Every creature on the road north, in the order you meet them. Each attack shows the move the game expects as its answer: walk out, strafe, jump, blink or kite.
Brush stoatVrethvath, the Velkordath's own yard, the western trade corridor out of Vrethvath, Sortheld harbour road, the inland farms, river-valley farmsteads, the Heart's north
Abilities
The answer is the move the game expects: walk out, strafe, jump, blink or kite.
- Worry
- nature · self · answer: kite
- Flank return
- shadow · self · answer: strafe
At range. It closes, and that is the whole of its ranged behaviour — a creature with no answer at distance is what makes distance mean something in the first room.
When you close in. It latches and worries rather than striking, so it carries no telegraph at all (an attack answered by position rather than by a read does not get one) and the answer is kite.
When it is hurt. It releases, circles wide and comes back from behind — the first thing in the game that punishes a player for facing one direction.
In a group. They split around cover instead of stacking on it, so a party that has all gathered behind one arch pier is taken from both sides of it.
Rime ibexVrethvath, the Velkordath's own yard, the western trade corridor out of Vrethvath, the Calvendris Heart's northern edge, the approach to Ostvalden
Abilities
The answer is the move the game expects: walk out, strafe, jump, blink or kite.
- Picked line
- physical · bolt · answer: strafe
- Worry
- nature · self · answer: kite
At range. It has no ranged answer at all — it turns to face, drops its head and picks a line, so at distance it is a creature deciding where to be rather than one attacking, and the decision is the tell.
When you close in. It commits to the straight ram it picked and does not correct once the head is down, which makes the first wind-up the player ever sees one he can answer by standing somewhere else.
When it is hurt. It breaks off, climbs the highest solid thing within reach — a pier, a byre roof, the revetment — and re-picks a line from up there.
In a group. They never charge together: one is committed while the others are still choosing, so a party reads one line at a time and never four, which is what makes a pack of them the game's first legible encounter.
Crag sowThe western trade corridor out of Vrethvath, Sortheld harbour road, the inland farms, river-valley farmsteads, the Heart's north
Abilities
The answer is the move the game expects: walk out, strafe, jump, blink or kite.
- Picked line
- physical · bolt · answer: strafe
- Second beat
- nature · self · answer: strafe
At range. It roots and ignores the party entirely until they are inside a distance it has decided on, which is the corpus's first enemy that has to be provoked rather than met.
When you close in. A flat committed charge down the ground it is standing on, and on a road with cart ruts and shoulder ditches the ground is the thing that makes the charge legible.
When it is hurt. It turns through the near player rather than away, and a back-kick covers the turn — the punishment for standing where it was rather than where it is going.
In a group. Sows do not coordinate and this file will not pretend they do; what they do is arrive along the ditch line one behind another, so a road corridor delivers them as a sequence and an open field delivers them as a spread.
Resonance rookThe western trade corridor out of Vrethvath, Sortheld harbour road, the inland farms, the approach to Ostvalden, Halvnast, the mid-reach promontory shrine
Abilities
The answer is the move the game expects: walk out, strafe, jump, blink or kite.
- Shin cross
- storm · bolt · answer: jump
- Arc run
- storm · beam · answer: blink
At range. It perches — on a hurdle rail, a gate-post, a cairn, the shrine parapet — and a perched rook is doing nothing at all, which is why the flight reads as weather until it does not.
When you close in. It comes off the perch and crosses at shin height along a straight line, which is the corpus's cheapest and earliest demand for **jump**.
When it is hurt. It does not break — it climbs, circles once and comes back down the same axis from the other end, so a player who solved it by facing one way has to solve it again.
In a group. A flight leaves the perch in ones and twos rather than together, so the ground line is renewed every few seconds and standing still is what costs; the flight never all commits, which is what keeps a concurrency budget intact under a large headcount.
Sound wolfThe western trade corridor out of Vrethvath, the Inner Sound, southern reach
Abilities
The answer is the move the game expects: walk out, strafe, jump, blink or kite.
