Chapter 3: Urban Predators
The creatures in Chapter 2 hunt because they are hungry or territorial. The distance between a manticore and a settlement is ecological — the settlement is a food source that the manticore has assessed and decided falls within or outside its risk tolerance. Remove the settlement and the manticore is still operating on the same logic, hunting whatever else occupies the territory.
What follows is different. The creatures in this chapter specifically require civilization as a hunting ground. A doppelganger in open wilderness has no function; it is built for environments where identity can be constructed and trusted, which means it is built for cities. A vampire can feed on animals, but it covets the privacy, wealth, and social complexity of aristocratic life the way a professional covets a well-equipped workshop. A rakshasa in a jungle is a predator; a rakshasa as the city's most respected wine merchant is an apex predator operating in its optimal environment.
This chapter is also the one that requires the GM's judgment most consistently. The urban threats do not announce themselves. A wolf pack announces itself. A doppelganger that has been occupying a position in the city's governance for three months announces itself only when something disturbs the arrangement it has built. The field notes for these encounters are therefore less about tactical management and more about recognition — what to look for, what breaks the disguise, what the thing is actually doing when it is not being attacked.
Part III of this chapter covers human adversaries: the brigand, the Tar'amaan Soldier and Inquisitor, and the Crimson Company Veteran. These are not monsters. They are people operating against the party's interests, and their stat blocks reflect that. The Tar'amaan entries specifically: the Church of Tar'amaan is an NPC-only antagonist faction. No player character is a member. The entries in Part III describe opponents, not options.
PART I — THINGS THAT WEAR HUMAN SHAPES
The specific quality of danger these creatures share is that the window between "not under attack" and "under attack" may already have closed by the time the party realizes it was ever open. Each of them has spent time in the presence of humanoids before the party arrives at the scene. Each of them has been adjusting its behavior based on what it has learned.
The practical implication is that encounters with Part I creatures rarely begin in the middle of a corridor. They begin at a dinner table, in a merchant's office, in the receiving room of a noble house that someone in the party has reason to trust.
DOPPELGANGER
Frequency: Rare | Appearing: 1d6 | Organization: Cluster (loose, distrustful) Intelligence: Average to High (11–12) | Alignment: Neutral | Size: Man-sized (variable — true form 1.8 m)
AC 15 · Move 30 m · HD 4 (18 hp) · AB +5 Attack: Slam 1d12 (true form only; doppelgangers do not fight in assumed forms if avoidable) Fort 14 / Reflex 16 / Will 15 Special: Shapechange (any humanoid form from 1.2–2.4 m; takes 1 round; perfect external copy — voice, posture, and surface appearance, but not memories, skills, or abilities; the doppelganger knows what its target looks like but not what they know); Detect Thoughts (at will, as ESP, 18 m range; reads surface thoughts only); immune to sleep and charm; Discovery (if the doppelganger's true form is revealed in combat, Morale check immediately; on failure, abandons engagement) Morale: 12 (8 if true form is exposed mid-encounter) · XP: 1,400 · Treasure: F
A doppelganger's true form is the thing that has never been seen by anyone who knew what they were looking at: a hairless, grey-skinned humanoid with no distinguishing features, smooth where a face should be except for the eyes. It is not disturbing in the way that a ghoul is disturbing, but in the way that a rubber mask of a person's face is disturbing — the approximation that is not quite right, the thing that should not be able to move.
They are found in cities, specifically in cities with the social complexity that makes identity management possible. Endoras, Messalya's trading quarter, the Val Cadma administrative centers in occupied Norderenn — environments where strangers arrive regularly, where no single person knows every face, and where a sufficiently well-prepared copy of an existing person can maintain the copy for months before any inconsistency becomes actionable. Doppelgangers do not want confrontation; they want the arrangement they have built to continue undisturbed. They kill only when killing is necessary to maintain cover, which is not as infrequently as one might hope.
In combat, they fight reluctantly and in their true form only when cornered; maintaining an assumed form while actively fighting risks breaking the disguise under the physical stress of the engagement. The slam is their only weapon — they have no combat training and rely entirely on HD and AC rather than technique. Their strength is the information they have already gathered from months of surface-thought reading: which party member is the healer, who has the most magical resources, who is the most likely to hesitate before attacking someone who looks like a friend. A doppelganger that has prepared has already used this information before the party knows they are in an encounter.
Detecting a Doppelganger: The surface thought reading is bidirectional in a specific sense — a doppelganger can read what is on a person's mind, but it cannot absorb memories, skills, or deeper knowledge. A well-prepared party can probe a suspected doppelganger with questions about specific shared memories or technical knowledge it could not have acquired through observation. The copy will deflect; it cannot answer. Additionally, the assumed form does not have an internal temperature consistent with a living person, does not cast a shadow under specific light conditions with the consistency of a real shadow, and does not sweat.
RAKSHASA
Frequency: Rare | Appearing: 1d4 | Organization: Clan (hierarchical) Intelligence: Average (11–12) | Alignment: Lawful Evil | Size: Man-sized (1.8 m)
AC 24 · Move 45 m · HD 7 (32 hp) · AB +7 Attack: 2 claws 1d3, bite 1d4+1 (in true form); by weapon in disguise Fort 13 / Reflex 15 / Will 14 Special: Weapon Immunity (non-magical weapons inflict no damage; magical weapons of +1 or +2 inflict half damage; +3 or better inflict full damage; a blessed crossbow bolt that hits kills the rakshasa instantly, no save); Spell Immunity (immune to all spells of 7th level and below); Spellcasting (as 7th-level caster; knows up to 4×1st, 3×2nd, 2×3rd wizard spells and 3×1st priest spells — typically illusion and shapechange spells); ESP at Will (reads trusted and loved companions of target only, not general surface thoughts); Honored Word (a rakshasa that has given its word cannot break it; this is not compulsion but code — they will not, even when it would benefit them); Clan Structure (rukhs, rajahs, and maharajahs exist above standard entry; see below) Morale: 15 · XP: 3,000 (10,000 maharajah) · Treasure: F
A rakshasa looks wrong in one specific way that sages have documented across hundreds of years of encounters: the hands. The palms face backward — what should be the back of the hand faces toward the body, and the palm faces out. When a rakshasa reaches for something, it reaches with what looks like the back of its hand. Every other feature can be disguised or can pass at a distance; the hands are the tell, and experienced investigators know to look for it when examining a suspected rakshasa in human form.
