Chapter 2: Wilderness Threats
Things that live underground have the dark as their advantage. Things that live in the open have everything else: range, speed, territory measured in kilometres rather than corridors, and the biological patience of a creature that has been doing this longer than the settlements it preys on have existed.
The threats catalogued here are organised by what drives them. Part I covers predators — creatures that hunt because they are hungry, territorial, or built to hunt by processes older than any human institution. Part II covers the Displaced — those people shaped by the Darkness's experiments and left without a world that claims them. Part III covers giants. Part IV covers dragons.
The distinction between a wilderness threat and an urban predator is not purely geographic. A wolf pack in the Emerald Plains is a wilderness threat. A wererat operating out of a Wightport sewer is an urban predator. The question is whether the creature's primary relationship to humanoid civilization is ecological — it lives near settlements because they represent prey or territory — or social, in that it operates within or adjacent to civilized structures. This chapter covers the ecological. Chapter 3 covers the social.
PART I — PREDATORS
These creatures hunt because they need to eat or because something in their construction requires it. Most are not evil in any purposeful sense; the harpy and the manticore have alignment entries because their behavior toward humanoids is consistent enough to be classified, not because they have ideological commitments. The troll kills because it enjoys it, which is its own category.
The field principle: a predator with a full stomach is substantially less dangerous than one that is hungry. Reaction rolls for predator encounters should account for this. A wolf pack that killed a deer twenty minutes ago will react differently to an armed party than one that has not eaten in three days. The rules for encounter reactions in Book I, Chapter 12 provide the procedure; the GM's read on the situation determines what applies.
WOLF
Frequency: Common | Appearing: 2d6 | Organization: Pack Intelligence: 1 (animal) | Alignment: Neutral | Size: Small (0.6–0.8 m at shoulder)
AC 13 · Move 55 m · HD 2+2 (11 hp) · AB +1 Attack: Bite 1d4+1 Fort 15 / Reflex 17 / Will 16 Special: Pack Tactics (wolves flanking a target impose −1 to its Fort and Reflex saves; stacks up to −3 for three or more wolves in flanking position); morale checks at pack morale (10) not individual Morale: 10 · XP: 65 · Treasure: None
A wolf is a large canid — leaner and longer-legged than it looks at distance, capable of covering fifty-five metres in a combat round and sustaining that pace across terrain that would wind a horse. Packs range from half a dozen to more than twenty; the hunting unit is usually four to eight. They are social animals with clearly established hierarchies and coordinated hunting behavior. They observe before they act.
Wolf packs across the Known World follow prey migration and avoid settled areas unless conditions have made the normal prey scarce. The Emerald Plains packs are large — drought years, when the plains herds thin out, bring them into conflict with merchant caravans along the Corridor roads. They test vulnerable members of a group first, pressing until the group either demonstrates it can defend itself or doesn't.
A single wolf is not a serious threat to an armed adult. Two or three working together, coordinating to isolate a target, becomes dangerous. The pack tactic — surrounding a target and attacking from different angles — is not a strategy in any conscious sense; it is instinct refined over generations of pack hunting into something that looks like planning because it is effective.
WORG
Frequency: Rare | Appearing: 3d4 | Organization: Pack Intelligence: Low (5–7) | Alignment: Neutral Evil | Size: Large (1.2–1.5 m at shoulder)
AC 14 · Move 55 m · HD 3+3 (16 hp) · AB +3 Attack: Bite 2d4 Fort 15 / Reflex 17 / Will 16 Special: Cunning (worgs understand spoken instructions and can convey basic information through growls and behavior; will not act against their own survival even when commanded); Pack Tactics (as wolves, −1 to Fort and Reflex saves per flanking worg, up to −3) Morale: 11 · XP: 120 · Treasure: None
A worg is what a wolf becomes when something — selective pressure, magical influence from the Darkness's long reach into wilderness ecology, or simply generations of being the largest predator in a region — produces an animal with the social complexity of a wolf and the cruelty of something that hunts for reasons beyond hunger. Worgs are pony-sized. Their snouts are broad and flat-nosed. Their eyes have the calculating quality of an animal that knows it is smarter than most things it encounters and has made decisions based on that knowledge.
Worgs are sometimes found in the company of goblin-kind, who ride them as mounts and use them as hunting animals. The relationship is not domestication, but something closer to a conditional alliance between two parties that find each other useful — a worg that decides its rider is not worth tolerating will act on that decision. Settlement watch commanders in towns near goblin territories learn to identify the difference between a wolf pack sighting and a worg pack sighting; the tactical responses are not the same.
In combat, worgs isolate targets the same way wolves do, but with the intelligence to choose their targets rather than simply pressing the weakest. A worg pack that has observed a party will identify the spellcaster, the injured member, or the one without armor and coordinate toward that target. They will not continue an engagement they are losing — worgs have the self-preservation intelligence to retreat and they use it.
WINTER WOLF
Frequency: Very Rare | Appearing: 2d4 | Organization: Pack Intelligence: Average (8–10) | Alignment: Neutral Evil | Size: Large (1.8–2.4 m at shoulder)
AC 15 · Move 55 m · HD 6 (27 hp) · AB +5 Attack: Bite 2d4 Fort 13 / Reflex 15 / Will 14 Special: Breath Weapon (cold; 3 m radius; 6d4 damage; Reflex 13 for half; once per turn; winter wolves are immune to their own and other winter wolves' breath); Cold Immunity; Fire Vulnerability (+1 damage per die from fire-based attacks); Languages (speak Worg tongue and their own language; can communicate with mundane wolves) Morale: 13 · XP: 975 · Treasure: I
A winter wolf is the size of a draft horse and the color of new snow, with pale blue eyes that catch light in a way ordinary wolf eyes do not. It is beautiful in the specific way that things are beautiful when they do not need to be cautious. Packs are territorial, aggressive, and led by an alpha who maintains position through ruthlessness rather than simply strength — winter wolves that stop being useful to the pack do not remain part of it.
They are found in the arctic and near-arctic reaches above Norderenn, in the mountain country where Val Cadma's northern campaigns have been pressing for fifteen years. Cadmano military dispatches from those fronts mention winter wolves frequently — not as isolated encounters but as a persistent operational hazard, particularly during the long nights when a sleeping camp cannot distinguish the sound of approaching wolves from the wind. Val'arianos traders who work the northern sea lanes document them along the coastal highlands; the traders use a different vocabulary for the same threat.
Winter wolves hunt for cruelty as well as hunger. This is observed behavior, not projected motivation: they will injure prey and allow it to flee, then follow at a distance, prolonging the process. Their breath weapon is cold, delivered in a burst that catches a 3-metre radius. They use it to separate a group before closing. A party that spreads out denies the breath weapon its efficiency and makes the wolves work harder for each engagement — winter wolves know this and will attempt to funnel prey into terrain that prevents spreading.
BEAR
BLACK BEAR
Frequency: Uncommon | Appearing: 1d3 | Organization: Solitary Intelligence: 1 (animal) | Alignment: Neutral | Size: Large (1.5–1.8 m at shoulder)
AC 13 · Move 35 m · HD 3+3 (16 hp) · AB +3 Attack: 2 claws 1d3, bite 1d6 Fort 15 / Reflex 17 / Will 16 Special: Hug (on claw attack roll of 18 or higher; bear maintains grip, dealing 2d4 damage per round; Str check — bend bars — to escape; bear can still bite while hugging but cannot claw) Morale: 8 · XP: 175 · Treasure: None
BROWN BEAR
Frequency: Uncommon | Appearing: 1d6 | Organization: Solitary Intelligence: 1 (animal) | Alignment: Neutral | Size: Large (2.1–2.4 m at shoulder)
AC 14 · Move 35 m · HD 5+5 (27 hp) · AB +5 Attack: 2 claws 1d6, bite 1d8 Fort 14 / Reflex 16 / Will 15 Special: Hug (on claw attack roll of 18 or higher; 2d6 damage per round; Str check — bend bars — to escape; can still bite); Rearing Charge (from 9+ m away; +2 to attack roll; if both claws hit, hug triggers automatically) Morale: 8 · XP: 420 · Treasure: None
Bears are large, stocky mammals that operate on the same ecological logic as most apex predators: they avoid what they do not need to fight, and destroy what threatens them or their territory. Most bear encounters are the result of surprise — a party that crosses into a bear's range without warning and produces a defensive response — or of a bear that is genuinely hungry and has identified the party as a food source. A female with cubs occupies the most dangerous position in this taxonomy.
The black bear is the smaller and more commonly encountered type. It inhabits forested areas throughout the temperate Known World, including the margins of the Emerald Corridor and the wooded uplands between Endoras and Urgônia. The brown bear requires significantly more territory and is found in rougher country — mountain foothills, river systems, the transitional terrain between forest and open highland. In the mountainous regions of Vysandárien and Eymanarann, brown bears grow exceptionally large, fed by the game-rich ecology of those territories; some specimens from those regions approach the cave bear of older texts in size. These are not a separate category in any biological sense but the GM should account for the difference when stocking those encounter tables.
