Joanne and Fyrn agreed that we should seek the emerald dragon for counsel, but before we could reach her lair, the loose rock gave way.
As I fell, I had three thoughts. “The people of Drope betrayed us.” “This is a dragon’s trap.” “I may never see my family again.”
The relief when we landed in a bed of spongy fungi, and not the toxic, spore-spewing kind… No, these fungi were on the edge of what I can best describe as a city of gold and diamond, spires, spines, and spikes, all penetrating upward.
We can see and hear no inhabitants. We can detect no signs of life at all, in fact, which tells me this cave has been sealed for generations. Maybe before the Great Descent, even. An Iprecean kingdom, maybe?
This could be the find of our lives, and even if it isn’t, with Kalm approaching it may act as sanctuary during the Kaos storm.
The World Below provides.
Dangers of the World Below
The World Below’s explorers have since their arrival attempted to catalogue and define the dangers they’ve encountered. From small, burrowing bugs to their enormous, devouring cousins. From alien assemblies of eyeballs and mouths to an entire civilization of arachnid humanoids. From caves filled with acidic mist and raging storms to deep, fast-flowing channels of magma. It seems impossible to chronicle every possible threat, yet still people try. You cannot survive unless you know your enemy.
Storyguides may use the pre-written antagonists presented in this chapter or construct their own using the Qualities and Antitheses available. The Storyguide should always be mindful of possible environmental threats to spring on the player characters, too. This chapter presents ways to make environmental threats more than something to just be escaped or survived. Interacting with one’s environment and mastering it is a way of turning a danger into an asset.
The World Below’s many monsters can be divided into categories of severity, ranging from Pests at the lowest end, followed by Blights — which might pose a problem for a new pack of explorers — and then Scourges. Scourges are the things that terrify communities and isolated outposts with impunity. Finally, Horrors make up the most eldritch and dangerous creatures in the Vast Underneath.
Note that while some creatures are capable of flight, wall walking, and swimming, it’s for the Storyguide to decide if the given antagonist has this capability and what actions they can perform during such a state.
Antagonist Templates
Antagonists use a simplified set of character details to allow the Storyguide to easily put one together and abstract what it’s doing. These simplified templates give a general sense of the power level of the antagonist and all the important information in condensed format. The antagonists’ dice pools indicate their general capabilities along with some important actions to which they apply.
Primary Pool: The antagonist’s primary pool is its large action pool. This should be between 6 for the weakest character to 12 for the strongest character. Assign two to three actions the antagonist is good at.
Secondary Pool: The antagonist’s secondary pool is what it is next best at. This should be 2 points lower than the primary pool. Assign two to three actions that fall in this category.
Desperation Pool: The desperation pool is for everything else. This should be half the primary pool, rounded down.
Enhancement: Antagonists have access to Enhancement on certain actions, just like characters. List what kinds of actions the character gains Enhancement on here, and how much. Weaker characters shouldn’t gain more than 1 or 2 Enhancement overall, and stronger characters shouldn’t have more than 5 or 6 Enhancement overall, and they should never have more than 3 Enhancement to any one action.
Defense: Antagonists do not roll for Defense. Instead, this number is a static number that serves as the difficulty to hit the antagonist. This should be 1 for the weakest antagonists, and no more than 3 for difficult antagonists.
Integrity: Antagonists similarly do not roll for Integrity against influence actions. Integrity should be against no more than 1 for weak antagonists or 3 for difficult antagonists.
Health: Antagonists have injuries, but not Injury Levels like the players’ characters. Otherwise, Health works the same way. An “easy to knock out” category only has 1 Health, while others range between 4-10. Above that, Armor, Qualities, or Advantages reflect the sturdiness of bigger monsters.
Armor: If the antagonist has armor, it is stated here. If the armor is magical or elemental in nature, it will be denoted as such.
Initiative: The antagonist’s Initiative score should be equal to its desperation pool.
Qualities: List any antagonist Qualities here.
Antitheses: List any antagonist Antitheses here.