They are evil spirits who have taken humanoid bodies, and they do not discuss their origin in any detail. The bodies are theirs — they were born into them, they are not wearing them — but the spirit within is older than the body suggests and operates on a logic that did not originate in the Known World. Their social structure mirrors, and may have predated, the hierarchical structures of human aristocracy: a clan has a maharajah at its apex, rajahs managing regional operations, rukhs serving as warriors and enforcers, and standard members occupying positions throughout the city that provide information, resources, and access.
A rakshasa in a city has a position. It is a merchant, or a patron, or a religious official, or an academic — something that justifies its presence, its wealth, and its extensive social network. It maintains this position for years, sometimes decades, while feeding selectively and managing the information environment to prevent the accumulation of evidence. The ESP ability is used primarily as a social management tool: knowing who suspects, who is asking questions, who has connected two incidents that should have appeared unrelated.
In combat, they are formidable in a specific way that catches prepared parties unprepared: the weapon immunity means that a party without magical or specifically blessed weapons cannot harm the rakshasa at all, regardless of how many hits land. Standard weapons do nothing. This is not visible until it is tested, and testing it in the first round of combat has costs. The instant-death mechanic for blessed crossbow bolts is the obvious counter, but a party must know to bring blessed bolts, which means knowing in advance what they are facing — and rakshasas have usually ensured that the relevant investigator did not reach that conclusion before the encounter.
Clan Tiers: Rukhs have HD 8, cast spells as a 9th-level caster, and are only affected by +2 or better weapons. Rajahs have HD 9, cast as an 11th-level caster with both 6th-level priest and 8th-level wizard capability, and share the rukh's weapon restrictions. The maharajah has HD 13+39 (that is, a base of 13 HD plus extraordinary vitality — treat as HD 18+), casts as a 13th-level caster with 9th-level priest and 13th-level wizard access, and is effectively a named entity. If a campaign includes a rakshasa maharajah, it should be treated as a Chapter 5 encounter, not a Chapter 3 one.
MEDUSA
Frequency: Rare | Appearing: 1d3 | Organization: Solitary (rarely with sisters) Intelligence: Average (11–12) | Alignment: Lawful Evil | Size: Man-sized (1.8–2.1 m)
AC 15 · Move 30 m · HD 6 (27 hp) · AB +5 Attack: Snake-hair bite 1d4 (+ Poison, see below); or by weapon Fort 13 / Reflex 15 / Will 14 Special: Petrifying Gaze (any creature within 9 m that meets a medusa's eyes; Fort 14 or petrified permanently; works against ethereal and astral targets; persists after death but weakens — +1 to save per day post-death); Snake Poison (on any snake-hair bite; Fort 13 or die within 1 round; no save reduction available); Gaze Persists (creatures who fail to look directly, fighting without line-of-sight to the eyes, incur −2 to all attack rolls and lose Dexterity bonus to AC); Mirror Vulnerability (a medusa who sees her reflection in a polished metal surface must make a Fort 14 save or be petrified by her own gaze — still water and glass do not trigger this); Medusae Immune to Each Other (medusae cannot petrify other medusae) Morale: 13 · XP: 2,000 · Treasure: P, (Q×10), X, Y
A medusa reads as a woman at distance — the hair is the first indication that something is wrong, if the light is sufficient and the approach is from the right angle. The hair moves with the independent restlessness of many small bodies rather than a single head of hair, and a close look reveals the scales, the tongues, the small pointed heads of the snakes woven through it. Most people do not get a close look. The medusa's operating range for the petrification gaze is nine metres, which is close enough that a party approaching an unfamiliar ruin is inside it before they know what they are approaching.
They are solitary by necessity — the gaze has no off switch, no distinction between intended and unintended targets — and they make their lairs in ruins, particularly the ruins of urban structures where the architectural complexity provides concealment and where the foot traffic of a populated area provides prey. The abandoned noble quarters of occupied Norderenn are documented medusa territory in at least two locations; the Cadmano garrison in those districts has standing orders not to enter without mirror-equipped patrols. The lair contains statues: the stone figures of every creature the medusa has petrified, which she may arrange with a collector's attention or leave scattered where they fell, depending on the individual. The quantity of statues in a lair indicates how long she has been there.
The tactical challenge with medusas is not the stat block, but the gaze. A party that fights without looking at the medusa takes a −2 to all attacks and loses Dexterity bonus to AC for the duration. A party that uses mirrors to redirect the gaze back at the medusa is attempting a maneuver that has a meaningful failure rate. A party that sends someone forward who cannot be petrified — a golem, a construct — has a resource investment problem but a solvable tactical situation. A party that charges in without preparation is a collection of statues within two rounds. Medusas are aware of all of these approaches, have faced each of them before, and have been shaping the terrain of their lair for this eventuality for as long as they have occupied it.
The snake-hair poison is secondary to the gaze but not to be forgotten: a serpentine bite requires the medusa to be in close range, and anyone who is close enough to be bitten has usually already survived the gaze by some method. The poison kills without a reducing save.