In combat, bears are not sophisticated. They apply their weight and their grip, and the hug is the primary danger — a bear that gets hold of a target will squeeze and bite simultaneously until one of them stops. The brown bear's charge, rearing onto its hind legs before closing, generates enough momentum that if both forepaw strikes land, the hug follows automatically. A bear on an open hillside is a different problem from a bear in a narrow forest track.
OWLBEAR
Frequency: Rare | Appearing: 2d8 | Organization: Pack (mated pairs with young) Intelligence: Low (5–7) | Alignment: Neutral | Size: Large (2.4 m tall, 4.5 m long)
AC 15 · Move 35 m · HD 5+2 (24 hp) · AB +5 Attack: 2 claws 1d6, bite 2d6 Fort 14 / Reflex 16 / Will 15 Special: Hug (on claw attack roll of 18 or higher; 2d8 damage per round; Str check — bend bars — to escape; can still bite, cannot claw while hugging); Never Retreats (owlbears ignore failed morale checks; if a morale check would cause retreat, the owlbear fights on instead); will not stop attacking while alive Morale: — (see Special) · XP: 975 · Treasure: C
An owlbear has a bear's body, an owl's head, and no ancestor that any living scholar can account for. The oldest references to owlbear encounters in the Known World's records date from the early Second Era, which places their origin in the period of the Darkness's most active experimentation on the natural world. Whether the Darkness created them for a purpose or they are simply one of the residual products of that era's widespread magical interference with living things, they reproduce naturally now and have done so long enough that their range extends well beyond the Second Era's footprint.
They inhabit tangled forest, ruins, and occasionally dungeons — an owlbear that has found a deep enough cave and enough prey to sustain itself in one location will sometimes stay there, which is how they end up in dungeon contexts despite being wilderness creatures. Mated pairs are territorial and raise hatchlings together; even outside breeding pairs, owlbears encountered together are usually related. They are not social beyond these basic family structures and will attack any unfamiliar creature without provocation.
The owlbear's distinctive quality in combat is that it does not stop. A failed morale check does not produce retreat; the owlbear continues fighting regardless of what the dice say. This is not courage, but the absence of whatever mechanism would tell a living thing that continuing to fight is no longer worth it. The hug, triggered on a high claw attack, is the immediate practical danger: an owlbear with a grip on a character will bite and squeeze simultaneously, and breaking a grip requires significant strength.
HARPY
Frequency: Rare | Appearing: 2d6 | Organization: Flock (nesting groups) Intelligence: Low (5–7) | Alignment: Chaotic Evil | Size: Man-sized (1.8 m, wingspan 5–6 m)
AC 13 · Move 20 m / fly 45 m (MC 3) · HD 7 (32 hp) · AB +7 Attack: 2 talons 1d3, by weapon Fort 13 / Reflex 15 / Will 14 Special: Entrancing Song (all humanoids except Aelár within hearing distance; Will 13 per round of exposure or compelled to approach as quickly as possible and stand helpless while the song continues; blocked by deafness or sealed ears); Entrancing Touch (any humanoid except Aelár touched by an unarmed harpy; Will 13 or charmed 1d10+20 hours or until the harpy is slain; not cumulative with song); can sing while fighting Morale: 13 · XP: 1,400 · Treasure: C, (R)
A harpy has the body of a large woman from the waist up and the legs and wings of a vulture from the waist down. The face is human-featured. The wings span five to six metres. Up close, the smell announces the creature before the appearance does — they nest in filth and make no distinction between their lairs and the remains of their kills. At distance and in poor light, the silhouette of a perched harpy against a cliff face can be mistaken for a person.
They nest in small flocks on sea cliffs, island rock formations, and coastal highland faces — anywhere that provides concealed vantage over the shipping lanes and roads where prey travels. The Bay of Dragons has substantial harpy populations on its northern island chains; Val'arianos sailors approaching unfamiliar anchorages note wind direction before they note the waterline, because a wind carrying song from the wrong direction is more dangerous than most rocks. They prey on humanoids specifically, which is why their song targets humanoids specifically.
The song is the mechanism. A harpy can produce it while in flight, while fighting, and while feeding — it requires no particular focus. Humanoids who hear it must save each round they remain in range or be compelled to approach. Characters who fail the save move directly toward the harpy as fast as possible and stop when they reach it, standing helpless while the song continues. Their companions must either escape the range of the song or make their own saves each round. The touch charm is backup — used on incapacitated targets, it persists long after the song stops. Aelár are immune to both effects, which is why harpy nests near Aelár settlements tend to be short-lived.
BASILISK
Frequency: Uncommon | Appearing: 1d2 | Organization: Solitary Intelligence: 1 (animal) | Alignment: Neutral | Size: Large (2.1 m long, eight-legged)
AC 16 · Move 20 m · HD 6+1 (28 hp) · AB +5 Attack: Bite 1d10 Fort 13 / Reflex 15 / Will 14 Special: Petrifying Gaze (any creature within 15 m that meets the basilisk's eyes; Fort 13 or turned to stone permanently; works in both directions — the basilisk must also save if it sees its own reflection in a mirror; does not require the basilisk to be looking at the target, only that both parties' lines of sight cross); Avoiding the Gaze (fighting without looking; −2 to all attack rolls, no Dexterity bonus to AC, but no gaze exposure) Morale: 12 · XP: 1,400 · Treasure: F
A basilisk is a reptile, eight-legged, roughly two metres from nose to tail, armored in close-fitted stony scales the colour of old concrete. Its eyes are large and pale. It moves slowly. Most of what makes it dangerous has nothing to do with the bite.
They are found in rocky wilderness, ruins, and cave systems — anywhere that provides the warm, slow environment that a large reptile requires and that offers sufficient cover to ambush prey. Basilisks do not hunt actively; they position themselves and wait for prey to come within fifteen metres, then look at it. This process is not deliberate in any cognitive sense, but how they have always fed. The terrain around a basilisk's territory accumulates stone figures in the shapes of whatever was unlucky enough to wander within range — animals, birds, the occasional adventurer frozen mid-step. These stone accumulations are the primary warning sign of a basilisk's presence, recognized by anyone who has been told what to look for.
The gaze works in both directions. A basilisk that sees its own reflection in a mirrored surface must save against its own ability or be petrified; this is the standard approach for those who know it. The difficult part is getting a mirror into position without meeting the basilisk's eyes in the process. Fighting without looking — a viable alternative — incurs a −2 to attack rolls and removes the Dexterity bonus to AC for the duration. Neither option is clean. A basilisk caught in the open by a party that knows what it is and has prepared properly is a manageable problem. A basilisk encountered at fifteen metres by a party that did not know it was there is a different calculation.
MANTICORE
Frequency: Uncommon | Appearing: 1d4 | Organization: Family (mated pairs) Intelligence: Low (5–7) | Alignment: Lawful Evil | Size: Huge (4.5 m long, 3 m wingspan)
AC 16 · Move 35 m / fly 55 m (MC 5) · HD 6+3 (30 hp) · AB +7 Attack: 2 claws 1d3, bite 1d8; or tail spike volley (4× per day; 1d6 spikes per volley; 1d6 damage each; 160 m range, no range penalties; cannot bite while flying) Fort 13 / Reflex 15 / Will 14 Special: Tail Spikes (as above; manticore carries a regenerating supply — all spikes regrow between encounters); Family Coordination (mated pairs coordinate hunts; each aware of the other's position and attacks accordingly); Limited Common Speech (can speak haltingly in Common; enough to taunt, warn off competitors, or negotiate in very basic terms) Morale: 13 · XP: 975 · Treasure: E
A manticore has a lion's body, a bat's wings, and a human face with too many teeth. The tail is the part people do not expect: a mace-like club studded with metal spikes, each one capable of being launched with enough force to kill at ranges that other creatures would need a bow to reach. The face is the part people remember. It resembles a person's face — broad, blunt-featured, but recognizable as humanoid in its structure. Manticores sometimes speak, in clumsy Common, enough to indicate that something is their territory or that they know what a person is and what they taste like.
They prefer warmer climates and are found in the foothills and upland margins near humanoid settlements — not in the settlements, but close enough to monitor them. A manticore family that has been working a region for a season knows the regular travel patterns on the roads within its territory. It knows which merchant convoys are large enough to avoid and which travelers can be intercepted without significant risk. This is not sophisticated strategic thinking; it is the pattern-recognition of a predator that has been doing this long enough to have calibrated its risk tolerance.
