The bestiary goes 22 to 46: eight more FOLKLORE, eight more HORROR, eight more
FORWARD. Ten of the forty-six are now Vesh or Cadence, up from two.
That ratio is the point. Both anatomies have had complete hit-location tables, body
geometry, species talents and location effects for the whole life of this project and
nothing used either, so none of it ran outside the character generator. They are now
written to be WORTH the anatomy rather than to wear it:
- The relay is five Cadence bodies holding a crossing open, and the crossing closes
as they are destroyed. No vital, no head, 10% off everything per body lost - it
cannot be dropped and cannot be ignored, which is the species argument entire.
- The courier is a Vesh that fights at half rating while its one grasp limb is full.
Disable the limb and it drops the consignment and fights properly. The whole
encounter turns on a trade the party has to work out.
- The census cannot be usefully fought at all: no head means no killing shot, so the
fight lasts until somebody opens the ridge, by which time it has counted everyone.
- Knockers are the only folklore Cadence, and the committee is a Cadence because a
committee IS several bodies and one decision.
The rest is written to the house line that most of these are arrangements rather than
fights, because a bestiary where every answer is a gun has one page. The washer at the
ford will not fight and cannot be made to; the apple tree man wants a drink it has been
owed since 1961; the waiting room's exit was never locked and nobody stands up.
Measured, 250 runs against four duty-roster agents, seed 11. Nothing accidental turned
up: the non-combat entries sit at 0.0-0.1 agents hurt, the fighters at 1.4-2.3, and the
only creature over a 10% solo wipe is the stanchion at 14.4% - which is a fixed object
with 12 armour whose own tactics say it is a demolition problem and not a fight. The
harness can only force a fight, so read that number as "the party punched the pillar".
Art regenerated: 24 new portraits, and the eight new non-humans verified to draw
exactly as many body parts as their location tables have entries.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