VAMPIRE
Frequency: Rare | Appearing: 1d4 | Organization: Solitary (lord and spawn) Intelligence: High (15–16) | Alignment: Chaotic Evil | Size: Man-sized (1.8 m)
AC 19 · Move 35 m / fly 55 m (bat form, MC 2) · HD 8+3 (39 hp) · AB +7 (+2 inherent bonus to attack) Attack: Touch 1d6+4 + Energy Drain (2 levels; no save) Fort 12 / Reflex 13 / Will 12 Special: Energy Drain (2 levels per hit; humanoids drained to 0 levels die and rise as vampires within 1 night — spawn at half HD, under lord's absolute control; spawn become free-willed if lord destroyed); Charm Gaze (Will 13, −2 penalty; charmed target obeys vampire); Shapechange (large bat or gaseous form at will); Regeneration (3 HP per round; reduced to 0 HP forces gaseous form retreat to coffin; must reach coffin within 2 hours or dissipate and die); Summon (bats, rats, or wolves — as relevant spells — at will); Spider Climb (at will); cannot enter private dwelling uninvited (once invited, may come and go freely until invitation is revoked); repelled by garlic, strongly presented holy symbols, and mirrors within 3 m; holy water inflicts 2d4 per vial; direct sunlight renders powerless and destroys after 1 full round of exposure; running water destroys after 3 rounds of submersion; wooden stake through heart renders comatose (not dead — staked vampire is not destroyed until also beheaded and mouth filled with garlic or blessed wafers); retains class abilities from life Morale: 15 · XP: 11,000 · Treasure: F
The vampire is not looking for you. This is the first distinction from the other threats in this section: the doppelganger monitors the environment systematically, the rakshasa manages its social network with careful attention, but the vampire has been doing what it does for long enough that the structural work is complete. It has a position — usually one with wealth, authority, and legitimate reasons to be inaccessible during daylight hours. It has a lair whose location is protected by every resource the vampire has accumulated over its existence. It has spawn.
They look like the people they were in life, which is the detail that distinguishes vampirism from all other forms of undeath. No decomposition, no physical distortion, no visible evidence of the transformation — except for the absence of breath, the absence of a reflection, the absence of a shadow that behaves correctly. These absences are difficult to detect under social conditions where noticing them would be impolite, which is most of the conditions that aristocratic life provides. Vampires gravitate toward positions of wealth and nobility precisely because those positions produce exactly the social environment that makes the absences hardest to notice.
They need blood. This need is not finite — it does not stop when satisfied, it merely becomes manageable for a time. The feeding is the central fact of a vampire's existence, and every other element of the elaborate social construction it maintains — the estate, the position, the social calendar — is architecture in service of that one operational requirement. A vampire lord and its spawn occupy the same physical and social infrastructure: the lord hunts selectively and strategically; the spawn handle the secondary feeding and perform the functions the lord finds beneath direct involvement.
The combat profile is significant, but combat is where the vampire has already failed. A vampire that is fighting the party has lost control of the situation it spent years engineering. In that context, it is formidable — two levels of energy drain per touch, charm gaze, the ability to retreat into gaseous form when reduced to 0 hit points and regenerate in its coffin. Destroying a vampire permanently requires finding the coffin, which may be nowhere near the engagement. Reducing the vampire to 0 hit points without fire or running water produces a gaseous form that retreats to the coffin and will be fully operational within 24 hours. Staking it in the coffin renders it comatose; the final step — beheading and garlic or blessed wafers in the mouth — is what produces permanent destruction. A party that fights the vampire without burning the coffin first is likely to fight it again.
LYCANTHROPES
Lycanthropy is a magical disease. This is the framing that matters for play: not a curse in the sense of a moral condition, not a metaphor for anything, but a specific magical pathology with specific transmission vectors, specific progression, and specific treatment windows. A character infected with lycanthropy has a medical problem with a timeline. Understanding the timeline is the difference between treatment and permanent transformation.
True lycanthropes — those born with the condition — can transmit it through natural attacks in hybrid or animal form. The transmission rate is 1% per point of damage dealt by natural attacks (claws, bite). A character who takes 8 damage from a werewolf's bite has an 8% chance of infection. Characters infected this way are not true lycanthropes; they cannot transmit the disease to others. They will transform involuntarily from dusk to dawn on the night of the full moon and the nights immediately preceding and following, with no control over their actions during transformation. They retain only hazy memories of what they did.
Infection and Treatment: Fresh belladonna eaten within one hour of infection gives a 25% chance of cure. After one hour, only a Remove Curse cast on the night before, of, or after a full moon has any chance — and even then, the infected character must succeed on a Fort save (target 14) for the curse to break. Left untreated, lycanthropy is permanent.
Combat: In hybrid form, lycanthropes can only be damaged by silver or magical weapons; normal weapons pass through. In humanoid or animal form they are affected normally. All stats below reflect the hybrid form.
Transforming forms heals the lycanthrope 1d6 × 10% of maximum hit points. True lycanthropes transform at will; infected lycanthropes transform involuntarily during full moon periods and become NPCs for the duration.
WERERAT
Frequency: Uncommon | Appearing: 4d6 | Organization: Pack Intelligence: Average (11–12) | Alignment: Lawful Evil | Size: Small to Man-sized (0.9–1.8 m)
AC 14 · Move 35 m · HD 3+1 (14 hp) · AB +3 Attack: By weapon (hybrid maintains humanoid hands) Fort 15 / Reflex 17 / Will 16 Special: Lycanthropy (see above); silver or magical weapon needed to hit in hybrid form; Rat Summoning (once per day; 2d6 giant rats as per Monster Summoning I); Pack Preference (wererats fight cohesively as a unit — morale checks are made once for the pack, not individually, when led by their alpha) Morale: 11 · XP: 270 · Treasure: C
Wererats are the urban lycanthrope, found almost exclusively in cities — in sewers, in abandoned warehouse districts, in the cramped tenements where anonymity is possible. Their humanoid forms tend toward leanness, with slightly prominent front teeth and eyes that reflect light at angles that are marginally wrong. Their hybrid form is bipedal with rat features — roughly the same height as their humanoid form but with shortened limbs, a rat's head, and humanoid hands, which is what lets them continue to use weapons and tools.
They organise in packs that function as surrogate families — pack membership matters more than blood relation, and a wererat who has been welcomed into a pack is loyal to it in ways that blood relatives outside the pack are not. Their lairs accumulate treasure the way rat burrows accumulate objects: compulsively, indiscriminately, everything that catches their attention and can be moved. A wererat lair discovered by a party is likely to contain several years of petty theft in addition to whatever the pack considers genuinely valuable.
In cities with established wererat populations, the pack is often the most comprehensive intelligence-gathering network operating below the level of official institutions. They know the sewer systems, the back routes, the properties of substances that move through both. Criminal operations — not because wererats are uniformly criminal, but because the knowledge and the social network that make criminal enterprise possible are exactly the knowledge and network that wererat pack life produces.