The tail spikes are the primary tactical problem. At 160 metres with no range penalty, a manticore can deliver 1d6 spikes per volley four times per day before it needs to close for melee — and it is a clumsy flier, which means it prefers not to close. A party that can close the distance or take cover is removing the ranged advantage; a party that cannot is being methodically reduced before the manticore commits to anything more dangerous. Mated pairs coordinate — one pins with spikes while the other positions for a different angle.
TROLL
Frequency: Uncommon | Appearing: 1d12 | Organization: Group (small family units) Intelligence: Low (5–7) | Alignment: Chaotic Evil | Size: Large (2.7 m tall)
AC 16 · Move 35 m · HD 6+6 (33 hp) · AB +7 Attack: 2 claws 1d4+4, bite 1d8+4 (or by weapon +5) Fort 13 / Reflex 15 / Will 14 Special: Regeneration (3 HP per round, beginning 3 rounds after the wound; continues even at 0 HP and below — a troll at 0 HP falls but is not dead, and will stand again once it regenerates above 0; fire and acid damage does not regenerate and must heal normally; a troll reduced to 0 HP or below by fire or acid dies permanently); Severing (natural 20 with edged weapon severs a limb — roll 1d6: 1–2 arm, 3–4 leg, 5 head, 6 GM's choice; severed parts continue to move and attack independently; limbs reattach if held to the stump within 24 hours; otherwise regrow in one week); Boulder Throw (rare; 20 m range, 1d8 damage); Mercenary History (trolls have hired themselves to antagonist factions across the Known World; a troll encountered in a structured context rather than a wilderness one has probably been paid) Morale: 14 · XP: 1,400 · Treasure: D, Q
A troll is thin, which is the first thing that surprises people who expect something the size of a giant to be built like one. Trolls are as tall as the largest ogres and built like they were stretched — long arms, long legs, knuckled hands that hang past their knees, skin of a greenish-grey that looks sick. The eyes are black with white pupils. Fully grown female trolls are noticeably larger than males, and they lead such social structure as trolls maintain, which is minimal: a female, a small group of subordinates she can intimidate, and the ongoing management of challenges from both new competitors and prior leaders who have regenerated and decided to try again.
They inhabit dense forests and cave-systems, taking particular advantage of terrain that constrains movement — a troll at a bridge, a troll in a narrow ravine, a troll in a tunnel where the party cannot spread out to engage it from multiple angles. Some troll groups have allied themselves with antagonist factions in the Known World, hired by payments of food and plunder; a troll in structured context is more dangerous than one encountered randomly in wilderness, because it is probably in a position chosen by something smarter than itself.
A troll that is not burning and not dissolving in acid will not stay dead. This is the central fact of any encounter: every troll reduced to 0 hit points that is not finished with fire or acid will stand again within minutes. Most parties learn this the way parties learn most things about trolls — by killing one and then watching it get up. The correct procedure is to finish each troll permanently before moving to the next one. Fire works. Acid works. The two-headed variant found in some regions is tougher and regenerates more slowly but the same principle applies.
WYVERN
Frequency: Uncommon | Appearing: 1d6 | Organization: Solitary (territorial pairs in mating season) Intelligence: Low (5–7) | Alignment: Neutral | Size: Gigantic (10 m long, 9 m wingspan)
AC 17 · Move 20 m / fly 70 m (MC 5) · HD 7+7 (38 hp) · AB +7 Attack: Bite 2d8, sting 1d6 + Poison; or 2 talons 1d6 (when carrying prey) Fort 13 / Reflex 15 / Will 14 Special: Poison Sting (Type F; Fort 13 or die within 1 turn; even on successful save, target loses 1d4+1 Str for 1 hour); −2 to opponents' surprise rolls while flying (silent in flight); Snatch (on successful talon attack; man-sized or smaller target snatched; Str check — bend bars — to escape; +4 to bite and sting against snatched target; large targets require both talon attacks to snatch); Aerial Repositioning (after a snatch attempt, requires 1 round to circle for another attack pass) Morale: 14 · XP: 4,000 · Treasure: E
A wyvern is related to dragons in the way that a jackal is related to a wolf — the kinship is clear in the structure, but the distance between them is everything that matters. It has two legs rather than four, wings in place of forelimbs, and a tail that ends in a scorpion's stinger rather than a bladed weapon. The jaw is lined with rows of teeth. A fully grown wyvern reaches ten metres in length and takes to the air almost silently for something its size, which is the feature that makes wyvern country consistently lethal for travelers who have been warned but not adequately warned.
They lair in mountain caves and require hunting territories of several hundred square kilometres to sustain themselves, which means each wyvern ranges widely and that the territorial map of a mountainous region is effectively a map of where the wyverns have staked their claims. The Vithurian highlands and the mountains along Vysandárien's accessible fringe have documented wyvern populations; so do the coastal highlands above the Bay of Dragons. Wyverns do not typically raid settlements large enough to mount an organized response, but they calculate this with sufficient regularity that towns in wyvern country maintain watch schedules and wall heights based partly on this particular consideration.
The sting is the primary threat at engagement range. Type F poison is among the most lethal compounds that can enter the bloodstream from a natural source; a failed Fort save means death within a turn with no further recourse except immediate magical intervention. The successful-save outcome — 1d4+1 Strength loss for an hour — is bad enough that it should be treated as a win. A snatched target cannot do much while in a wyvern's grip except attempt to break free or accept the +4 to bite and sting attacks against them. The wyvern prefers to use its height advantage and dive on targets; once it has committed to an attack pass, it needs a round to reposition, which is the window for a grounded party to respond.
PART II — THE DISPLACED
The peoples catalogued here were made. That is the first and most important fact about them, and it is the one most consistently ignored when they are discussed in the political contexts of the Known World — in Tar'amaan sermons, in Merchant Council risk assessments, in the field briefings Val Cadma's officers give their soldiers before engagements in the Shattered Plains.
The Darkness did not create goblin-kind and their kin the way a smith makes a tool — with a specific function designed in from the start. The evidence, such as it is, suggests a more iterative process: prolonged magical interference with living populations over the course of the Second Era, producing beings adapted to conditions that no longer exist, optimized for a war that ended 1,380 years ago. What the Darkness wanted from them varies by people. What it left behind is consistent: peoples with no land that was ever theirs, no institutional history that wasn't built around serving something now gone, and a world that blames them for having been created.
This is not a justification. Many of these peoples have embraced violence as a primary mode of survival, and the reasons for that choice do not make them less dangerous. A gnoll raiding party kills people regardless of the history that produced the gnoll. But the reasons matter for understanding what you are actually looking at when you encounter them — and for understanding why the Crimson Company is the only significant institution in the Known World that recruits from their number. The Crimson Company does not do this out of idealism. It does it because these are disciplined fighters with nowhere else to go, which makes them reliable in the specific way that desperation produces reliability. Both parties understand this arrangement.
The Church of Tar'amaan's theological position on the Displaced is worth stating plainly, because it is the dominant framework through which most of the Inner Nations view them: the Displaced were made by evil, therefore they are evil, therefore they are beyond redemption. This position is sincere, internally consistent, and produces policies whose results are predictable given its premises. What it cannot account for is the Crimson Company sergeant of goblin ancestry who has held a defensive line under conditions that would break most humans, or the hobgoblin commander whose tactical decisions in the field reflect the kind of institutional knowledge that only comes from a tradition. The Church does not engage with these cases. It reclassifies them as anomalies.
GM NOTE — Using the Displaced at the Table: These stat blocks describe the typical member of each people encountered in a hostile context. They do not describe the full range of what these peoples are. A party that treats every Displaced encounter as a combat encounter is playing within the rules but missing most of the world. Reaction rolls still apply. The procedures in Book I Chapter 12 govern first contact. A Gnoll chieftain who has been keeping her people alive through a winter in territory that the Emerald Corridor Alliance has been systematically denying them is not the same encounter as a raiding party that has just burned a village. The stat blocks are identical. The GM's read on the context determines which situation the party is actually in.
KOBOLD
Frequency: Uncommon | Appearing: 5d4 (tribe: 9d10 × 10) | Organization: Tribe Intelligence: Average (8–10) | Alignment: Lawful Evil | Size: Small (0.9 m)
AC 13 (10 unarmored) · Move 20 m · HD ½ (3 hp) · AB +0 Attack: By weapon Fort 16 / Reflex 18 / Will 17 Special: Light Sensitivity (−1 to all attack rolls in bright sunlight); Infravision 60 m; Trap Expertise (65% of kobold lairs contain prepared traps; kobold warbands rarely engage without having established at least one killzone in advance); animal handlers (65% of kobold lairs are guarded by trained boars or wolverines); chiefs have HD 1+1, AC 15; warband leaders have HD 1-1, AC 16 Morale: 8 · XP: 7 (15 guard, 35 chief) · Treasure: (Q×5), J, O
A kobold is roughly 0.9 metres tall, reptile-featured, with a projecting muzzle, small horns, scaly skin that ranges from rust-orange to dark brown, and a hairless non-prehensile tail. The eyes are large and adapted to darkness. They were made for the deep places of the world — or more precisely, whatever the Darkness needed from the deep places, kobolds were made to provide it. They are excellent miners, which is what they have always been, and the mining knowledge has persisted three and a half centuries beyond the purpose it originally served.