- Worry
- nature · self · answer: kite
- Flank return
- shadow · self · answer: strafe
At range. They hold at the edge of the light and threaten — a tell that costs the corpus nothing, is not an ability and buys the player the entire read of what is about to happen.
When you close in. They take the nearest and hold it, which is exactly and nothing else; a party that splits gives them two nearests and gets what it asked for.
When it is hurt. An individual gives ground and another takes its place at the front, so the pack has a formation that nobody authored — it falls straight out of nearest-with-a-sticky-tie and is the best argument in the corpus for that ruling.
In a group. The pack is barrier made literal, and at 10 it arrives up the trodden shore-ice path rather than the gangway: the route the locals wore, not the route the map built.
Scree skitterThe northern spur toward Sortheld harbour, the Calvendris Heart's northern edge, Skarnvold, Ostvalden's southernmost fjord-mouth, the Skara narrows, ice-shelf, the Skeld Throat ice
Abilities
The answer is the move the game expects: walk out, strafe, jump, blink or kite.
- Worry
- nature · self · answer: kite
- Flank return
- shadow · self · answer: strafe
At range. It freezes and matches the stone it is on, so at rest it is not read as an enemy at all and a party crossing a rock shelf discovers its own count is wrong.
When you close in. It darts in a broken line and never a straight one, which means a player who leads his aim misses — asymmetry (theirs is dodged, ours is aimed) taught at the cheapest possible price.
When it is hurt. It goes under the nearest edge and comes out somewhere else on the same shelf; it does not flee the room and still holds, it merely stops being where it was.
In a group. They arrive as a spread and never as a wedge, which is the corpus's standing answer to a party that has decided one pier or one bollard is the safe place to stand.
The hoar-mammothThe northern spur toward Sortheld harbour
Abilities
The answer is the move the game expects: walk out, strafe, jump, blink or kite.
- Coming down
- physical · drop · answer: walk out
- Furrow
- nature · bolt · answer: strafe
- Turf wave
- nature · bolt · answer: jump
- Tusking
- nature · self · answer: kite
At range. It walks; the first exchange of the campaign's first boss is a very large animal crossing forty metres of open shelf while nothing happens, which is how a player learns that distance is not the same as safety.
When you close in. It raises and comes down where it looked and nowhere else, and the sheet under that spot stops being one smooth plate and becomes a field of small bright edges.
When it is hurt. Nothing changes — it has no second gear, no enrage and no phase but the one the floor is in, and that honesty is why it is the first boss rather than the fifth.
In a group. It is alone; the scree-skitters that share the shelf scatter out from under it rather than fighting beside it, so the room reads as one animal and its weather rather than as a boss with adds.
Fell-buffalo of the flood fieldSortheld harbour road, the inland farms
Abilities
The answer is the move the game expects: walk out, strafe, jump, blink or kite.
- Held ground
- physical · self · answer: kite
- Ground run
- stone · halt · answer: jump
At range. It does not leave the frozen flood field, and the sheet is how it reaches anything — a stamp travels the ice and arrives where the ice does, which is the corpus's one enemy whose range is the shape of a puddle.
When you close in. It lowers and holds; it only charges when something has put itself between the field and the lane gate, so a party that walks around it is never charged and a party that cuts it off always is.
When it is hurt. It moves one body-length and re-plants — the field is the thing it is defending and it does not concede ground it is standing on.
In a group. It never joins the pack, but the pack is not free of it either — while it stands, any sow or stoat that strays onto the frozen field carries its stone resistance and storm weakness too, the same sheet feeding both; drop the buffalo and the ice under the rest of them goes ordinary the same moment it does.
The fell-daeodonThe Calvendris Heart's northern edge
Abilities
The answer is the move the game expects: walk out, strafe, jump, blink or kite.
