + dullahan: { name: "THE CALL", kind: "notSimulable", + why: "a POWx5 compulsion on one named person, and the flail only lands on whoever physically restrains them; the flail is already on the statblock and the harness has no name, no roll and no restraint" }, + cu_sidhe: { name: "THREE BARKS", kind: "notSimulable", + why: "lands only on the third bark, after the scent and the close, and costs a failed POWx5 the next action — the harness has no sequence of rounds before a power arms and rolls no characteristics" }, + tatterfoal: { name: "THE HEDGE", kind: "notSimulable", + why: "−40% to ranged attacks made against it, and the only attack effect the harness has is its own attackFactor; it also has no ranged fire and no hedge to be behind" }, + dun_cow: { name: "THE CHARGE", kind: "notSimulable", + why: "a separate straight-line manoeuvre, triggered only by an attempt to take a sample from it, 4d6 with a DEXx5 to be elsewhere and four rounds to line up again — the harness has no trigger, no line and no reload clock" }, + boobrie: { name: "THE LIFT", kind: "notSimulable", + why: "only against a target of SIZ 14 or under, and the damage is a drop a round after the talons close — the harness cannot gate on the target's SIZ and has no two-round manoeuvre" }, + + /* ---- outOfCombat: not fight rules ---- */ + grey_mare: { name: "MOUNT UP", kind: "outOfCombat", + why: "it does not attack; touching its back is a POWx5 and a one-way ride to the parish boundary, and nobody has ever been killed by it" }, + cailleach: { name: "THE PASS IS SHUT", kind: "outOfCombat", + why: "she cannot fight and will not try — a refusal, then an exposure clock of 1 point per ten minutes on the high ground, and a dead compass" }, + gwrach: { name: "THE NAMING", kind: "outOfCombat", + why: "it does not fight and shooting it achieves nothing; the naming costs 1 Coherence and runs for twenty-four hours after the scene it appears in" }, + sin_eater: { name: "SIXPENCE", kind: "outOfCombat", + why: "a bargain offered at a cordon and taken only by consent — 2 Coherence for a trained skill, and he will not take by force" }, + lych_waiter: { name: "THE WATCH", kind: "outOfCombat", + why: "a STRx5 at a gate to carry grave goods out, without violence; the disposal is burying somebody new in the yard" }, + crossroads_man: { name: "NO PARISH", kind: "outOfCombat", + why: "it defeats cordons, warrants, Borrowed Authority and boundaries — containment, not the exchange of blows; its fighting is the 1d6+1 already on the statblock" }, + march_stone: { name: "ALWAYS WAS", kind: "outOfCombat", + why: "it rewrites every map and register within a mile and costs a reader 1 Coherence; containment is a two-officer watch, and it cannot be broken by anything carried" }, + foundation_child: { name: "THE PIER", kind: "outOfCombat", + why: "it cannot hurt anybody — it holds a viaduct up, and removing it is an engineering problem on a multi-year clock" }, + bog_offering: { name: "STANDING WATER", kind: "outOfCombat", + why: "it works on the building, flooding rooms an inch a day and ruining archives; it has never injured anybody" }, + hearth_hob: { name: "THE DISH", kind: "outOfCombat", + why: "a payment taboo — thank it and it leaves, and the building's machinery fails over the following month" }, + cauld_lad: { name: "COLD WORK", kind: "outOfCombat", + why: "it has never touched anybody; the −20% is on fine manual work and it doubles Repair and First Aid times" }, + changeling: { name: "THE SUBSTITUTION", kind: "outOfCombat", + why: "it cannot hurt an adult and does not try; the power is one piece of information about the real child, and acting on it is a crossing" }, + uninvited: { name: "THE GIFT", kind: "outOfCombat", + why: "it never attacks; the gift is permanent, rolled on a 1d6 table, and it is declined by inviting it in advance" }, + pooka: { name: "THE RIDE", kind: "outOfCombat", + why: "it is not trying to kill anybody — an hour's journey ending in one Major Wound check and an agent who is inconvenienced rather than hurt" } +}; diff --git a/tools/powers-water.mjs b/tools/powers-water.mjs new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9ff1c1f --- /dev/null +++ b/tools/powers-water.mjs @@ -0,0 +1,98 @@ +/** + * WATER, COAST AND THE DROWNED — what each of those POWERs does in a fight. + * + * The water band's share of the classification described in the header of tools/powers.mjs, + * merged into POWERS there. Same three kinds, same rule: `wired` only where the power maps + * exactly onto one of the three effects the simulator understands AND applies in any fight + * without condition. + * + * Nothing in this band is wired, and the reason is the whole character of the file. Water + * creatures kill by holding a subject under, and their powers hand