They live in the largest tribes of the Displaced peoples, sometimes numbering in the hundreds. The internal politics of a kobold tribe is a permanent, low-grade civil war of shifting alliances and feuds held barely in check by the chief and the chief's ability to violently suppress challenges. This instability does not make them less dangerous — the same fractious energy that makes goblin tribes tear themselves apart makes kobold tribes ferociously territorial when something threatens the tribe from outside. Their specific hatred for gnomes is not abstract; it is the predictable result of two peoples who want the same underground ecology and have been competing for it since the Second Era.
Kobolds do not want a fair fight. They build traps, establish killing zones, channel opponents toward prepared positions, and only commit to direct engagement when they have overwhelming numbers or a significant tactical advantage. This is not cowardice; it is a survival strategy that has worked for 1,380 years. A kobold lair that has not been mapped is a lair that kills people through architecture rather than through combat. Encounter one in the open and they are manageable threats. Encounter one on their terms and the fight has already been half-won before the first swing.
GOBLIN
Frequency: Uncommon | Appearing: 4d6 (tribe: much larger) | Organization: Tribe Intelligence: Low to Average (5–10) | Alignment: Lawful Evil | Size: Small (1.2 m)
AC 14 (10 unarmored) · Move 20 m · HD 1–1 (3 hp) · AB +0 Attack: By weapon Fort 16 / Reflex 18 / Will 17 Special: Light Sensitivity (−1 to all attack rolls in bright sunlight); Infravision 60 m; Stonework Detection (unusual stonework 25% of the time); Worg Bond (goblins frequently keep worgs as mounts and companions; reaction rolls between goblins and worgs begin at Friendly); chiefs have HD 2, AC 16; sub-chiefs HD 1+1, AC 15 Morale: 10 · XP: 15 (35 chief/sub-chief) · Treasure: C, K
Goblins are the most adaptable of the Displaced. They are small — 1.2 metres is the upper end — with flat faces, glassy eyes, wide mouths full of small sharp teeth, and gangling limbs. They breed prolifically, which is the source of their adaptability: a goblin tribe that loses half its population to a hard winter or a military reprisal can recover within a generation. This resilience is the reason goblins are found in more of the Known World's damaged places than any other Displaced people — wherever there are abandoned mines, collapsed ruins, or sufficient wilderness to hide a population, goblins are present or will be.
The instability of goblin tribal politics has the same cause as kobold instability, amplified by scale: shifting alliances, constant challenges to leadership, faction leaders whose loyalty lasts exactly as long as the chief's ability to enforce it. The difference is that goblins have a functional relationship with worgs that other peoples do not, which gives even smaller goblin groups a mounted cavalry capability that changes the tactical calculus substantially. A goblin on a worg is covering ground at a rate and with a threat level that the raw stat blocks do not fully communicate; the coordination between rider and mount is practiced rather than improvised.
In combat, goblins prefer ambush and rarely commit to open engagement without a significant numbers advantage. The intelligence range (5–10) is wide enough that some goblins are capable of genuine tactical reasoning while others rely entirely on numbers and instinct. Leadership quality matters here more than with any other Displaced people — a goblin warband under a capable chief fights differently from the same warband after that chief has been replaced. The mechanics do not change; the decision-making does.
HOBGOBLIN
Frequency: Uncommon | Appearing: 2d10 (tribe: much larger) | Organization: Tribe (military hierarchy) Intelligence: Average (8–10) | Alignment: Lawful Evil | Size: Man-sized (2 m)
AC 15 (10 unarmored) · Move 30 m · HD 1+1 (6 hp) · AB +1 Attack: By weapon Fort 16 / Reflex 18 / Will 17 Special: Infravision 60 m (no sunlight penalty); Stonework Detection 40%; Military Organization (hobgoblin groups of 20 or more have established command structures; units operate with coordinated tactics rather than individual decisions; chiefs have HD 4, AC 18 (+3 to damage); sergeants have HD 3, AC 17 (+2 to damage)); Craft Tradition (hobgoblins manufacture serviceable weapons and armor; their equipment is functional if not fine) Morale: 11 · XP: 35 (65 sergeant, 120 chief) · Treasure: D, (Q×5), J, M
A hobgoblin stands two metres tall, muscular, flat-faced, with long arms that hang past the knees and a mouth full of sharp teeth. They have infravision and no light sensitivity — they function as effectively in daylight as underground, which distinguishes them from most Displaced peoples and makes them a consistent year-round threat rather than one concentrated in the hours of darkness. They are skilled miners, though the craft tradition that most defines them is military rather than extractive.
Hobgoblin tribes organize themselves on military lines. Command structure is explicit and enforced; the chief's authority flows down through sergeants to individual warriors in a chain that functions under stress better than most improvised hierarchies. This is what the Darkness built them for — not raiding, which produces short-term results, but sustained military operation. The institutional knowledge has persisted. Hobgoblin tribes that have survived long enough to build stable populations run their territories with a discipline that some scholars have found uncomfortably reminiscent of how nations run theirs.
They despise Aelár with a consistency that goes beyond the typical Displaced people's generalized hostility toward outsiders. The source of this is not documented in any surviving Second Era record, but it is old enough that it functions as instinct. The Crimson Company's hobgoblin contingents are notable for being the most cohesive unit-level fighters in that organization — and for requiring explicit orders to stand down from Aelár adversaries rather than press engagements past tactical sense.
ORC
Frequency: Common | Appearing: 3d10 × 10 (tribe: much larger) | Organization: Tribe Intelligence: Average (8–9) | Alignment: Lawful Evil | Size: Man-sized (1.8 m)
AC 14 (10 unarmored) · Move 30 m (35 m unarmored) · HD 1 (5 hp) · AB +1 Attack: By weapon Fort 16 / Reflex 18 / Will 17 Special: Light Sensitivity (−1 to all attack rolls in bright sunlight); Infravision 60 m; Stonework Detection 35%; Battle Standard (all orcs within 20 m of their chief's standard gain +1 to all attack rolls and morale checks); chiefs have HD 3, AC 16 (+2 to damage); sub-chiefs have HD 2, AC 16 (+1 to damage); shamans possible (cleric/mage up to 5th level) Morale: 11 · XP: 15 (65 chief, higher for shamans) · Treasure: C, (O), (Q×10), (S), L
Orcs are tall, muscular, and stooped — the stoop partially concealing a height that is greater than it first appears. They have bristly hair, prominent brows, flat upturned noses, and tusks that protrude from the lower jaw. They are sensitive to bright sunlight and prefer underground or low-light terrain, which concentrates their populations in the regions they are most associated with: the Shattered Plains, where ruins of the Second Era provide shelter, and the mountain territories east of the Emerald Corridor, where cave systems are plentiful.
Orcish society is organized around strength, in the precise sense that everything is decided by the capacity to enforce one's will. The strong dominate the weak; the weak serve or leave. This is not a moral framework, but a survival structure that emerged in conditions where the alternative was extinction, and it has been functional long enough that it is now culture rather than necessity. What outsiders consistently misread as simple brutality is a code with its own logic: a chief earns authority through demonstrated capability, holds it by continuing to demonstrate it, and loses it when someone stronger wins the test. The Zurnak Quarry operations have maintained a tense but functional relationship with several orcish tribes along the Shattered Plains margins for decades; the relationship works because both sides understand what the other is offering and the costs of breaking the arrangement.
Orcish combat doctrine passes down through generations in ways that academics have only recently started documenting properly. The battle standard mechanic is not symbolic, but a command-and-control system, signaling tactical decisions across the noise of an engagement. A chief's death that removes the standard from the field has a measurable effect on the tribe's combat effectiveness within the same battle. The shamans are the one element the strength-hierarchy defers to without requiring physical proof; their status comes from a different category of demonstrated capability.