Special: Some antagonists have unique perks to their Qualities and Antitheses or ad hoc rules to reinforce their identity.
Some Status Effects — and less commonly, Area Effects — may seem inappropriate for a given monster. How worthwhile is it to make a vermi feel Crestfallen or describe them as a Fabulist, for instance? With this in mind, consider your characters’ Theses, Syntheses, and Sorceries, as some are designed to affect humanoids with personalities and societies, while others are crafted to target monsters such as the ones in this chapter. It’s possible for a power to affect a creature in an unusual way, such as using the Rend the Sovereign Soul on an unthinking beast to make it flee briefly or succumb to a form of mental paralysis, though doing so is best discussed between the player and Storyguide instead of assumed.
Arachniida
My experience with arachniida never went beyond a solitary small one scuttling outside a crevice or the sight of webbing tapestries along the walls of the Illuneian Precipice. Settlers advised me to stay clear of those, and so I did. My luck changed when the ground beneath our caravan collapsed, and we fell inside the webs in the cave below. That day I discovered death runs on eight legs.
Thanks to the warning colors of their exoskeletons and their venom-dripping fangs, people know better than to disturb the arachniida, although caution only helps to a point: The many-legged creatures are often content to feed on less intelligent bugs but waste no occasion to attack prey that stumbles upon their nests or disturbs their webbings.
Arachniida range from smaller than a hand to as big as a cave, with a wicked intellect shining through their multiple eyes well beyond the dangerous cunning other predatory bugs possess. They communicate through an elaborate language Scarabs can learn to speak and demonstrate an unsettling attitude for problem-solving and the use of tools. Some gastrevores theorize arachniida are experiencing a rapid evolution due to the settlers’ invasion of their territory. The implication is that in a handful of generations they’ll become a menace nobody will be equipped to stop.
The antagonist is a natural predator and has some form of natural weapon that it can always use even when unarmed. These weapons can never be disarmed. Each additional time this Quality is chosen, pick a tag to apply to the weapons from the following: Abyssal, Brutal, Deadly, Dreamcrafted, Electrified, Flaming, Ice, Kaos Touched, Long Range, Painful, Piercing, Poison, Reach, Returning, Shadow, Stunning, or Wrecking. If a natural weapon can be used at range, it’ll specify the range in brackets.
Stable
This antagonist is immune to the use of the Knockdown Trick and gains +1 Power Advantage against attempts to move them.
Devastating Blow
Prerequisite: Scourge+
Health: Half Health
Type: Reflexive (Melee)
The antagonist hits a character so hard that they immediately gain the Taken Out Status Effect. For example, a giant arachniida may swoop down and kidnap a character, while a Kaosist might pull down a cave roof on top of another.
Entangle
Type: SimpleAction
Through silky webs, lashing roots, shadowy tendrils, or other means, the antagonist can immobilize their opponents. The antagonist applies the Overgrowth Area Effect centered on itself out to medium range.
Pull
Type: Reflexive (Ranged)
With fiery whip, web leash, gravitational clutch, or any other method, the antagonist drags its victim right into their grasp. The attacker is moved two range bands closer to the antagonist.
Chitters
Down here it’s either eat or get eaten, a way of survival that always made plenty of sense to me. That is, until I learned about the chitters. Chitters are… vurth, they’re all-consuming winged bugs, only as big as carts. The noise they make and their horrible, makiru-like faces make clear they’re anything but. They treat us like we treat mindless bugs, going as far as making deals with settlement leaders to protect people from enemies and predators in exchange for the right to harvest ripe livestock when they’re hungry. An offering only the foolish and the desperate accept, but it’s not like these tunnels lack either…
An oddity raising uncanny questions about the boundaries between settlers and insects, chitters keep more communities under their heel than sensible scholars like to imagine. Although it’s unclear whether they started as insects who evolved in response to the makiru expansion in the World Below or explorers who left behind their nature to become insectoid predators, chitters are clever, malicious, and lethal.