- Bellow run
- physical · bolt · answer: walk out
- Short rush
- physical · bolt · answer: strafe
- Wheel
- physical · self · answer: blink
- Hook
- physical · self · answer: kite
At range. It stands in the close's mouth and bellows, and the bellow is the promise — several seconds long, aimed down the axis the inn's window-light lies along, and legible from anywhere in the room because the room is lit end to end.
When you close in. It runs the axis it bellowed down and does not turn, so the answer is a byre corner rather than a sidestep at the last moment.
When it is hurt. It bellows sooner and more often rather than differently; the pressure the shape needs is frequency, and nothing about the promise itself grows.
In a group. Alone — the rime-ibex and the skitters in the close are not with it and scatter out of the axis when it sets, which is a free second tell for a player who has not learned to read the first.
Valley hound-wardenRiver-valley farmsteads, the Heart's north
Abilities
The answer is the move the game expects: walk out, strafe, jump, blink or kite.
- Drawn shot
- physical · bolt · answer: strafe
- Flank return
- shadow · self · answer: strafe
At range. He sets the hounds and stays behind them; he is the only thing in band I that sends something else first, and the read is that killing what is in front of you does not solve the yard.
When you close in. He gives ground toward the fire-stand and lets the hounds close, so the party ends up fighting away from the thing it came into the yard for.
When it is hurt. He gives ground deliberately and puts a hound between himself and whoever hurt him — the only creature in bands I and II that retreats as a decision rather than as a reflex.
In a group. The hounds arrive as a line because he walked them up the lane in one; his death does not scatter them, does not despawn them and does not end the encounter — they simply stop being a line and go back to hunting nearest.
Valley yard-houndRiver-valley farmsteads, the Heart's north
Abilities
The answer is the move the game expects: walk out, strafe, jump, blink or kite.
- Worry
- nature · self · answer: kite
- Flank return
- shadow · self · answer: strafe
At range. It holds at the edge of the yard light and barks, which is the only warning the escort gets that the next leg is contested — a tell that costs the corpus nothing and is not an ability.
When you close in. It runs the shortest line and strikes without any wind-up at all (an attack answered by position rather than by a read carries no telegraph), so the answer is kite and never a dodge.
When it is hurt. It breaks off to its handler, turns, and comes back — the pack's shape resets around the warden rather than around the party.
In a group. Hounds arrive as a line and split around the carried flame rather than through it; what they make expensive is the escort's clock, not the party's health, and that is the difference between this encounter and the pack at 2.
The hoar-bearThe approach to Ostvalden
Abilities
The answer is the move the game expects: walk out, strafe, jump, blink or kite.
- Come down
- physical · drop · answer: walk out
- Settle
- storm · bolt · answer: jump · leaves leaves slow
- Driven front
- storm · bolt · answer: strafe
- Snap close
- physical · bolt · answer: blink
- Swat
- physical · self · answer: kite
- Crossing
- storm · self · answer: strafe
- Overtopping
- storm · drop · answer: walk out
At range. It stays on the hoar field and does not follow onto the metalled road while anything is standing closer to it on the frost — nearest rule is the entire lure mechanism and the shape needs nothing else built for it.
When you close in. It rears and comes down, and on its own mat the settle carries outward through the standing hoar; on the road it lands where it lands and nothing travels.
When it is hurt. It retreats one body-length toward the centre of its own field rather than away from the party, which is the reluctance boss-shapes.md asks S3's tell to be made of.
In a group. Alone; the ibex and the rooks either side of the cut work the heath and the cut respectively and neither crosses onto the mat, which is how the player learns the mat is somebody's before anything explains it.
WolverineThe approach to Ostvalden, the Inner Sound old-growth fjord-head
Abilities
The answer is the move the game expects: walk out, strafe, jump, blink or kite.
- Worry
- nature · self · answer: kite
- Second beat
- nature · self · answer: strafe
At range. It does not close until it has decided to, and it decides late — a creature that watches is the only thing in bands I and II that makes a player uneasy at distance without doing anything.
When you close in. It commits to one target and stays committed while that target remains nearest, which under is most of the time; it does not trade, circle or reposition.