WEREBOAR
Frequency: Rare | Appearing: 2d4 | Organization: Tribe (small family units) Intelligence: Average (8–10) | Alignment: Neutral | Size: Man-sized to Large (1.5–1.8 m)
AC 16 · Move 35 m · HD 5+2 (25 hp) · AB +5 Attack: Gore 2d6 or by weapon (hybrid form) Fort 14 / Reflex 16 / Will 15 Special: Lycanthropy; silver or magical weapon needed to hit in hybrid form; cannot be damaged by normal weapons in humanoid or animal form (unique among lycanthropes); Ferocity — female wereboars defending offspring gain +2 to all attack rolls and do not check morale; Family Loyalty — morale never checked when defending immediate family members Morale: 13 · XP: 650 · Treasure: B, S
Wereboars occupy the edges of settlement rather than the centres — the rough country between organised farmland and true wilderness, where cabins are built for function rather than company and neighbours are a half-day's walk. They are short-tempered and antisocial to most strangers, which is a trait that maps cleanly onto the animal they carry. But they value the people they have committed to: family members, the few friends that short temper has not already ended, and the small groups of their own kind that sometimes come together when territory brings them into proximity.
The unique feature of wereboars among lycanthropes is that normal weapons do not affect them even in humanoid or animal forms — not just hybrid. A merchant who is secretly a wereboar cannot be injured by an ordinary sword in any of his three forms. This is rarely discovered before it matters.
WERETIGER
Frequency: Very Rare | Appearing: 1d6 | Organization: Solitary (small prides occasionally) Intelligence: Average (8–10) | Alignment: Neutral | Size: Man-sized to Large (1.8–2.1 m)
AC 17 · Move 35 m · HD 6+2 (28 hp) · AB +5 Attack: 2 claws 1d4, bite 1d12 (hybrid); or by weapon Fort 13 / Reflex 15 / Will 14 Special: Lycanthropy; silver or magical weapon needed to hit in hybrid form; Rake (if both claw attacks hit, 2d6+2 rear claw rake, automatic); Feline Affinity (tigers and other large cats react as Friendly toward weretigers; 75% chance per encounter); usually female Morale: 13 · XP: 1,400 · Treasure: D, (Q×5)
Most weretigers are women. FG&G notes this without explanation; it is the observable reality. Whether this is biological, a consequence of the transmission chain, or something about the particular nature of the weretiger's condition is not established in any known scholarly work.
Weretigers are solitary and choose to be. They do not congregate as wererats do; they do not form the family structures that wereboars maintain. They live in or near human society when it suits them and leave when it stops suiting them. The humanoid form tends toward leanness and physical confidence; no particular tell in the features, except perhaps in how still they can hold themselves, in the patience with which they observe a room before entering it. Their hybrid form is distinctively dangerous — the rear claw rake that follows a successful double-claw strike is not a conditional effect but a near-automatic follow-on once the grip is established.
WEREBEAR
Frequency: Rare | Appearing: 1d4 | Organization: Solitary Intelligence: Average (11–12) | Alignment: Chaotic Good | Size: Large (1.8–2.7 m)
AC 18 · Move 30 m · HD 7+3 (35 hp) · AB +7 Attack: 2 claws 1d3, bite 2d4 (hybrid); or by weapon Fort 13 / Reflex 15 / Will 14 Special: Lycanthropy; silver or magical weapon needed to hit in hybrid form; Hug (on any claw attack roll of 18+; 2d8 damage per round; Str check — bend bars — to escape); Rapid Healing (recovers at 3× normal rate); Cure Disease (once per 1d4 weeks); Bear Call (once per day; 1d6 brown bears within 1.5 km respond within 2d6 turns); only good-aligned lycanthrope type Morale: 13 · XP: 1,400 · Treasure: R, T, X
Werebears are the exception to the rule that lycanthropy produces predators. Their alignment is chaotic good — genuinely, not as a transitional state or a rationalization. They prefer solitude for the same reason anyone with an unpredictable transformation prefers it, but the preference is for the wilderness rather than for the sewers and margins where most lycanthropes settle. They maintain contact with other werebears across distances; the network is loose and operates through messages and occasional gathering rather than proximity.
Their cure disease ability — once every 1d4 weeks — is the detail that makes them interesting from the party's perspective. A werebear can cure lycanthropy in an infected party member within the treatment window. This is not a service they advertise. Finding a werebear and convincing it that the situation warrants intervention is itself an encounter.
WEREWOLF
Frequency: Common | Appearing: 3d6 | Organization: Pack Intelligence: Average (8–10) | Alignment: Chaotic Evil | Size: Man-sized (1.8 m)
AC 15 · Move 45 m · HD 4+3 (21 hp) · AB +5 Attack: Bite 2d8 or by weapon Fort 14 / Reflex 16 / Will 15 Special: Lycanthropy; silver or magical weapon needed to hit in hybrid form; Pack Morale (packs of 6+ grant +1 to all attack rolls and morale; packs of 12+ grant +2); −2 to opponents' surprise rolls when hunting Morale: 12 (16 in large packs) · XP: 650 · Treasure: B
Werewolves are the most common lycanthrope and the most likely to be encountered in wilderness near settlements rather than in the settlements themselves. Their hybrid form is bipedal, wolf-headed, with a speed advantage (45 m) that most humanoids cannot match and pack coordination that makes isolated targets significantly more vulnerable than groups. They hunt for pleasure as well as hunger, which is the behavioral marker that sets them apart from natural wolves and from most other lycanthropes.
The pack morale mechanic is worth understanding: a pack of twelve werewolves gains +2 to attacks and checks morale at the equivalent of Morale 16. This is not a party that breaks when the fight turns difficult. The practical implication is that a large werewolf pack in open terrain is a substantially different engagement than a small one in an enclosed space where the speed advantage and the flanking coordination are harder to execute.
PART II — THINGS THAT WAIT IN THE DARK
The creatures in this section do not move through civilised society the way Part I creatures do. They occupy the spaces that civilisation has abandoned or overlooked: ruins, enchanted pools, the decommissioned passages beneath occupied cities, the spaces where the architectural logic of a settlement has broken down enough to provide concealment. They wait, in the specific sense that things wait when they have no need to hurry and no concern for what the wait costs.
