Part IV · The World

The Threat Builder

You don’t need a page of numbers for every monster. A threat is a Challenge and a few tags.

This chapter’s just the procedure. Running the Game has the thinking behind it, and The Bestiary has forty threats built this way.

Building a threat

Decide what it is. Roll on the table below, or pick one. That gives you a Challenge and a couple of tags to start with.
Choose its size. A mook has one tag that keeps it going, or none. A named threat has two, and a boss has three or more, plus a weak point. A boss that should last gets Tough, which works like hit points, and a special encounter can be Layered.
How it comes at you. Give it one or two. They’re what its telegraphs will look like.
What keeps it going. Give it as many as its size says. That’s its health.
What drives it. Anything with a name gets at least one. It’s how the crew talks to it, buys it, scares it or turns it.
Hide one. Every named threat and every boss gets a hidden tag. On a boss, make it the weak point, or make the weak point something they can see but can’t reach yet.
Give it a power, if it has one. That’s an impossible thing it can do, written as a tag and telegraphed from the round budget. Most threats don’t need one. There’s more in unique mechanics. If it has Forms, write Forms (2) or Forms (3), and a Forms list of about ten tags to pick its new shapes from.
Name it, and give it a voice. Write one line for it to say in character, and the first thing the crew notices.

What it is

d20	What it is	Challenge	Start with
1	The hired blade: a killer who does it for coin.	4	Reads a Feint, Patient
2	The brute: big, slow, hard to put down.	3	Hits Like a Wagon, Heavy
3	The duellist: fast, precise, deadly one to one.	5	Faster Than You, Reads a Feint
4	The zealot: believes, and won’t stop.	4	Relentless, Zealous
5	The operator: a schemer who fights dirty and from cover.	4	Out of Sight, Well-Connected
6	The beast: an animal, hungry or cornered.	3	Bites, Cornered is Worse
7	The pack: small things that hunt together.	2	Fast, and comes as several mooks with a leader who’s Commanding
8	The predator: built to stalk and kill.	5	Ambush, Sees in the Dark
9	The construct: made, tireless, bound to its rules.	5	Armoured, Bound by Rules
10	The swarm: countless and formless.	4	Swarm, Crumbling
11	The sorcerer: bends the world, but is fragile up close.	5	At Range, Warded, Fragile
12	The commander: the mind behind the fight.	5	Commanding, Fortified
13	The champion: the best of them.	6	Hits Like a Wagon, Armoured, Proud
14	The thing in the dark: unseen until it strikes.	5	Out of Sight, Fear
15	The turncoat: was on your side, or seemed to be.	4	Knows Your Plans, Guilty
16	The crowd: a mob with one mood.	4	Crumbling, Stirs the Crowd
17	The warden: guards a place to the last.	5	Armoured, Holds the Line
18	The horror: wrong, and it shouldn’t exist.	6	Fear, Not Really Here, Forms (2)
19	The old power: ancient, patient, far above your weight.	6	Ancient, Bound by Rules, Calls for Help
20	Roll twice: two of these, fused into one nasty thing.	—	Both sets of tags, and keep the higher Challenge

Its tags

Roll on each table as many times as you need, or just read down them for ideas. Every tag here is explained in Appendix B, along with how it plays at the table.

d12	How it comes at you
1	Hits like a wagon.
2	Fast.
3	Reach.
4	At range.
5	Venom.
6	Burns.
7	Grapple.
8	Fear.
9	Calls for help.
10	Cornered is worse.
11	Ambush.
12	Commanding.

d12	What keeps it going
1	Armoured.
2	Shield.
3	Flies.
4	Out of sight.
5	Regrows.
6	Forms (2), with a Forms list.
7	Slippery.
8	Warded.
9	Reads a feint.
10	Relentless.
11	Bound to a place.
12	Not really here.

d12	What drives it
1	Proud.
2	Greedy.
3	Loyal to a name.
4	Scared.
5	Code of honour.
6	Protects someone.
7	Wants out.
8	Holds a grudge.
9	Can be bought.
10	Zealous.
11	Grieving.
12	Cannot resist an audience.

Building a Threat, Start to Finish

The GM needs a boss for the end of the arc. She rolls 13, which is the champion: Challenge 6, starting with Hits Like a Wagon, Armoured and Proud. She wants him quicker than a wagon, so she swaps that one for Reach: he fights with a long-hafted axe.

For how he comes at you, she rolls a 9, Calls for Help, and decides that’s his wolf. A boss needs three things keeping it going. She’s already got Armoured. She rolls a 10, which is Relentless, and she writes one of her own, Feeds: he gets stronger on blood. Proud drives him. Then comes the hidden tag, and the weak point: the wolf’s a curse, not a pet, and it has a name.

Rule

Redhand: Challenge 6.
Comes at you: Reach · Calls for Help.
Keeps him going: Armoured 20 (first) · Relentless · Feeds 20.
Drives him: Proud.
Hidden: The Wolf Is the Curse (weak point). His real name is written in Vane’s ledger. Say it to his face and the wolf leaves him, and so does everything that kept him standing.
Voice: “You are the last one standing. That’s not a compliment to you. That’s a fact about me.”
What you notice: The wolf arrives first. It always does.

Three plain tags would be three wins against his d12, and a crew of four can manage that in a single round. So she gives two of them Tough. Her table’s a starting crew of four, so her threat budget’s 40, and that’s what she puts into them: Armoured 20, which comes first, and Feeds 20. Now he’s three or four rounds the long way, or one win if the crew has read Vane’s ledger. That makes him a boss worth a session, because he’s hard to grind down and he’s got a secret worth hunting for.

At the table, Redhand telegraphs from the round budget like everything else. His axe is a d12, and Reach lets it pin someone at the end of it. His wolf goes for the scene’s clock with a d12: it howls, and the pack answers. Write three like that on his card before the session, the way every threat in The Bestiary has them, and you’ll never be stuck for what he does next.