When it is hurt. It fights the last hit exactly like the first — same commitment, same target, same pace — so the read a player gets is that there is no opening to wait for: whatever answer worked at full health is the only answer it ever offers, all the way down.
In a group. It fights alongside nothing; where it shares a scenery with a pack it arrives after them, and the fight the party thought was ending gets a second half that behaves differently.
Brine stiltSkarnvold, Ostvalden's southernmost fjord-mouth, Thyrnvold, the Thyrn-Mouth narrows, the Inner Sound, southern reach, the Skara narrows, ice-shelf, the Skeld Throat ice
Abilities
The answer is the move the game expects: walk out, strafe, jump, blink or kite.
- Stoop
- physical · drop · answer: walk out
- Thrown arc
- frost · bolt · answer: strafe
At range. It walks, and it walks on the ground the party is being careful on — a sea-spider on glare ice takes no control cost at all, which is hazard read from the other side of the fight.
When you close in. It puts a leg through and lifts, so the strike arrives from above the party's own head height and the answer is where you are standing rather than which way you are facing.
When it is hurt. It goes over the nearest raised thing rather than around it — a bollard, a rubble collar, a hull's ice apron — and a party that put a solid object between itself and one has bought nothing.
In a group. They arrive spread across the whole width of a room because nothing on the floor slows them, so what they punish is the party's spacing rather than its position.
Frost urchinSkarnvold, Ostvalden's southernmost fjord-mouth, the Inner Sound, southern reach, the Skeld Throat ice
Abilities
The answer is the move the game expects: walk out, strafe, jump, blink or kite.
- Cold contact
- frost · self · answer: kite
- Thrown arc
- frost · bolt · answer: strafe
At range. It lobs; that is its entire reach and it does not lead a moving target, so the answer is simply not to be still — the corpus's one enemy whose counter is a habit rather than a verb.
When you close in. It bristles and holds, because it has no melee that chases and never has; what it has is one hard, slow strike on whatever comes against it (refused the volume this used to be), so the ground beside a bed is free between beats and expensive on them.
When it is hurt. It settles, which shortens its own reach and hardens it — hurting it makes it smaller and more patient rather than more dangerous, and a party that opens on one and then leaves it has made the room worse in a way it can see.
In a group. They are placed rather than gathered; the arrangement worth authoring is two beds whose lobbed ground overlaps across exactly one lane, which is a room-shape problem and not a headcount one.
Skarnvold huscarlSkarnvold, Ostvalden's southernmost fjord-mouth
Abilities
The answer is the move the game expects: walk out, strafe, jump, blink or kite.
- Held ground
- physical · self · answer: kite
- Committed swing
- physical · self · answer: strafe
At range. He stands at whichever of the two gates is shut and does not leave it, so the party always knows where the next wave is coming from and never gets to choose.
When you close in. A shield and one short committed step, never a lunge — melee that is answered by out-positioning rather than by a dodge (kite), and the first competent instance of it in the game.
When it is hurt. He backs onto the tongue of fjord ice that has come up through the quay gate, where his footing is no worse than the party's and their spacing is (costs control, never health).
In a group. The fjord things that came in with the ice do not fight with him and he does not command them; he opens gates, and what comes through a gate is not his — which is the whole of what arc.md §6 means by an occupied place.
Charter enforcerThyrnvold, the Thyrn-Mouth narrows
Abilities
The answer is the move the game expects: walk out, strafe, jump, blink or kite.
- Held ground
- physical · self · answer: kite
At range. They hold the stair-head and the weigh-beam, which are the two places a gate-hall can be denied at, and they do not leave them to chase anybody down the room.
When you close in. Shield and a short committed step, the same grammar the huscarl used at 8 — the second time the player meets it and the first time it is defended competently.
When it is hurt. They do not give the stair-head; one of them stops fighting to shut the landward gate, which is a decision the party can see being taken and can stop.