NIGHT HAG
Frequency: Very Rare | Appearing: 1 | Organization: Solitary Intelligence: High (15–16) | Alignment: Neutral Evil | Size: Man-sized (1.5 m)
AC 20 · Move 30 m · HD 8 (36 hp) · AB +7 Attack: Bite 2d6 + Disease Fort 12 / Reflex 13 / Will 12 Special: Disease (bite; Fort 12 or contract hag disease — onset 1 day, Constitution drains 1 point per day of exposure, death at Con 0, hag claims soul; Cure Disease ends it); Magic Resistance 65%; Spellcasting (as 8th level mage; know alignment, polymorph self, sleep — all once per turn; magic missile ×5 per day; ray of enfeeblement ×3 per day; sleep affects evil creatures up to 12 HD); Ethereal at Will (ethereal form allows dream-visitation — each night of visitation permanently drains 1 Con from sleeping victim; death in this manner produces a soul claimed by the hag); immune to charm, fear, sleep, fire, cold; silver weapons effective; +3 or better magical weapons required for full damage (lesser magical weapons do half); Hag Stone (heartstone — an iridescent gem worn as a pendant; allows true seeing at will; allows material plane interaction while ethereal; if taken, hag can request it back as ransom for services) Morale: 8 · XP: 9,000 · Treasure: None (heartstone worth considerable sum to the right buyer)
A night hag's true form is that of a withered old woman with violet-grey skin that has the texture of diseased bark, black hair that breaks at the ends, and red eyes that remain alert in a face that appears entirely exhausted. They are not exhausted. The appearance is surface. Beneath it is several centuries of accumulated transactions.
Night hags trade in souls. This is their function and their source of power: the souls of people who die having been worked over by the hag's nightly visitations are claimed and converted into commodities on the evil planes, sold to demonic and infernal buyers who use them as raw materials for their respective military and bureaucratic apparatuses. The business is old enough that night hags have client relationships with major planar powers on both sides of the demon-devil division, and their neutrality in that conflict is economic rather than philosophical — they sell to both and cannot afford to lose either market.
They appear in cities in human form, seeking targets. The ideal target is someone who is in a position to provide something useful in life — a powerful official, a wealthy merchant, someone with access to information or resources — whose soul will also command a premium from one of the hag's regular buyers. The targeting process is careful. A night hag that has identified a suitable target may spend weeks in preparation before beginning the visitation sequence, during which she is observing, gathering leverage, and ensuring that no one with the knowledge and resources to intervene is positioned to do so in time.
The heartstone — the iridescent gem she wears — is her most valuable material possession and her operational tool. Taking it does not destroy her, but it disrupts her ethereal capabilities enough that she will negotiate for its return. She will not like whoever took it, and that person should account for this in any negotiation they attempt.
MINOTAUR
Frequency: Rare | Appearing: 1d8 | Organization: Clan Intelligence: Low (5–7) | Alignment: Chaotic Evil | Size: Large (2.1+ m)
AC 14 · Move 35 m · HD 6+3 (30 hp) · AB +7 Attack: 2 horns 2d8 or bite 1d4 (hybrid); by weapon +2 Fort 13 / Reflex 15 / Will 14 Special: Charge (from 9+ m; double horn damage); Perfect Directional Sense (never lost in any structure, ruin, or underground space — cannot be confused by maze spells; can track by scent at 50% accuracy); Infravision 60 m; Darkvision advantage (−2 to opponents' surprise rolls in dim or dark conditions); Elder variant (HD 8+4, same AC, +9 to attacks) Morale: 13 · XP: 975 (2,000 elder) · Treasure: C
A minotaur is a male humanoid with a bull's head — broad-shouldered, covered in short brown or black fur, with horns that begin to curve forward at the tips and hooves that make a specific sound on stone that anyone who has heard it once in an enclosed space will not mistake for anything else. The perfect sense of direction is not metaphorical: a minotaur that has walked through a structure once knows every passage in it with the precision of a surveyor and the retention of something that does not forget. A maze that disorients a human exploration party is simply a building to a minotaur.
The Known World's abandoned urban structures — the ruins beneath Norderenn's occupied quarters, the sealed lower levels of pre-Third Era Wightport, the decommissioned passages that Cadmano urban administration closed when it reorganised the occupied territories — are exactly the type of habitat minotaurs take to. There is sufficient complexity to use the directional advantage, sufficient darkness to use the visual advantage, and sufficient structural concealment to ensure that the group occupying the ruin does not become common knowledge until someone comes looking and does not return.
Clans are small (up to eight, led by an elder) and claim fixed territories, which they defend with a directional advantage that makes incursion difficult to manage even for experienced parties. The charge is the opening engagement preference: from nine or more metres, double horn damage, which against a surprised opponent at close range in a passage that does not allow lateral movement is a difficult first hit to absorb.
MONGRELMAN
Frequency: Rare | Appearing: 1d100 | Organization: Tribe Intelligence: Low to Average (5–10) | Alignment: Lawful Neutral | Size: Man-sized (1.5–2.1 m)
AC 15 · Move 30 m · HD 1 (5 hp) · AB +1 Attack: By weapon Fort 16 / Reflex 18 / Will 17 Special: Camouflage (after 1 turn of preparation; 80% chance of remaining unseen, +1% per additional turn, max 95%); Sound Mimicry (can replicate any creature's voice or sound; cannot mimic supernatural effects — a harpy's song is not reproducible, but a harpy's general vocalisation is); Pick Pockets (70% — all mongrelmen, regardless of class); Pariahhood (reaction rolls with non-mongrelman humanoids begin 2 steps worse than standard; Charisma scores above 8 are treated as 8 for interaction purposes with outsiders); leaders have HD 5, AC 16, +1 to all attacks Morale: 12 · XP: 120 (650 leader) · Treasure: C
A mongrelman is the result of mixed parentage spanning more ancestry types than most genealogists can chart in a single diagram. Human, orc, gnoll, ogre, dwarf, and goblin bloodlines are most common, but others have been documented. This lineage blends features in ways that the individuals affected did not choose and cannot negotiate: one mongrelman might have a gnoll's colouring with human proportions and an orcish jaw; another has the height of an ogre and the fine-boned hands of a halfling and the grey-green skin of no people in particular. They are universally considered ugly by the standards of every ancestry they carry. They are aware of this.