GNOLL
Frequency: Uncommon | Appearing: 2d6 (band) | Organization: Tribe (nomadic) Intelligence: Low (5–7) | Alignment: Chaotic Evil | Size: Large (2.1 m)
AC 15 · Move 30 m · HD 2 (9 hp) · AB +1 Attack: By weapon Fort 15 / Reflex 17 / Will 16 Special: Pack Pursuit (gnolls hunting prey grant each other +1 to attack rolls after the first round of sustained chase or engagement; reflects pack-coordinated pressure); Nomadic Ranging (gnoll bands cover large territories rapidly; they do not establish permanent settlements and rarely hold ground longer than needed to strip a location); chieftains have HD 4, AC 17 (+3 to damage); elite bodyguards have HD 3, AC 16 (+2 to damage) Morale: 11 · XP: 35 (65 elite, 120 chieftain) · Treasure: D, (Q×5), (S), L, M
A gnoll is 2.1 metres of hyena-featured humanoid — standing with the characteristic forward hunch of the hyena, although fully upright the frame is substantial. The head is dog-like with a powerful jaw and the spotted coat that ranges from tawny to dark brown. The eyes are adapted for low-light but not total darkness; gnolls operate comfortably at dusk and dawn in ways that most other Displaced peoples do not.
Where kobolds and goblins build fixed lairs and hobgoblins fortify positions, gnolls move. Their bands cover territory that other Displaced peoples would consider too large to manage, and they cover it by not staying in any one place long enough to defend it. This nomadic pattern is partially ecological — gnolls are scavengers and opportunists, and the prey follows the seasons — and partially structural. A gnoll band that strips a region of accessible food and loot is not staying to rebuild; it is moving to the next region. The range of devastation is consequently wide. Individual encounters are therefore less predictable geographically than with peoples who maintain permanent territories.
Gnoll leadership is held by the physically strongest member, maintained through intimidation and the constant threat of replacement. Their chieftains surround themselves with elite bodyguards who are paid in priority access to the spoils — an arrangement that produces reliable protection against external challenges and constant internal friction. In combat, gnolls fight with the coordinated pressure of pack hunters: not the tactical planning of hobgoblins, but the accumulated instinct of a people who have been running down prey in groups since before the Third Era.
BUGBEAR
Frequency: Uncommon | Appearing: 2d4 | Organization: Tribe (small, unstable) Intelligence: Low to Average (5–10) | Alignment: Chaotic Evil | Size: Large (2.1 m)
AC 15 (10 unarmored) · Move 30 m · HD 3+1 (14 hp) · AB +3 Attack: Slam 2d4 or by weapon Fort 15 / Reflex 17 / Will 16 Special: Stealth (−3 to opponents' surprise rolls in all conditions; bugbears make less noise than their size implies in any terrain); Infravision 60 m; chiefs have HD 4, max HP (32), AC 17, +4 to melee damage; sub-chiefs have HD 3+1, max HP (25), AC 16, +3 to attacks; tactical retreat (bugbears break off losing engagements efficiently and plan revenge rather than fighting to the finish) Morale: 11 · XP: 120 (175 sub-chief/chief) · Treasure: B, J, K, L, M
A bugbear is approximately 2.1 metres of coarse-haired goblin-kin — heavier and taller than a hobgoblin, slower in speed but harder to hurt. The hair is thick and covers most of the body; the teeth are prominent; the ears are pointed and large, providing hearing sensitivity that is the primary explanation for their stealth. A bugbear moving through forest generates less sound than a human trying to move quietly. The combination of size and silence produces something that should not be able to approach undetected but consistently does.
Bugbear tribes are smaller and less stable than hobgoblin or goblin tribes — the dynamics of rule-by-intimidation at the bugbear's physical scale produce shorter leadership tenures and more frequent violent succession. What they lack in institutional stability they compensate for individually: a single bugbear is a more effective solo combatant than a single member of any other Displaced people, which makes them the most likely to appear in infiltration contexts, as scouts, or in roles where individual effectiveness matters more than unit cohesion. The Crimson Company employs them specifically for these functions.
They dislike a fair fight, which is the one consistent behavioral note across virtually every field account of bugbear encounters. They ambush when possible, establish prepared positions when ambush is not available, and retreat when the ambush fails rather than pressing a deteriorating engagement. Revenge is pursued, but on their own timeline and terms. A bugbear that retreated from a party this week is not gone, but waiting for the moment when the party is in a narrower corridor.
OGRE / OGRE MAGE
OGRE
Frequency: Common | Appearing: 2d10 | Organization: Tribe Intelligence: Low (8) | Alignment: Chaotic Evil | Size: Large (2.7 m)
AC 15 · Move 30 m · HD 4+1 (19 hp) · AB +3 Attack: Slam 1d10 or by weapon +6 Fort 14 / Reflex 16 / Will 15 Special: Great Strength (+6 to melee damage, already included); chieftains have HD 7, AC 17 (max HP), +9 to damage; sub-chieftains have HD 7, AC 18, +6 to damage; Giant Relations (ogres coexist easily with hill giants and trolls; combined encounter groups are common in suitable terrain) Morale: 11 · XP: 175 (420 for leader/chieftain) · Treasure: B, (Q), (S), M
OGRE MAGE
Frequency: Very Rare | Appearing: 1d6 | Organization: Clan (family groups) Intelligence: Average to High (9–16) | Alignment: Lawful Evil | Size: Large (3.2 m)
AC 16 · Move 30 m / fly 45 m (MC 2) · HD 5+2 (25 hp) · AB +5 Attack: Slam 1d12 or by weapon +6 Fort 14 / Reflex 16 / Will 15 Special: Regeneration (1 HP per round; severed limbs reattach if held to wound within 24 hours); At Will Spells (darkness in 3 m radius; fly; invisibility; polymorph self to bipedal form 1.2–3.6 m tall); Once Per Day (charm person; cone of cold — 18 m long, 6 m wide at far end, 8d8 damage, Reflex 14 for half; gaseous form; sleep); clan chiefs have HD 6+6, save as HD 9 Morale: 13 · XP: 1,400 (2,000 for chief) · Treasure: G, (R), (S)
The ogre's relationship to the other Displaced peoples is ambiguous. Ogres predate the Third Era and may predate the Darkness's active interference in living populations — their large size and brutish intelligence fit the profile of something shaped over long periods rather than constructed deliberately, and their place in the Darkness's hierarchy, if they had one, has never been clearly established. What is clear is that they occupy territory in the same regions as the other Displaced, that the world treats them with the same undifferentiated hostility, and that they have responded with the same undifferentiated violence.
A standard ogre is 2.7 metres, heavy-bodied, slow, and strong enough that its melee damage bonus is +6 before adding weapon damage. They fight without strategy — charging the nearest target, dealing maximum damage until the target stops moving, then proceeding to the next one. Their social structure is similar to gnolls in principle: dominated by the strongest member. Unlike gnolls, they have the physical mass to actually back this up against most things they encounter, which produces a charismatic authority that other Displaced peoples sometimes defer to when confronted with an ogre chieftain.
The ogre mage is a related but distinct type: taller, with blue or red skin, upturned tusks, and small forehead horns. They are substantially more intelligent and possess innate magical abilities that make them a different category of threat entirely. They dominate their lesser kin and use them as shock troops, reserving their own capabilities for the decisive moments of an engagement. The cone of cold is the primary tactical weapon — 18 metres of cold damage once per day, cast at the opportune moment. The at-will abilities (invisibility, flight, polymorph) make ogre mages capable of infiltration and reconnaissance well beyond what their physical nature would suggest. Ogre mage clans are small — 4d4 members, one quarter children — but the loyalty between members is genuine in a way that most other Displaced peoples' social bonds are not. An ogre mage whose clan members are threatened fights differently than one protecting only itself.
PART III — GIANTS
Giants are not from here. Vysandárien is their homeland — the territory now defined by ruin and restricted Chronicler access and the ongoing question of whether the dragon-claimed plateau is approachable at all — and they remember it. This distinguishes them from every other wilderness threat in this chapter. Wolves do not have a homeland they were removed from. Trolls do not. The Displaced Peoples were never given one. Giants were built in Vysandárien, or at least built for it, over a span long enough that the place is encoded in them in ways that are not purely cultural.
The Darkness's dominion over the Second Era drove them out. The specific history of that dispersal has not been reconstructed, and surviving giant oral traditions on the subject are largely inaccessible to Third Era scholars. What is observable is the result: six types of giant, scattered across every region of the Known World from the arctic reaches above Norderenn to the volcanic southern margins, each adapted to the terrain they have occupied for the past 1,380 years, none of them home.
They are not all the same. The six types differ in intelligence, alignment, and willingness to deal with the humanoid nations that now control most of the territory between the Known World's margins. Hill giants are chaotic and brutal; storm giants are wise enough to have formed genuine alliances with neighboring settlements. These differences matter more in practice than the raw stat blocks convey. An encounter with a stone giant on a rocky plateau and an encounter with a hill giant raiding a farmstead are the same entry in an encounter table and completely different situations at the table.