In a group. Two or three, never a wave — keeps the pack non-human and arc.md §6 gives people elites and set-pieces rather than packs, so the smallness is the ruling and not a tuning choice.
The toll-master of the thyrn-mouthThyrnvold, the Thyrn-Mouth narrows
Abilities
The answer is the move the game expects: walk out, strafe, jump, blink or kite.
- Pricing
- physical · bolt · answer: strafe · leaves leaves mark
- Weigh beam
- physical · beam · answer: jump
- Rut line
- frost · bolt · answer: jump
- Setting
- frost · halt · answer: walk out · leaves leaves root
- Charge for passage
- frost · bolt · answer: strafe
- Weight on the chain
- physical · self · answer: kite
- Stair ring
- physical · bolt · answer: blink
- Arrears
- frost · beam · answer: walk out
- Ice work
- frost · bolt · answer: strafe
At range. He works the gate-hall's own furniture — the weigh-beam, the chained desk, the brass on its chain — and does not step off the swept flag while anyone is standing on it; the room he is defending is the room he has always worked in.
When you close in. He concedes the stair rather than the floor, which is how phase two begins; going down after him is the visible-cost arrival boss-shapes.md's S8 is built out of, and the stair is the only one.
When it is hurt. He does not concede the room, he concedes the **floor** — and goes on charging from the frozen quay below, doing exactly the same job one storey down, which is the fight's entire second act and its whole characterisation at once.
In a group. His sworn men hold the stair-head and the landward gate; everything else in the room came up through the missing floor and is not his, does not obey him and does not stop when he does.
Tide-bullThe Inner Sound, southern reach, the Skara narrows, ice-shelf
Abilities
The answer is the move the game expects: walk out, strafe, jump, blink or kite.
- Low sweep
- physical · self · answer: jump
- Dead air
- None · halt · answer: walk out
At range. It has no ranged attack; what it has is a bellow, and what the bellow does is change where the floor's verbs work — a low breath-fog that settles into the ridge's lee and stays there.
When you close in. One heavy sweep across its own front, slow and committed, answered by not being in front of it; on flat ice it is the least mobile thing in band II and it knows the distance it owns.
When it is hurt. It goes toward water — a lead, a fresh crack, the ring's own edge — and hauls out again somewhere the party has to walk to, which lengthens the fight rather than raising its damage.
In a group. It is not part of any pack and no pack is part of it; what the smaller things do is work its lee, because the fog it lays is a place the party will not blink into and the stilts and skitters do not care about that at all.
The reading at brenvaskBrenvask, the Skara-narrows relay
Abilities
The answer is the move the game expects: walk out, strafe, jump, blink or kite.
- Draw
- arcane · beam · answer: strafe
- Halyard
- arcane · bolt · answer: blink
- Ground sweep
- arcane · bolt · answer: jump
- Shutter count
- arcane · bolt · answer: strafe
- Standing value
- arcane · self · answer: kite
- Unanswered signal
- arcane · self · answer: kite
- Circumference
- arcane · beam · answer: walk out
- Taking of a body
- arcane · beam · answer: strafe
At range. It draws — the six lamps on their ring bleed toward the mast before anything happens, and the direction the light travels **is** the aim line, which is the whole of boss-shapes.md's S1 tell.
When you close in. It neither closes nor retreats; it stands at the mast because the mast is where the reading is being taken, and a party that walks up to it has simply put itself inside the ring it is about to draw across.
When it is hurt. It takes the reading again — nothing escalates, nothing enrages, and the second half of the fight is the same process at a shorter interval, which is what damaging a process rather than a creature is supposed to look like.
In a group. The Stilled in the court do not obey it, are not summoned by it and do not stop when it does; they were the station's people and it is the station's arithmetic, and the only thing they have in common is that neither was ever told to stop.
The stilledBrenvask, the Skara-narrows relay, Skeldnar, the Skeld Throat anchorage
Abilities
The answer is the move the game expects: walk out, strafe, jump, blink or kite.