They are the most sympathetically written entry in this chapter to produce, which itself requires a note: mongrelmen are in this chapter because they occupy abandoned and marginal urban spaces, not because they are antagonists by definition. Their alignment is Lawful Neutral. They defend their communities against external threat — which, given what most external contacts look like from their perspective, is understandable — but they do not seek conflict. They are not monsters in the sense that a vampire is a monster. They are people who were dealt a very specific hand by circumstances they did not create and have built communities in the only spaces the Known World's settlements leave unclaimed.
The Tar'amaan Church classifies them as products of magical pollution, subject to the same restrictions as other Darkness-adjacent peoples. This position is not widely contested, which is its own kind of documentation about how the Known World treats the Displaced.
In combat, mongrelmen fight only when defending their communities, and they do so with the mimicry and camouflage that have kept them alive in spaces where they have no institutional support. The sound mimicry is the operationally useful ability in conflict: a mongrelman tribe that has prepared a defensive position can generate false signals, redirect approaching threats, and create confusion with tools that cost nothing to use. Leaders are noticeably more capable — HD 5 at the head of a community makes them far more durable than the standard entry suggests.
MUDMAN
Frequency: Very Rare | Appearing: 2d6 | Organization: Pool (all mudmen in one pool act as a unit) Intelligence: 0 (mindless) | Alignment: Neutral | Size: Small (1.2 m in active form)
AC 10 · Move 10 m · HD 2 (9 hp) · AB +1 Attack: Mud Throw (15 m range; ignores armour AC bonus but not Dexterity AC bonus; Fort 12 or movement reduced by 10 m per hit, cumulative; creature reduced to 0 m movement is engulfed) + Hurl Self (within 3 m; kills the mudman; Fort 12 or movement reduced by 35 m) Fort 15 / Reflex 17 / Will 16 Special: Dormant State (shapeless, at pool bottom; immune to physical attacks; spell damage divided equally among all mudmen in pool; activate within 1 round of intrusion); Engulfment (movement reduced to 0; 1d8 damage per round; death after 5 rounds from suffocation regardless of HP remaining; mud removed with 1 round of effort from another creature); mud valued by alchemists (Craft applications TBD in Book II or supplementary materials); Spell Vulnerabilities (dispel magic or dig cast on pool or mudmen — as fireball damage; transmute mud to rock kills all in area immediately, no save) Morale: — (never checks) · XP: 175 · Treasure: None (victim possessions absorbed after 1 month)
A mudman pool is a feature of the urban underscape rather than a creature in any conventional sense. The pools form where enchanted rivers or waterways dried out — which, in the Known World's current geography, means primarily in the subterranean passages below cities built over old magical infrastructure. Bellaria, Wightport's lower levels, and several of the older settlements in the Emerald Corridor have documented mudman pools in their subsystems.
In a dormant state, the mudmen at the bottom of the pool are shapeless, grey-brown, and entirely undetectable unless someone is specifically looking for them below the waterline. They do not move. They do not make sound. A party that wades through a dormant mudman pool without disturbing it significantly enough to trigger activation simply gets wet.
Disturbing it significantly is easier than most people expect. The mudmen activate within one round of any creature entering the pool, taking their vaguely humanoid active forms and beginning to throw. The mud throw ignores armour — the calculation against armour-derived AC protection does not apply, though Dexterity-based penalties still do — and each hit hardens on contact, reducing the target's movement. Engulfed targets cannot move and cannot breathe; five rounds produce death from suffocation regardless of remaining hit points. Another creature can dig a companion free with one round of effort, which is the only practical extraction method that does not involve significantly more time than the suffocation window allows.
PART III — ANTAGONIST OPERATIVES
The entries in this section are people. They have class levels, equipment, and — with one exception — morale that breaks before death. They are listed here because GMs consistently need functional stat blocks for the human adversaries that occupy urban and civilised contexts, and those stat blocks are not trivially produced at the table.
Two things distinguish these entries from monster entries:
First: morale matters more here than in any other section of this book. A ghoul does not weigh the costs of the engagement. A brigand does. When a brigand's morale breaks, the encounter shifts into a different register — pursuit, negotiation, surrender, interrogation. The stat block describes the fighter; the morale entry determines how long they fight before they become a different kind of problem.
Second: the Tar'amaan entries describe the Church of Tar'amaan's military and investigative operatives. The Church is a supremacist institution and one of the setting's primary antagonists. Its soldiers and inquisitors believe they are saving the world from magical corruption. They are sincere. They are wrong. They are not cartoons. Write encounters with them accordingly.
A note on scaling: the stat blocks below represent baseline operational types. A Tar'amaan Inquisitor encountered in Wightport running a standard investigation is HD 4–5. One encountered as the field commander of a purge in occupied Norderenn is HD 7–8 with full spell access and support units. The base entry establishes the type; the GM scales to the encounter.
BRIGAND / BANDIT
STANDARD BRIGAND
Frequency: Common (near trade routes, wilderness margins) | Appearing: 3d10 | Organization: Band Intelligence: Average (8–10) | Alignment: Neutral Evil (typical) or Neutral | Size: Man-sized
AC 13 · Move 30 m · HD 1 (5 hp) · AB +1 Attack: By weapon (sword, axe, crossbow — varies by band) Fort 16 / Reflex 18 / Will 17 Special: Morale breaks on first significant casualty in a band smaller than 8; larger bands hold to Morale 8 until 25% casualties, then check each round; Tactical Awareness (brigands assess the party before engaging — they are not looking for a fight they will lose, they are looking for an acceptable risk) Morale: 6 (small band); 8 (organised band) · XP: 15 · Treasure: L, M (on person); larger band lairs hold B–D
BRIGAND LEADER
Frequency: Rare (1 per band) | Appearing: 1 | Organization: Commands the band Intelligence: Average to High (9–13) | Alignment: Neutral Evil (typical) | Size: Man-sized
AC 15 · Move 30 m · HD 3+1 (14 hp) · AB +3 Attack: By weapon +1 (leader's better equipment and practice) Fort 15 / Reflex 17 / Will 16 Special: Rally (once per combat; can restore morale to band within 15 m for 1 round; may not use if personally below half HP); Threat Assessment (the leader has encountered many parties and knows approximately what a group is capable of — GM may telegraph this by having the leader delay, parley, or position before committing) Morale: 10 · XP: 120 · Treasure: C, D (personal); band lair holds more
Brigandry is a profession, with the same range of competence and motivation that any profession produces. At one end: desperate people who ran out of other options and are making their third armed robbery attempt with weapons borrowed from someone who had better ones. At the other: organised operations with intelligence networks, scheduled revenue from protection arrangements, and leadership sophisticated enough to know when a target is not worth the cost. Both are called brigands. The encounter plays very differently.