With thick skin and sharp mandibles, a chitter pack makes for a deadly treat, but the creatures feast and prosper thanks to their cunning more than their might. Chitters look for isolated settlements without allies, circle them while terrorizing the inhabitants with demonstrative assaults, and establish a gruesome ecosystem where the humanoids live as cattle for harvesting.
Chitters take care of their “herd,” happy to defend them from dangers and let people come and go as the necessities lives demand, but at the same time reserve themselves the right to slaughter anyone t. Whoever reveals the settlement’s secret or rebels is taken care of like a sick beast endangering its kin, while the chitters force the others to live in a nightmare where everyone prays to not be the next in line to feed their monstrous master.
The antagonist shares an instinctive connection with other creatures in its hive. Provided it’s not separated from its peers at extreme range or greater, everything the creature sees or experiences gets shared across other members of the hive.
While this complicates all attempts to avoid detection, the shared information begins and ends with a given creature’s perspective. If characters flee or kill the creature who spotted them, the alerted reinforcements won’t demonstrate any prescient knowledge of their current position.
Hive Coordination
Prerequisite: Scourge template or higher; Hive Mind.
Within the network of its hive, the antagonist plays a central role in the control and organization of the colony. Other creatures with the Hive Mind Quality in the Area gain a +1 Enhancement on all rolls when the antagonist is present. Multiple instances of this Quality within a scene don’t stack.
If all antagonists with Hive Coordination involved in a scene die, other members of the colony must roll their desperation pool. On a failure, they either flee or fail to recognize their peers as allies and attack them.
Leap
Type: Reflexive (Any Attack)
The antagonist moves two range bands in a single bound, be it an impressive jump, an eldritch blink, or any other means of sudden movement. If this happens as a result of a ranged attack, the antagonist may use Leap to close the distance to the attacker.
Dragons
Dragons are a rare sight, but not one you’ll ever forget. Although their reptilian features and vast wings refuse to let the world forget their original majesty, dragons had to adapt to their subterranean home, as we all did. But how a body looks doesn’t define a dragon: their true heritage is power. Can you imagine how that feels? To be a living portent, to change the world with every breath? That’s what dragons are.
Among the mightiest creatures of the tunnels, dragons are presences no settlement can ignore. Be they merciless overlords, solitary monsters, or enigmatic hermits, dragons imbue the land around them with their own brand of power, drawn from Kaos and processed through the crucible of their being.
While their personalities vary, dragons are driven by pride, desire, and an aspiration to a magnificence lesser beings cannot comprehend. Their morality sometimes aligns to that of other creatures but exists in a different paradigm. A dragon can act as patron for a settlement while being a winged bearer of destruction for another, but each demands respect, if not outright worship, while plenty of dragons refuse to entertain conversation with non-dragons.
Although dragons consider the reminder a heinous offence, most of them are foreigners to the World Below. They have Dialectics of their own, although they consider those of others as disgusting aberrations. The land near a dragon’s lair takes after its master, changing according to the shape of their Dialectic.
Template: Horror
Primary Pool: 12 (Destruction, Grandiose Shows of Power)
Secondary Pool: 10 (Scout the Lair, Wealth Accumulation)
Desperation Pool: 6
Enhancement: +1 Close Combat, +2 Impress, +2 Ranged Combat
The antagonist is extraordinarily difficult to take by surprise. All actions to avoid its attention face a Major Complication. Failure to buy it off alerts the antagonist that something’s amiss despite not noticing the character and will investigate the general area. Additionally, attempts to evade its pursuit or lead it on a false trail are made at a +1 difficulty.
Destructive Force
Prerequisite: Scourge+, 1+ Power Advantage
Due to its mass or sheer power, the antagonist devastates the environment with their blows. Their attacks gain access to the following combat Trick:
Demolition (2 successes): Rubble and debris fill the environment, applying the Demolished Area Effect to the scene as a Moderate Complication. This Trick can be purchased twice per action, in which case the Complication increases to Major. Any artificial structure or object in the Area is destroyed at Storyguide’s discretion.