HILL GIANT
Frequency: Rare | Appearing: 1d12 | Organization: Tribe Intelligence: Low (5–7) | Alignment: Chaotic Evil | Size: Huge (4.8 m)
AC 17 (15 unarmored) · Move 35 m · HD 12+1d2 hp (55 hp) · AB +11 Attack: Slam 1d6 or by weapon +7 Fort 9 / Reflex 10 / Will 9 Special: Hurl Boulders (range 45 m; 2d8 damage; Reflex 9 for half); Giant Throwing (can hurl grabbed human-sized creatures as improvised boulders; 2d6 damage to thrown creature and target on hit; Reflex 9 for target); morale checked against Will; leaders have HD 14, AC 18, +8 to damage Morale: 13 · XP: 6,000 · Treasure: D
The hill giant is the most common giant type encountered outside Vysandárien and the most reliably dangerous in a straightforward sense: large, strong, and not inclined to negotiate. They stand close to five metres, stooped and heavy-framed, and their social structure is the familiar brutality-hierarchy — the strongest leads, challenges are settled through violence, and the outcome determines tribe composition. The intellectual range (5–7) means tactical complexity is limited. They charge, they throw rocks, they hit.
They raid farms, waypoints, and small settlements rather than towns, which is a calibration based on their awareness of what they can get away with rather than anything like strategic planning. In the Known World's hill country and mountain foothills — particularly the ranges south of the Emerald Corridor and the upland margins of the Shattered Plains — hill giants are a persistent seasonal hazard. The farming communities in those regions have built their settlement architecture around this fact: reinforced storage, defensive enclosures, contact agreements with neighboring towns for mutual response.
In combat, the boulder throw is the range-engagement tool and the primary reason to close quickly if possible. At 45 metres with a Reflex 9 save, it is effective against anything not specifically built to avoid it. A hill giant that has secured elevated terrain above a party has a significant advantage before the first melee swing.
STONE GIANT
Frequency: Rare | Appearing: 1d10 | Organization: Tribe Intelligence: Average (8–10) | Alignment: Neutral | Size: Huge (5.4 m)
AC 20 · Move 35 m · HD 14+1d3 hp (65 hp) · AB +13 Attack: Slam 1d8 or by weapon +8 Fort 9 / Reflex 10 / Will 9 Special: Hurl Boulders (range 90 m; 2d8 damage; Reflex 9 for half; stone giants can also Catch hurled boulders, 35% chance, and throw them back at equal range and damage); Rocky Terrain Expertise (stone giants in rocky terrain impose an additional −2 penalty to opponents' surprise rolls); leaders have HD 16, AC 21, +9 to damage Morale: 16 · XP: 9,000 · Treasure: D
Stone giants are built for the mountain environment in a way that hill giants are not — taller, more angular, with skin the grey of weathered limestone that makes them difficult to distinguish from rock faces at distance. Their intelligence is sufficient for genuine conversation, and their neutral alignment means that a stone giant tribe is not automatically hostile. Many stone giant groups have maintained decades-long arrangements with neighboring communities — agreements about which passes remain open, which areas are off-limits, and what the penalty for violating those terms looks like.
They are the giant type most likely to still range near Vysandárien, which is consistent with their rocky terrain preference and their alignment. Some scholars have proposed that stone giant tribes in the regions adjacent to Vysandárien maintain an awareness of the plateau's current state that no humanoid expedition has achieved — that they know more about what remains of their homeland than the Chroniclers' restricted files contain. The Chroniclers' response to this proposal has been to note it and not pursue it.
The boulder throw range of 90 metres is the tactical feature that most surprises those who have not encountered stone giants before. Against a party with no cover, a stone giant can engage from outside most spell ranges. Their ability to catch and redirect hurled projectiles — including boulders from other giants — makes them the most effective artillery-counter of any giant type.
FROST GIANT
Frequency: Very Rare | Appearing: 1d8 | Organization: Tribe Intelligence: Average (5–10) | Alignment: Lawful Evil | Size: Huge (5.4 m)
AC 20 (15 unarmored) · Move 35 m (45 m unarmored) · HD 14+1d4 hp (66 hp) · AB +13 Attack: Slam 1d8 or by weapon +10 Fort 9 / Reflex 10 / Will 9 Special: Cold Immunity; Hurl Boulders (range 90 m; 2d8 damage; Reflex 9 for half); can hurl flaming rocks when near sufficient fire sources (+1d6 fire damage, same range); leaders have HD 16, AC 21, +11 to damage Morale: 15 · XP: 10,000 · Treasure: E
Frost giants occupy the arctic and near-arctic reaches: the frozen stretches above Norderenn, the coastal tundra, the mountain ranges where winter holds nine months of the year. They are organised — the lawful alignment produces genuine hierarchy rather than the contested-brutality structure of hill giants — and they plan raids across seasons, stockpiling and preparing with the patience of something that has long experience of hard winters. Their coordination makes them substantially more dangerous at scale than their individual stats suggest.
The Val Cadma northern campaigns, pushing the Cadmano military presence into frost giant territory, have generated the most recent systematic documentation of frost giant tactics. The Cadmano dispatches note that frost giants do not behave like hill giants; they scout before attacking, they coordinate their boulder throws for maximum coverage, and they use terrain features to split opposing forces before committing to melee. This is not sophisticated military doctrine, but accumulated generational knowledge of how to fight in the same terrain where they live, applied to opponents who are operating away from their supply lines in unfamiliar country.
Cold immunity means fire is not an effective deterrent, which removes the option that most adventurers reach for first in giant encounters. Magical fire still works for direct damage; it simply does not produce the behavioral response that fire produces in, for example, trolls.
FIRE GIANT
Frequency: Rare | Appearing: 1d8 | Organization: Tribe Intelligence: Average (5–10) | Alignment: Lawful Evil | Size: Huge (6.3 m)
AC 21 (15 unarmored) · Move 35 m (45 m unarmored) · HD 15+1d4 hp (71 hp) · AB +15 Attack: Slam 1d8 or by weapon +10 Fort 9 / Reflex 10 / Will 9 Special: Fire Resistance (take half damage from all fire sources, magical and mundane; fire-based attacks do not cause morale checks); Hurl Boulders (range 90 m; 2d8 damage + 1d6 fire if near flame source; Reflex 9 for half); leaders have HD 17, AC 22, +11 to damage; 1 in 10 tribes includes spellcasters (clerics or mages up to 7th level) Morale: 13 · XP: 11,000 (13,000 with spellcaster) · Treasure: E
Fire giants are the tallest of the organised giant types, with jet-black skin and hair ranging from red to orange and flame. They prefer volcanic terrain and the deep underground — the perimeter of the Dead Lands, where the geological activity that produced the obsidian deposits also produces the heat-broken rock formations that fire giants find habitable. They dress in plate armor and manufacture their own weaponry, smithing that produces equipment inferior in craft to the finest human work but scaled for creatures that stand six metres tall.
Their lawful alignment produces the same organised hierarchy as frost giants, but the fire giant version is more militaristic — structured by rank in a way that resembles the hobgoblin tribal system scaled up by a factor of five. Chiefs hold their positions through demonstrated military capability; spellcaster shamans hold theirs through magical power. The interplay between these two authority structures within a fire giant tribe is the primary source of internal politics, and understanding that interplay is occasionally useful for parties attempting to negotiate passage rather than force it.
They have fire resistance rather than immunity — they take half damage from fire, not none. This is a meaningful distinction when the party has fire-based options: those options still work, they simply require more resources than they would against most other targets.
CLOUD GIANT
Frequency: Very Rare | Appearing: 1d10 | Organization: Family (clan) Intelligence: Average to Very (8–12) | Alignment: Neutral Good or Neutral Evil | Size: Huge (7.2 m)
AC 20 · Move 45 m · HD 16+2d4 hp (77 hp) · AB +15 Attack: Slam 1d10 or by weapon +11 Fort 9 / Reflex 10 / Will 9 Special: Hurl Boulders (range 90 m; 2d8 damage; Reflex 9 for half; cloud giants of neutral good alignment can throw caught boulders); Keen Smell (detect creatures by scent at 9 m; −2 to opponents' surprise rolls); 1 in 10 can cast spells (mage or cleric up to 4th level); lairs guarded by trained beasts (lions, owlbears, griffons, or wyverns, 60% chance); leaders have HD 18, AC 21, +12 to damage Morale: 17 · XP: 11,000 (12,000 spellcaster) · Treasure: E, (Q×5), S
Cloud giants are the most politically complex of the standard giant types. Their intelligence range extends high enough that some cloud giant individuals are capable of sustained strategic thinking and genuine diplomatic exchange, and their alignment split — half good, half evil — produces encounters that cannot be pre-planned the way hill giant encounters can. A cloud giant settlement discovered on a mountain peak or enchanted cloud platform may be a trading partner, an extortion operation, a neutral party, or an aggressive territorial lord. The first question is which one.