The tactical principle shared across the range is that brigands do not want to die for their work. They want to take something from someone who will not fight back hard enough to make the attempt costly. A party that demonstrates immediately that the cost is too high — through numbers, through the quality of their weapons and armour, through making it obvious that someone is going to get badly hurt — will often find the encounter resolves through threat rather than through combat. The morale entries reflect this: standard brigands break quickly; organised bands hold longer but still hold.
The leader is the critical variable. A brigand band without its leader is closer to a mob than a tactical unit; a band with its leader is a coherent organisation that can execute a plan. Taking the leader out of the engagement — through negotiation, incapacitation, or direct targeting — changes the nature of the encounter faster than any other single action.
TAR'AMAAN SOLDIER
STANDARD SOLDIER (LAMP OF THE FAITH)
Frequency: Common (Val Cadma, occupied Norderenn, Church territories) | Appearing: 2d12 (patrol); larger formations in operational contexts Intelligence: Average (8–10) | Alignment: Lawful Evil | Size: Man-sized
AC 17 · Move 25 m · HD 2 (9 hp) · AB +2 Attack: By weapon (spear, sword, crossbow — standard military issue; crossbow bolts blessed by a priest of Tar'amaan on full operations) Fort 15 / Reflex 17 / Will 16 Special: Formation Fighting (soldiers in groups of 4+ gain +1 AC from coordinated shield use); Zealous Morale (morale checks at Will save rather than standard roll when an officer is present; +2 to Will); does not negotiate except on officer authority; Non-lethal Detention (trained in non-lethal takedown — can declare intent to subdue rather than kill, taking −2 to AB but targeting non-lethal thresholds); Blessed Equipment (see below) Morale: 10 (11 with officer present) · XP: 35 · Treasure: Standard military pay (on person); operation funds at command post
SERGEANT (SWORN BLADE)
Frequency: Uncommon (1 per patrol unit) | Appearing: 1 | Organization: Commands 8–12 soldiers Intelligence: Average (8–10) | Alignment: Lawful Evil | Size: Man-sized
AC 18 · Move 25 m · HD 4 (18 hp) · AB +4 Attack: By weapon +1; masterwork equipment standard Fort 14 / Reflex 16 / Will 15 Special: As soldier, plus: Tactical Orders (once per round; one command that grants one soldier within 9 m an immediate free action or +2 to their next roll); Authority Override (can negotiate on behalf of the unit; can authorise non-lethal detention or escalation to lethal force) Morale: 12 · XP: 120 · Treasure: C (personal)
The Church of Tar'amaan's military is the most disciplined and best-equipped standing force in the Inner Nations that operates outside a national military framework. Val Cadma provides the organisational backbone — the Cadmano Army and the Church's Lamp of the Faith share recruitment pools, officer training, and logistics — but the Lamp operates on its own chain of command, reporting to the Archbishop rather than the High King.
Standard soldiers receive the Lamp's standard theological instruction: magic is the Darkness's gift to the world, the Magic Bloc exists to perpetuate magical corruption, and practitioners who operate outside the Church's supervision are doing the Darkness's work whether they understand this or not. They believe this. The instruction is thorough and the soldiers are not selected for capacity to question it. An encounter with a Tar'amaan patrol involves people who are genuinely convinced of the moral necessity of what they are doing.
In combat they fight as trained soldiers: formations, coordinated shield use, crossbows before closing. The blessed crossbow bolts matter against specific targets — vampires and rakshasas have documented vulnerabilities to blessed projectiles — and full operational deployments (purge operations, not routine patrols) will have bolt quivers blessed by a priest on-site. Routine patrols do not always have this resource. Standard detainment procedure is non-lethal where the target is a suspected magic practitioner — the Church prefers interrogation over killing, at least initially.
The soldiers do not decide what happens to detainees. That is the Inquisitor's function.
TAR'AMAAN INQUISITOR
FIELD INQUISITOR (SEEKER OF TRUTH)
Frequency: Rare | Appearing: 1 (with attached soldier unit) | Organization: Leads the investigation Intelligence: High (13–15) | Alignment: Lawful Evil | Size: Man-sized
AC 16 · Move 30 m · HD 5 (22 hp) · AB +4 Attack: By weapon; Inquisitors typically carry a mace and a crossbow with a quiver of blessed bolts Fort 14 / Reflex 16 / Will 15 Special: Spellcasting as 5th-level Priest (access to divination, detection, and binding spells from the Tar'amaan sphere — specific list in Book I Chapter 15); Blessed Bolts (carry 2d6 blessed crossbow bolts; each functions as a blessed crossbow bolt against vulnerable targets); Detect Magic (at will, as the spell); Interrogation Expertise (characters under physical or social duress questioned by an Inquisitor make Will saves at −2 to maintain deception; applies to mundane questioning, not magical compulsion); Confiscation Authority (can formally seize magical items, property, and persons on Church authority — formal Cadmano law in Val Cadma and occupied territories recognises this authority); Jurisdiction Marker (the Inquisitor carries documentation that acts as an authority marker in Cadmano-aligned territories — forging or stealing one is a specific plot thread) Morale: 13 · XP: 2,000 · Treasure: Q, X (confiscated items); personal C
SENIOR INQUISITOR (FLAME OF JUDGEMENT)
Frequency: Very Rare | Appearing: 1 | Organization: Commands the operation Intelligence: High to Exceptional (15–18) | Alignment: Lawful Evil | Size: Man-sized
AC 17 · Move 30 m · HD 8 (36 hp) · AB +7 Attack: By weapon; Senior Inquisitors typically carry additional scroll capacity Fort 12 / Reflex 13 / Will 12 Special: As Field Inquisitor, plus: Spellcasting as 8th-level Priest (full sphere access); Aura of Authority (creatures within 6 m who fail a Will save [target 14] are at −1 to all actions while the Inquisitor holds eye contact — a psychological effect, not magical, though the line is debated by scholars); can override any field decision by Lamp soldiers or Field Inquisitors in their presence; Theological Certainty (immune to morale effects that rely on moral ambiguity — the Senior Inquisitor has resolved every relevant question to their own satisfaction) Morale: 15 · XP: 5,000 · Treasure: F (confiscated, catalogued); personal C
The Inquisitor is the part of the Tar'amaan apparatus that the Church does not discuss in public-facing theological materials. The soldier is visible — they march in formation, they guard the temples, their presence is a statement of institutional power. The Inquisitor works in smaller rooms with fewer people and does not march anywhere.