Frightening Presence
Both people and animals see the antagonist as a dangerous threat not to be messed with, providing it 1 Social Advantage when intimidating others. Minor characters and Pests flee from the antagonists at its mere sight.
Defensive Rebuke
Type: Reflexive (Any Attack)
Whether peaceful, awe-inspiring, or intimidating, the antagonist’s mere looks discourage people from hurting them. The attacking character refuses to attack the antagonist again this scene unless it attacks them first. If a character successfully buys off the Complication from this Antithesis, it cannot be used against them again this scene.
Devour
Prerequisite: Blight+
Type: Reflexive (Melee)
The antagonist swallows their prey whole. While inside the antagonist’s belly, the target can only make an Athletics action against difficulty 1 for Blights, 2 for Scourges, and 3 for Horrors to escape. Failure to escape inflicts a single damage on the swallowed character. Each damage the antagonist suffers in the same turn lowers the difficulty to escape by 1, to a minimum of 1.
Most antagonists can devour only creatures of smaller size, but exceptions exist.
Push
Type: Reflexive (Melee)
The antagonist launches their opponent away, either through sheer force or mystical means. The attacker is moved two range bands away from the antagonist.
Trample
Type: Simple Action
The antagonist charges at its opponents with violence. As part of a rush movement, the creature may purchase the Shockwave Trick for 1 hit. Unlike a normal rush, Trample can be used even if the antagonist starts at short or close range.
Wave of Destruction
Prerequisite: Scourge+
Type: Reflexive (Any Attack)
The antagonist unleashes a lethal attack across a wide area. Examples include a gold dragon’s fiery breath, an earth geoprocugalla’s seismic tremors, a Hypogean herald’s eldritch detonation, and a quaesitor’s disintegration ray. The antagonist deals 1 damage to all characters within medium range. Choose a single element when purchasing this Antithesis. Apply an appropriate Area Effect based on that element, such as Aflame for fire, Darkness for shadows, Flooding for water, Suffocating for air, Extreme Temperature (Cold) for ice, or Quaking for earth.
Haemexii
The haemexii fancy themselves a noble heritage, but you ask me, they’re nothing but a pestilence. Behind the doors of their blood-soaked citadels, deep darkward, they swarm upon their victims, draining them dry and then lapping at the drenched floor. I witnessed how flesh, chitin, and crystal rot away when receiving their curse, only for the matter to reshape itself in their nightmarish features. “Blood is life,” they chant, seeing us as a herd whose only purpose is to slake their crimson thirst.
Long ago, back before the Exodus, a darkward community made a terrible discovery. Digging deep, they found a slumbering god, wreathed in chthonic darkness. In that moment, the explorers made a decision. Some wonder whether an external influence revealed a secret — perhaps murmurs from the all-consuming Abyss — if only to explain what happened: each member of that civilization sunk their teeth into the sleeping god’s flesh and drunk deep, gorging themselves on divine essence. In a baptism of blood and death, the haemexii were born.
Haemexii exist somewhere between life and death, doomed to forever feast on other beings’ blood. Their dark curse changed them, a reminder of their blasphemous crimes: all haemexii resemble ravenous parasites, although the most powerful ones learn to mask their true nature. The curse carries forward even to those initiated in their secret society today. The promise of climbing through their ranks and eventually obtaining the blessing of their dark aristocracy spurns far too many to sacrifice everything they hold dear and leave their humanity behind.
The haemexii consider themselves supreme predators and dark demigods, seeing their need to feed on others as a divine right.
Whether through multiple limbs, an engulfing anatomy, or stranger features such gravitational powers or time magic, the antagonist locks their enemies into place with ease. The Break-Up Grapple, Overwhelm, and Disengage Tricks cost 1 additional hit to be purchased against antagonists with this Quality. This Quality has two versions: aggressive and defensive.
With the aggressive version, the Establish Grapple Trick is reduced to 0 hits.
With the defensive version, all Close Combat actions against the antagonist suffer a Minor Complication. Failure to buy it off results in the antagonist grappling the character.
The Quality can be picked multiple times to grant the antagonist both versions.