They build in high places: mountain castles at the snowline, occasionally floating cloud platforms maintained by the rare spellcaster among their number. Their pride in status and wealth is the behavioral constant across alignments — good-aligned cloud giants value fine goods, music, and association with powerful creatures; evil-aligned ones demand tribute for passage and raid when tribute is not forthcoming. Both are genuinely formidable in combat, and both maintain trained guardian animals that provide early warning and defensive depth.
In the Known World's current geography, cloud giants are the giant type most likely to have established ongoing relationships with humanoid nations — sometimes as implicit threats that require management, occasionally as genuine regional powers that the Inner Nations treat as political actors. A cloud giant family that has controlled mountain passes for two centuries is a different calculation than one encountered randomly in wilderness.
STORM GIANT
Frequency: Very Rare | Appearing: 1d3+1 | Organization: Family (small clan) Intelligence: High (15–16) | Alignment: Chaotic Good | Size: Gigantic (7.8 m)
AC 26 (20 unarmored) · Move 45 m / swim 45 m · HD 19+2d4 hp (91 hp) · AB +17 Attack: Slam 1d10 or by weapon +12 (three times the damage of an equivalent man-sized weapon) Fort 9 / Reflex 10 / Will 9 Special: Electricity Immunity; Catch Boulders (65% chance; can throw caught boulders at cloud giant range); At-Will Spells (control weather, levitate up to 8,600 kg twice per day; control winds, lightning bolt 15d6 Reflex 9 for half, weather summoning once per day — all cast as 15th level); 1 in 5 is a spellcaster (cleric to 9th or mage to 7th level, additional to the base abilities); can breathe underwater; leaders have HD 21, AC 27, +13 to damage Morale: 17 · XP: 16,000 (18,000+ spellcaster) · Treasure: E, (Q×10), S
A storm giant is 7.8 metres of deep green or purple-skinned humanoid with eyes and hair to match, standing in a castle on a storm-swept peak or on the floor of the Bay of Dragons or on an enchanted cloud platform, and it is the wisest creature in most environments it occupies. Storm giants are generally peaceful, curious about the smaller peoples they share the world with, and willing to engage with them. They have good relations with non-evil dragons as a matter of principle, and the Val'arianos maritime records contain documentation of storm giant-ship interactions that read as diplomatic encounters rather than threat responses.
They are also the most dangerous creatures in this chapter if forced into combat. The lightning bolt is 15d6 from a creature that casts it as a 15th-level spellcaster — not from a spell slot, but as an inherent ability used once per day. The control weather and control winds abilities mean that a storm giant in its preferred environment can reshape the battlefield before the first attack. Their AC of 26 armored makes them essentially unhittable by characters without high-grade magical weaponry unless the party has the resources to approach this problem systematically.
The Vithurian Orchestra has songs about storm giants, which implies that someone at some point did something worth singing about in a storm giant's presence. What that encounter looked like on the ground, and what it cost, the songs do not say.
PART IV — DRAGONS
Every dragon in the Known World knows something that no mortal scholar has deduced independently: magic exists because Ilya is still fighting the Darkness in the Abyss. The battle between them, ongoing since the Darkness's banishment at the end of the Second Era, is what sustains the magical substrate of the world. When that battle ends — in either direction — magic ends with it.
Dragons know this the way they know their own breath weapons: completely, without uncertainty, not through research but through a quality of perception that their lifespan and nature provide. They do not discuss it freely. A dragon asked directly will usually deflect; some will lie. A few elder dragons, over long associations with particular humanoid partners, have disclosed versions of this truth. These disclosures are not in the Chroniclers' public archives. Where they are is something the Chroniclers classify under the same access level as Void Dragon contact reports.
What follows are the five dragon types documented in the Known World, organised by damage type. Each type has a geographic anchor, but dragons range; the anchor describes their primary territory and where they are most frequently encountered, not the limit of their movement. The age category governs all scaling within a type: stats, breath weapon, and special abilities all increase with age. Elder dragons — those of 14 HD or greater — are treated as named entities and documented in Chapter 5. The entries here cover the full range from young to adult.
DRAGON AGE CATEGORIES
| Age | HD | Avg HP | AC | AB | Breath | Save DC | Size |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Young | 4–6 | 22 | 14 | +4 | 3d8 | 14 | Large (4–6 m) |
| Juvenile | 7–9 | 36 | 16 | +7 | 6d8 | 16 | Huge (8–12 m) |
| Adult | 10–13 | 54 | 18 | +10 | 9d8 | 18 | Huge (13–18 m) |
| Elder | 14+ | 72+ | 20+ | +13+ | 12d8+ | 20+ | See Chapter 5 |
Save DC is the target number for all saving throws against that dragon's breath weapon and Frightful Presence. Players roll d20 equal to or higher to succeed.
Frightful Presence: Adult and elder dragons only. All creatures within HD × 3 metres with fewer HD than the dragon must make a Will save (DC as above) or flee for 2d6 rounds. Creatures that succeed are immune to that dragon's Frightful Presence for 24 hours.
All dragons: Move 25 m ground / fly varies by age (Young: 60 m MC 4; Juvenile–Adult: 90 m MC 2). Darkvision 60 m. Immune to their own elemental type. Can speak from Juvenile age; understand Common from hatching. Adult and elder dragons may have accumulated spell-like abilities at the GM's discretion.
FIRE DRAGON
Frequency: Uncommon (Young); Rare (Juvenile–Adult) | Appearing: 1 (2d4 young together) Organization: Solitary (adults); clutch (young) | Intelligence: Average (Young) to Exceptional (Adult) Alignment: Neutral Evil | Treasure: H (Young); E (Juvenile); A (Adult)
Fort varies by age / Reflex varies by age / Will varies by age — see Age Category table above. Morale: 12 (Young), 14 (Juvenile), 16 (Adult) XP: 3,000 (Young), 5,000 (Juvenile), 8,000 (Adult)
Breath Weapon: Cone of fire. Area: 15 m (Young), 20 m (Juvenile), 25 m (Adult). Reflex save (DC by age) for half. Fire dragons are immune to all fire, magical and mundane.
Special: Fire Immunity; Frightful Presence (Adult); smoke obscurement (once per turn, fire dragon can exhale a cloud of dense smoke filling a 6 m cube; lasts 1 minute; those in the smoke save Reflex 14 or choke, losing their action for the round)
The Fire Dragon's territory centers on the Dead Lands' volcanic perimeter — the cracked, heat-broken terrain at the margins where the obsidian deposits are thickest and the ground still runs warm from whatever geological event the Second Era produced there. They are the most commonly encountered dragon type in the Known World, which is a statement about relative rarity rather than abundance: in a stretch of 500 square kilometres of volcanic borderland, a party might find one adult Fire Dragon and consider this normal.
Fire dragons are territorial and acquisitive. Their hoards skew toward objects that survived fire — metal, stone, gems — and they accumulate these across centuries with the patient attention of something that knows it will outlive every rival competing for the same resources. The obsidian economy that runs through Bellaria and the Chroniclers' Duskhold operations creates a persistent low-level tension with fire dragons in the Dead Lands regions: the dragon's territory and the expedition routes overlap, and expeditions occasionally do not return.
Young fire dragons are manageable with fire-immunity preparation and sufficient numbers. Adult fire dragons are a different problem — the breath weapon at 9d8 against a 25-metre cone kills unprepared parties, and the smoke obscurement removes the option of maintaining visibility while the breath weapon recharges.
WINTER DRAGON
Frequency: Uncommon (Young); Rare (Juvenile–Adult) | Appearing: 1 Organization: Solitary | Intelligence: Low (Young) to High (Adult) Alignment: Chaotic Evil | Treasure: E (Young); H (Juvenile); A (Adult)
Morale: 11 (Young), 13 (Juvenile), 15 (Adult) XP: 3,000 (Young), 5,000 (Juvenile), 8,000 (Adult)
Breath Weapon: Cone of freezing air and sleet. Area: 15 m (Young), 20 m (Juvenile), 25 m (Adult). Reflex save (DC by age) for half. Creatures that fail their save are also slowed for 1 round (as slow) — the sleet coats limbs and equipment. Winter dragons are immune to cold.
Special: Cold Immunity; Fire Vulnerability (take +1 damage per die from fire attacks); Frightful Presence (Adult); Arctic Camouflage (in snow or ice environments, −4 to opponents' surprise rolls — a Winter Dragon at rest in snowfield terrain is not visible until it moves)
Winter Dragons occupy the arctic and near-arctic reaches above Norderenn, ranging across the frozen coastal highlands and the deep permafrost territories where frost giant country begins. They are the least socially complex of the five types — winter dragons do not deal, do not negotiate, and rarely accumulate anything beyond their immediate territorial needs. Their hoards are smaller than other dragon types' for the same age, partly because they simply eat what they kill and take what's metal, partly because the territory offers fewer opportunities for the extended accumulation that older dragons in richer territories achieve.