off to the ASPHYXIA + * rules — which are conditional on being in or near water, and the harness has no water, + * exactly as it has no ground. R-275 is what wiring a conditional power looks like: the + * supporter's half damage was applied unconditionally and moved its wipe rate 25.1% to + * 75.2%. A damageFactor standing in for drowning would be the same mistake with a wetter + * name. Where a power here reads like one of the three effects — the tangie's half damage, + * the heron's double damage, the eel mother's +20% — a condition sits in front of it that + * the harness cannot evaluate, so it is notSimulable and the condition is named. + */ +export const POWERS_WATER = { + /* ---- notSimulable: fight rules the harness cannot express ---- */ + sea_mare: { name: "THE TIDE IT CAME IN ON", kind: "notSimulable", + why: "half damage and 2 hit points a round back only below the high-water mark, and the harness " + + "has no tide line — the same place-conditional shape as the supporter's ground, R-275" }, + tangie: { name: "WEED", kind: "notSimulable", + why: "half damage to edged and piercing weapons only, full to blunt, and gone after a round of " + + "open flame — conditional on the attacker's weapon and on the wrack not being burnt off" }, + wrack_gull: { name: "BY ACCLAMATION", kind: "notSimulable", + why: "−30% to the subject's own Dodge and Athletics while the flock is on them; the harness has " + + "no effect that penalises a target's skills, only the creature's own three" }, + shellycoat: { name: "SOMETHING OF YOURS", kind: "notSimulable", + why: "takes one carried object a round, GM's pick of the useful one, and the harness has no " + + "inventory to take from" }, + peg_powler: { name: "UNDER", kind: "notSimulable", + why: "a STR 23 grapple from the pool into the ASPHYXIA rules, and only against someone within " + + "two metres of the water's edge — the harness has no water and no edge to stand back from" }, + greenteeth: { name: "IT LOOKS LIKE GROUND", kind: "notSimulable", + why: "holds whoever steps onto the weed and runs the ASPHYXIA rules from the second round under; " + + "no damage exchange at all and the harness has no surface to step through" }, + fen_hound: { name: "OFF THE PATH", kind: "notSimulable", + why: "only fires on a subject who runs — a walk needs no roll — and its effect is chest-deep " + + "water and a dropped item, none of which the harness has" }, + wrackman: { name: "FLOOD LINE", kind: "notSimulable", + why: "heals 3 hit points a round while standing in standing water, and fire is exempt; regeneration " + + "is not one of the three effects and the condition is a place the harness cannot see" }, + hulk_haunt: { name: "WATERTIGHT", kind: "notSimulable", + why: "shuts one door, hatch or scuttle a round against agents inside the hull, and the harness has " + + "no interior, no doors and no wedges" }, + drowned_crew: { name: "ALL HANDS", kind: "notSimulable", + why: "a POWx5 to not join the watch, at −10% per body still upright; the harness rolls no " + + "characteristics and has no vessel to be aboard" }, + lock_keeper: { name: "THE CHAMBER", kind: "notSimulable", + why: "only reaches someone inside the lock, and resolves as hull damage or an Athletics roll into " + + "the ASPHYXIA rules — conditional on a place, and he will not touch anyone on the bank" }, + the_undertow: { name: "SET", kind: "notSimulable", + why: "moves and holds under anybody in the water and runs the ASPHYXIA rules; armour and weapons " + + "do nothing to it, and it does not exist at slack water" }, + the_fathom: { name: "SOUNDING", kind: "notSimulable", + why: "once a scene, 1d4 with no roll and no armour to everyone in the water above it, reduced to " + + "1 by ear defenders — conditional on being in the water and on what the party was issued" }, + eelmother: { name: "THE ROLL", kind: "notSimulable", + why: "a manoeuvre that only follows a bite which held, ending in the ASPHYXIA rules, and its +20% " + + "needs blood in the water first — conditional on a prior hit and on the water itself" }, + lamprey_host: { name: "IT COMES APART", kind: "notSimulable", + why: "a single hit of 8 or more splits it into two hosts sharing its hit points; the harness cannot " + + "add a combatant mid-fight or divide one" }, + washland_cattle: { name: "DRIVEN", kind: "notSimulable", + why: "the whole herd going at once for 2d6 and a knockdown, with no roll to avoid in water above " + + "the knee and the ASPHYXIA rules under eleven animals; the harness has one creature and no water" }, + the_heron: { name: "THE STRIKE", kind: "notSimulable", + why: "+30% and double damage against a target that did not move on its previous turn, −20% against " + + "one that did, and the harness has no movement — so which branch applies is