Their function is investigation and adjudication. When the Lamp receives a report of unauthorised magic use, a suspected Magic Bloc agent, a Chronicler operative in Church territory, or any of the other categories of concern that the Church's surveillance apparatus generates, the Inquisitor is sent to determine what happened, who is responsible, and what the response should be. The determination is made through a combination of theological analysis, witness questioning, evidence examination, and — in cases where the other methods are insufficient — spells designed to compel truthful response.
The Senior Inquisitor has the authority to order a purge: a systematic sweep of a district, a town, or an institution. This is not a common event, but one with significant documented precedent in the Known World's Third Era history. The Norderenn occupation's first two years included three purge operations in the administrative centres of the three largest cities; the Chroniclers' documentation of these events is public record, and the Lamp has not disputed it.
A party that comes to the Inquisitor's attention is a party in a specific kind of trouble that cannot be resolved through combat efficiency. The Inquisitor has jurisdiction — formal legal authority in the territories where the Church operates — and has soldiers and institutional backing and the patience of someone who has processed dozens of cases and knows that most of them resolve in the Church's favour if she waits long enough. The skills the party needs in an Inquisitor encounter are not combat skills. They are the skills for navigating an authority structure that has more leverage than the party does.
CRIMSON COMPANY VETERAN
VETERAN (SEASONED BLADE)
Frequency: Uncommon | Appearing: 2d8 (unit); 3d10 × 10 (company operation) Intelligence: Average (9–11) | Alignment: Neutral (typically) | Size: Man-sized
AC 16 · Move 30 m · HD 4 (18 hp) · AB +4 Attack: By weapon (the Veteran's weapon is maintained, quality-marked, and chosen for effectiveness over appearance) Fort 14 / Reflex 16 / Will 15 Special: Threat Assessment (Veterans evaluate before committing; a Veteran who determines the engagement is unwinnable will signal the unit to disengage — this is policy, not cowardice); Unit Cohesion (Veterans in groups of 4+ do not check individual morale; group morale is checked as a single entity, Morale 12); Tactical Flexibility (can switch between ranged and melee without initiative penalty); Contract Ethics (Veterans do not kill outside contract parameters — a Veteran hired to hold a bridge holds the bridge, not the village beyond it; this has practical limits when commanders give ambiguous orders, but the principle is consistent); Known World Experience (a Veteran who has been in the Company more than 5 years has encountered most common threat types — GM may allow a relevant knowledge check for creature recognition) Morale: 12 · XP: 420 · Treasure: Standard mercenary pay (on person); Company contract funds at command post
VETERAN SERGEANT (BLOODED BLADE)
Frequency: Rare | Appearing: 1 per unit | Organization: Commands 8–16 Veterans Intelligence: Average to High (10–14) | Alignment: Neutral | Size: Man-sized
AC 17 · Move 30 m · HD 6+1 (28 hp) · AB +6 Attack: By weapon +1; the Sergeant's weapon has usually been enchanted or is otherwise exceptional Fort 13 / Reflex 15 / Will 14 Special: As Veteran, plus: Battlefield Command (once per round; directs unit action, granting one Veteran within 15 m a free attack or movement action); Negotiation Authority (can negotiate contract terms, prisoner arrangements, and operational pauses on the Company's behalf at unit level); Combat Experience (the Sergeant has seen everything — on a first encounter with any creature type, may make an Intelligence check to recall relevant tactical information; success means the Sergeant communicates it to the unit immediately) Morale: 14 · XP: 975 · Treasure: C (personal); operational funds
The Crimson Company is not the party's enemy unless the party has made it so, or unless someone has hired the Company against the party. This distinction is the first thing to establish when using these stat blocks: the Company is a professional organisation operating under contracts, and those contracts define the scope of engagement. A party that respects those parameters — even in adversarial circumstances — is dealing with an organisation that has procedures for adversarial parties operating within parameters.
A party that does not respect those parameters is dealing with an organisation that has procedures for that too, and the procedures are less comfortable.
Veterans come from everywhere. The Company's recruitment includes Displaced Peoples — goblin engineers, hobgoblin unit commanders, bugbear scouts — in numbers that would generate significant Tar'amaan objection if the Church's operational priorities were not already stretched managing the Magic Bloc and the Norderenn occupation simultaneously. This creates encounter contexts that are not typical for the other human NPC entries: a Crimson Company unit may include members who are not human, operating under the same professional standards as their human counterparts, and the unit's functions are assigned based on capability rather than ancestry. A party that has internalised the Inner Nations' general assumptions about Displaced Peoples will occasionally find those assumptions failing in Company contexts.
Veterans do not fight to the finish unless the contract requires it. A unit that determines the engagement is not survivable at an acceptable cost will disengage. Pursuit is possible — Company policy distinguishes between a tactical retreat and breaking contract — but the unit Sergeant makes the call, not the individual Veterans, and the Sergeant is doing arithmetic about acceptable losses that a cornered monster cannot do.
The Company's relationship to the Known World's factions is its own chapter in Book II. What matters here is that Veterans encountered as antagonists are adversaries by contract rather than by nature, which means the encounter has a resolution pathway that does not require destroying them — finding out who hired them, what the contract covers, and whether the contract's terms have been met.