The fire vulnerability is their defining tactical characteristic: they know about it, they account for it, and they take it seriously in a way that makes them more cautious than other dragon types about closing distance with parties that have demonstrated fire capability. A winter dragon that has been singed once will retreat, reassess, and approach the next engagement differently. This is not intelligence producing sophisticated planning; it is pain producing behavioral change.
Val Cadma's northern military dispatches document two confirmed winter dragon encounters in the past decade. Both ended in retreat — one by the dragon, one by the Cadmano unit. The one that ended with Cadmano retreat was the adult.
STORM DRAGON
Frequency: Rare (all ages) | Appearing: 1 Organization: Solitary | Intelligence: Average (Young) to Exceptional (Adult) Alignment: Neutral | Treasure: E (Young); H (Juvenile); A (Adult)
Morale: 13 (Young), 15 (Juvenile), 17 (Adult) XP: 3,500 (Young), 6,000 (Juvenile), 9,000 (Adult)
Breath Weapon: Lightning bolt (line attack, not cone). Range and width: 25 m × 1.5 m (Young), 35 m × 2 m (Juvenile), 45 m × 2 m (Adult). Reflex save (DC by age) for half. A lightning bolt from a Storm Dragon ignites flammable materials in its path. Storm dragons are immune to electricity.
Special: Electricity Immunity; Frightful Presence (Adult); Amphibious (breathes water as easily as air; speed unimpaired in water); Storm Sense (never surprised in rain, fog, or storm conditions; gains +2 to all rolls in such conditions while on wing); can communicate with all sea creatures by sound
The Bay of Dragons takes its name from these. The naming is old enough that the specific incident that produced it has been lost, but the implication is that whoever named it encountered Storm Dragons in sufficient numbers to make the association definitive. Current populations are not that dramatic — adult Storm Dragons are solitary and territorial, and the Bay's navigable waters contain at most two or three adults with established ranges — but their presence structures the maritime traffic patterns of Val'arianos and the trading routes along the northern coastal approaches.
Storm dragons are the most morally neutral of the five types. They are not reliably hostile and not reliably cooperative; their alignment entry reflects genuine variability in how individuals respond to humanoid contact. A young storm dragon encountered at sea is as likely to investigate curiously as to attack. An adult with an established territory is defending that territory, and the defense is proportional to the perceived threat. The most dangerous encounters in the Val'arianos records are not aggressive storm dragon attacks but cases where an expedition miscalculated what qualified as threat and escalated past the point of de-escalation.
The lightning bolt fires in a line rather than a cone, which changes the tactical geometry of every engagement: a spread-out party is less vulnerable to it, but the 45-metre range at adult size means staying out of range requires significant distance management.
GREEN DRAGON
Frequency: Rare (all ages) | Appearing: 1 Organization: Solitary | Intelligence: Low (Young) to High (Adult) Alignment: Neutral Evil | Treasure: D (Young); E (Juvenile); A (Adult)
Morale: 11 (Young), 13 (Juvenile), 14 (Adult) XP: 3,000 (Young), 5,000 (Juvenile), 7,500 (Adult)
Breath Weapon: Cone of corrosive acid. Area: 15 m (Young), 20 m (Juvenile), 25 m (Adult). Reflex save (DC by age) for half. Armor struck by acid loses 1 AC point per full round of exposure unless washed off (water, not magical, removes acid immediately). Metal weapons that deal damage to a Green Dragon in the same round the acid was breathed corrode and lose 1 point of AB bonus (magical weapons lose enchantment bonus at GM's discretion on a failed saving throw). Green dragons are immune to acid.
Special: Acid Immunity; Frightful Presence (Adult); Carrion Sense (detects dead or decaying organic matter within 150 m; useful for locating prey in the wetland terrain they favor); Regeneration in Acid (contact with acidic environments — not their own breath — heals 2 HP per round)
Green dragons occupy the margins of dying land: the Shattered Plains' southern edges where the soil quality transitions into something no crops grow in, the wetland territories along Gwan'tor's borders, the boglands at the eastern fringe of the Dead Lands where water sits in shallow sheets over ground that doesn't drain. They are the least glamorous of the five types in the Known World's folklore — the Orchestra has no songs that scholars have identified as specifically about green dragons, and the Chroniclers' files on them are operational rather than restricted.
They are patient in a way that fire and winter dragons are not: they stake out a territory, learn it thoroughly over decades, and wait for prey to enter it. Their acid breath damages equipment as well as flesh, which means a party that survives the breath weapon encounter may emerge with reduced combat capability for the remainder of an expedition. The armor degradation is the primary long-term concern — reducing AC over repeated exposures compounds with every subsequent encounter.
The regeneration in acidic environments is the feature most likely to surprise field parties. A Green Dragon in a swamp is not merely in its preferred terrain; it is in a slow healing bath. Engaging one on its territory and failing to press the engagement to a conclusion before it retreats to water produces a fully recovered adversary the next day.
VOID DRAGON
Frequency: Very Rare (all ages) | Appearing: 1 Organization: Solitary | Intelligence: Average (Young) to Exceptional (Adult) Alignment: Neutral Evil | Treasure: A (all ages)
Morale: 14 (Young), 16 (Juvenile), 18 (Adult) XP: 5,000 (Young), 8,000 (Juvenile), 12,000 (Adult)
Breath Weapon: Cone of absolute darkness and necrotic force. Area: 15 m (Young), 20 m (Juvenile), 25 m (Adult). Will save (DC by age) for half. Creatures reduced to 0 HP by Void Breath animate as Walkers (see Chapter 1) within 1 round and remain under the dragon's command until destroyed. Creatures that save but still take damage must also make a secondary Will save (same DC) or be Shaken — −2 to all rolls for 1d4 rounds — as the darkness touches something beneath the flesh. Void dragons are immune to necrotic effects and cannot be turned or driven back by priestly magic.
Special: Necrotic Immunity; Frightful Presence (Adult, but operates differently — creatures that fail the Will save are not merely frightened but temporarily convinced the world is ending; they stand paralyzed rather than fleeing, for 1d4 rounds); Animate Terrain (adult only, once per day: all corpses within 30 m animate as Walkers for 1 hour; no save); Darkness Sight (sees normally in any darkness, including magical); Cannot be Turned; Void Presence (in the dragon's lair, Walker concentrations are double normal and clerical turning does not function within 50 m of the dragon's resting position)
The Chroniclers classify Void Dragon contact reports as restricted access. This is not standard procedure for dragon encounters — fire dragon territorial assessments are publicly available at Duskhold, and storm dragon behavior documentation is included in maritime safety briefings. The classification for Void Dragons is specific and has been in place since at least 490 TE, which predates several bureaucratic reorganizations and has survived all of them. What the Chroniclers' internal files on Void Dragons actually contain is not publicly known.
What is documented in non-restricted sources: Void Dragons are found in the deepest Dead Lands territories and in the ruins of Vysandárien. They are the only dragon type whose coloration is consistently described as black that absorbs light rather than reflects it — not dark, but the absence of the property of being visible in any normal sense. Their connection to the Darkness's residual influence in those territories is more than territorial. Where Walker concentrations are measured near Vysandárien, Void Dragon presence is a stronger predictor than proximity to obsidian deposits, which is the most reliable indicator for all other undead concentrations in the region.
Whether Void Dragons were shaped by the Darkness deliberately, or emerged from centuries of exposure to Darkness-saturated terrain, or represent something the Five could explain but have not, is not established. The restricted classification suggests the Chroniclers have a position on this question. The fact that the classification has never been challenged publicly suggests the Chroniclers have been persuasive about why it should remain restricted.
In combat, the Will save on the breath weapon rather than Reflex is the defining tactical asymmetry: high-Dexterity characters who are accustomed to dodging breath weapons cannot dodge this one. The Walker animation — the chance that the party's dead become immediately hostile reinforcements for the dragon — means that combat with a Void Dragon penalizes casualties harder than any other encounter in this chapter. The secondary Shaken effect is the mechanism that creates the window for that to happen: a party that has lost a member to the breath weapon and has the remaining members Shaken is not in a position to immediately destroy the body.
⚑ ELDER DRAGONS — A NOTE
The entries above cover dragons of up to 13 HD — Young through Adult age. They are dangerous, but not the things the Vithurian Orchestra sings about.
Elder dragons (14+ HD) are unique or near-unique regional presences. They have names. They have histories. They have, in most cases, outlived every human institution that was operating when they first established their territory. An elder Fire Dragon in the Dead Lands has been there since before the Chroniclers opened Duskhold. An elder Void Dragon in Vysandárien has been there since before the Third Era calendar began.
Elder dragon encounters are structured differently from standard creature encounters — they are the subject matter of entire campaigns, not single sessions. Full documentation for elder and named dragons, including specific individuals known to the Vithurian Orchestra and the Chroniclers, appears in Chapter 5.