undecidable" }, + + /* ---- outOfCombat: not fight rules ---- */ + harbour_dog: { name: "HEEL", kind: "outOfCombat", + why: "a POWx5 at the end of every scene in sight of the harbour that walks the subject to the quay; " + + "it is friendly until somebody is between it and the water" }, + selkie: { name: "THE SKIN IS THE CONTRACT", kind: "outOfCombat", + why: "its own entry says a Borrowed Authority and bargain problem, not a combat, and the price is " + + "Coherence" }, + sea_crow: { name: "THE COUNT", kind: "outOfCombat", + why: "it is harmless and one bird; the power is a list of the drowned that costs Coherence to hear, " + + "ended by salvage and burial" }, + cut_walker: { name: "PASSING PLACE", kind: "outOfCombat", + why: "it does not chase, hurry or turn round — the power is giving ground on a towpath, and only " + + "someone still in its path is affected" }, + net_mender: { name: "UNPICKED", kind: "outOfCombat", + why: "unmakes the record and the memory of a named person's return; she dies like a woman of sixty " + + "and her price is another name" }, + mudlark_child: { name: "COME AND SEE", kind: "outOfCombat", + why: "it never touches anybody — a real clue placed out on the foreshore, soft mud and an incoming " + + "tide, cancelled by a line thrown from hard ground" }, + the_sump: { name: "DRAWDOWN", kind: "outOfCombat", + why: "its own entry says nothing here is a combat unless the agents dive; the power is a dusk POWx5 " + + "gated on reservoir capacity, and the case is a conversation with the water company" }, + drowned_parish: { name: "THE SERVICE IS AT SIX", kind: "outOfCombat", + why: "a clock, not a fight — they will not strike first and cannot be dispersed by force; a formal " + + "deconsecration read aloud ends it" } +}; diff --git a/tools/powers.mjs b/tools/powers.mjs index 5e9804a..5c9e2c6 100644 --- a/tools/powers.mjs +++ b/tools/powers.mjs @@ -26,6 +26,25 @@ * damageFactor: n damage it takes is multiplied by n, floored * attackFactor: n its attack rating is multiplied by n, floored */ +import { POWERS_FOLKLORE } from "./powers-folklore.mjs"; +import { POWERS_WATER } from "./powers-water.mjs"; +import { POWERS_ANOMALOUS } from "./powers-anomalous.mjs"; +import { POWERS_BEASTS } from "./powers-beasts.mjs"; + +/* The bestiary's own classifications, one file per band, merged here. + * + * Kept in separate files for the same reason the creatures are: four of them were + * written at once, and a single shared object literal is the one thing concurrent + * authors cannot both edit. Spread last so this file's hand-written entries always win + * a key collision — the originals were argued over and measured, and a band file must + * not silently take one of them over. + * + * Not one of the 99 was wired. That is the correct outcome rather than a shortfall: + * every effect the harness offers describes the CREATURE — its own attack rating, the + * damage it takes, whether it feels the defence-stacking penalty — and essentially every + * power in the bestiary is conditional on a place, a posture, a round count, a weapon + * type, an attacker count, a named agent, or Coherence. R-275 is what wiring one of + * those anyway costs: 25.1% to 75.2% on a single creature. */ export const POWERS = { /* ---- wired: the harness applies these ---- */ redcap: { name: "NOT TIRED", kind: "wired", effect: { defenceStacking: "ignores" }, @@ -82,7 +101,23 @@ export const POWERS = { the_census: { name: "ENUMERATED", kind: "outOfCombat", why: "its own entry says the threat is not a combat one" }, the_yield: { name: "THE COUNT", kind: "outOfCombat" }, the_overwriter: { name: "THE CORRECTION", kind: "outOfCombat" }, - the_arrears: { name: "THE PRINCIPAL", kind: "outOfCombat" } + the_arrears: { name: "THE PRINCIPAL", kind: "outOfCombat" }, + + /* The starter's two. Unclassified until check-powers began reading the shared spec + list rather than NPCS — they are scenario cast, so the guard had never seen them. + Both happen during a fight and neither can be expressed: the harness has no + documents to present and no doors to seal. */ + bp_inspector: { name: "NO DESTINATION SHOWN", kind: "notSimulable", + why: "it will not strike anyone formally offering a document — a ticket, a warrant card held flat — " + + "and the harness has nothing to offer and no notion of a round spent offering it" }, + bp_conductor: { name: "ALL PASSENGERS REMAIN ABOARD", kind: "notSimulable", + why: "once per fight it seals every door in a carriage, and the harness has no doors, no carriage " + + "and nowhere to be shut out of; opening one costs an action it also cannot spend" }, + + ...POWERS_FOLKLORE, + ...POWERS_WATER, + ...POWERS_ANOMALOUS, + ...POWERS_BEASTS }; export const EFFECT_KINDS = ["defenceStacking", "damageFactor", "attackFactor"];