Unusual Anatomy
The antagonist’s biology demonstrates extraordinary resistance to all sorts of stress, to the point it’s questionable to define it as “living.” Increase the cost to purchase the Critical Trick by 1 hit for all non-spell altered attacks.
The Storyguide can also use this Quality to represent undead, artificial, or otherworldly creatures, choosing whether the antagonist ages and if it needs to breathe, sleep, or eat.
Vulnerability
Choose a sensation, behavior, substance, or source of damage. Each turn the creature is exposed to its vulnerability, it must roll its secondary pool as a reflexive action. On a failure, they either flee or are unable to act while their Defense lowers to 0. The antagonist suffers 1 additional damage from all attacks or hazards related to this vulnerability.
Consume
Type: Reflexive (Any Attack)
The antagonist consumes the Kaos inside its victims to sustain its own life. If it successfully hits in close combat, it can regain 1 point of Health by eating a generous handful of humanoid flesh. Antagonists express this Antithesis in different ways, such as devouring blood, brains, and souls.
If using this Antithesis would bring the antagonist’s Health above its maximum, the creature gains a +1 Enhancement on all rolls for the remainder of the scene, with successive instances raising it up to +3.
For Scourges and higher, Consume applies to all the antagonist’s ranged combat attacks as well. For Horrors, when the antagonist uses Consume on a target for the first time in a scene, it gains 1 Power Advantage.
Haemexii Warrior
While pages keep their masters’ homes in order and torment prisoners, warriors represent the bulk of the haemexii military force. Each wears the insignia of a dynastic house, ancient lineages almost as old as the haemexii themselves. Soon after the first nobles drained the dark gift from the sleeping god’s veins, they warred against each other in a furious war for supremacy. Broken alliances, betrayals, and vile strategies played prelude to countless battles, where warriors dutifully played their role.
Proud of their nature, haemexii warriors resemble humanoid spiders and assassin bugs. Their physical features suit combat well, but warriors train for the equivalent of entire mortal lives to fight and triumph for their dynasty. Their skills make them fearsome opponents, but warriors are so certain of their superiority they risk underestimating their foes.
Acid, lava, or another hazardous substance runs through the antagonist’s veins. When picking this Quality, select a Complication rating. Whenever characters strike the antagonist in close combat, they must buy off the Complication to not take 1 Injury.
Beastmaster
Type: Simple Action
The antagonist can control beasts and vermin. As a simple action, it can focus on an animal inside medium range and roll its primary pool opposed by the target’s Integrity. On a success, the animal follows all the antagonist’s orders until the end of the scene to the best of its abilities, although it might still flee should characters scare it away.
Leap
Type: Reflexive (Any Attack)
The antagonist moves two range bands in a single bound, be it an impressive jump, an eldritch blink, or any other means of sudden movement. If this happens as a result of a ranged attack, the antagonist may use Leap to close the distance to the attacker.
Well Liches
What defines the Well Liches is power, pure and simple. Theirs isn’t a title one earns easily: All liches are the true masters of the Well, supreme rulers of Kaos. Anytime one decides to pursue their own mysterious goals outside the Well, their presence is enough to change the fate of settlements for generations. Yet, for all their might, never forget the truth they dread the most: they’re not invincible. Some have died in the past, when arrogance led them against horrors more terrible than them, but also by the hands of those who successfully rose against them. Their rule seems inescapable, closer as they are to gods than mere kings and queens, but the liches weren’t always there and the Well grants its blessings to anyone strong enough to claim them.
... and that's a pretty good sneak peek of the chapter! We'll get the full draft version - including the full write up for Well Liches - on Sunday when our final manuscript section becomes available for backers!
This campaign ends in FOUR DAYS! Please continue to share with your social circle and on your social media! Tomorrow, I'm going to review our pledge tiers and Add On options for those looking to join or wanting a refresher. As mentioned, on Sunday we'll have our final section from the draft manuscript so backers will be able to read the entire current version of the book before any pledges are processed or payments collected.