- Held ground
- physical · self · answer: kite
- Kept light
- holy · bolt · answer: strafe
At range. It continues the movement of its post — a shutter-hand, a halyard pull, a step along a drill mark — and the movement is the reason it is standing where it is; at distance it is not attacking, it is working.
When you close in. It interrupts what it was doing, answers, and goes back to it, which means one left alone in a corner of the court is one that is not fighting and one the party will meet again in the same condition.
When it is hurt. The post's motion never breaks stride — the same shutter-hand, the same halyard pull, the same step along the drill mark, whether at full health or one hit from done — so the tell a player reads to know when it will answer stays exactly the tell it started with, all the way to the end.
In a group. They do not coordinate and never did; what they share is a **rota**, so they arrive at intervals rather than in a wave — which is ANTI-PATTERNS.md's *three packs in a corridor* answered by structure instead of by headcount.
The storm-prophet of halvnastHalvnast, the mid-reach promontory shrine
Abilities
The answer is the move the game expects: walk out, strafe, jump, blink or kite.
- Nearest answer
- storm · bolt · answer: strafe
- Reading
- storm · beam · answer: strafe
- Heave
- storm · drop · answer: walk out · leaves leaves slow
- Rail run
- storm · bolt · answer: jump
- Joint fence
- storm · halt · answer: blink · leaves leaves slow
- Dish
- storm · self · answer: kite · leaves leaves weaken
- Rotation sweep
- storm · beam · answer: strafe
- Rotation sweep p2
- storm · beam · answer: strafe
- Rotation sweep p3
- storm · beam · answer: strafe
- Stillness
- storm · self · answer: strafe
At range. She reads, and the reading is the attack — storm thrown down the terrace's long axis from whichever of the two worn dishes she is standing in, which makes her range the shape of a nine-hundred-year-old habit.
When you close in. She does not give ground and does not close; there are two places on this terrace and there always have been, and she is at one of them.
When it is hurt. She takes the change of rotation early — the only escalation in the fight and the only thing about her a player can cause, so hurting her moves her and moving her is what changes the floor.
In a group. Alone, and the terrace says why without a word: two hollows worn a hand deep in nine centuries, one per rotation position, and one person standing the rotation.
Bloodsilk matronThe Inner Sound old-growth fjord-head
Abilities
The answer is the move the game expects: walk out, strafe, jump, blink or kite.
- Brood drop
- None · summon · answer: walk out
At range. She drops rather than throws — a brood goes down the trunk on silk, so the arrival is vertical, visible, and happens at a place on the floor the party can see before anything reaches it.
When you close in. She does not come down; the grove has three routes through it and none of them reaches her, which is the summoner shape's entire geometry and is the roster's stated requirement for this scenery.
When it is hurt. She moves one trunk and resumes, and the interval does not shorten — she is not a clock and hurting her does not start one, which is the difference between a summoner and a DPS check.
In a group. She is the only thing in the grove doing something other than fighting, and that is precisely what makes her findable; the mites do not defend her and she does not command them, she simply keeps producing them.
Chaff miteThe Inner Sound old-growth fjord-head
Abilities
The answer is the move the game expects: walk out, strafe, jump, blink or kite.
- Worry
- nature · self · answer: kite
- Snap root
- nature · halt · answer: jump · leaves leaves root
At range. They do not have one, and a brood with no ranged option is what makes the vertical arrival legible — everything that reaches the party walked there from a place the party watched it land.
When you close in. Each continuously re-picks whoever is nearest, the tie always broken toward whoever it already had — rule made visible at a scale where a dozen of them commit to a new line at once and then hold it, arriving through ground the party has already left because a mite's legs are the only slow thing here.
When it is hurt. Individually they die and nothing about the survivors changes, but the fight does — a thinning brood opens lanes a full one never had, and the read is that gap, not a stat on any single mite.
In a group. They are only ever a group; the grove's air is still, so they do not scatter, they **thin** — and the fight's read is a density falling rather than a formation breaking.
The answer at skeldnarSkeldnar, the Skeld Throat anchorage
Abilities
The answer is the move the game expects: walk out, strafe, jump, blink or kite.
- Lesser signal
- holy · bolt · answer: strafe
- Shadow of the braces
- holy · beam · answer: strafe
- Slot
- holy · bolt · answer: blink
- West lane
- holy · halt · answer: blink · leaves leaves slow
- Closing the lee
- holy · beam · answer: strafe
- Stair foot
- holy · self · answer: kite
- Signal
- holy · self · answer: walk out
At range. It signals, on the interval a beacon signals on — a rhythm rather than a doom clock, and the interval is the only thing in the court that is still doing its job on time.
When you close in. It does not leave the beacon-stair's foot, because that is where the beacon is; the fight comes to it and the court's two brace-pillars are the only reason coming to it is survivable.
When it is hurt. The interval does not shorten and the signal does not weaken — what changes is that it begins using the pillars as part of the sweep, so the **cancel** gets harder rather than the promise getting bigger.
In a group. The Stilled on the drill-marks are not its and it is not theirs; they were the post's people and it is the post's job, and neither stops when the other does.
Wrack-serpentThe Skeld Throat ice
Abilities
The answer is the move the game expects: walk out, strafe, jump, blink or kite.
- Lane spit
- nature · beam · answer: strafe
- Hooked line
- nature · beam · answer: blink · leaves leaves slow
At range. It spits down the shared firing axis from inside the dark slot, so the read the player is given is **which lane am I in** rather than where the thing is — which is the only reason two approaches on one axis is a fight and not a corridor.
When you close in. It does not leave the narrows; it sweeps the mouth, and the mouth is the eight metres between two driven-together hulls, so closing is a decision about the last eight metres and nothing before them.
When it is hurt. It withdraws deeper into the slot, which shortens its own reach and lengthens the party's walk — the one creature in bands I and II whose damage makes the fight take longer instead of making it harder.
In a group. The stilts and urchins along the hull collars are not with it and do not defend it; they are what else an anchorage has, and they are the reason a bright lane with a dark slot at the end of it is walked while busy.
Hold-levyHoldskarr, the Skarr-Seat, Votskarr, the Voth confluence, Grevnfast, the Skara-mouth outer headland
Abilities
The answer is the move the game expects: walk out, strafe, jump, blink or kite.
- Held ground
- physical · self · answer: kite
- Kept light
- holy · bolt · answer: strafe
At range. No ranged answer — but it does not walk at random, it is already walking to the ground it means to hold (the fire-lane, the step-run, the charge-bins), so which lane is about to shut is readable from outside melee range, before it ever arrives.
When you close in. It sets and does not yield. Enemies are solid, so a levy standing in a three-metre lane is a lane that is shut until it is dealt with.
When it is hurt. It falls back to the nearest other levy rather than to cover — a habit rather than a script, and the only thing in the human entries that looks like coordination.
In a group. Never more than three in one scenery, and never chaff — people supply elites and set-pieces here, never a pack.
The seat's oathwardHoldskarr, the Skarr-Seat
Abilities
The answer is the move the game expects: walk out, strafe, jump, blink or kite.
- Oathward swing
- physical · self · answer: kite
- Metal he is on
- holy · self · answer: kite · leaves leaves weaken
- Step run
- holy · halt · answer: kite · leaves leaves weaken
- Walking line
- holy · beam · answer: strafe
- Stepping down
- holy · drop · answer: walk out
- Courses
- physical · bolt · answer: jump
- Kerb
- holy · bolt · answer: jump
- Greedy step
- holy · halt · answer: strafe
At range. Holds the swept step-run above the glaze and lays a slow gold line down the walking line of the nine slabs, so the only footing that does not slide is also the ground he is aiming along.
When you close in. He closes rather than gives — he steps down onto whichever slab is nearest the player who is nearest him, and the plaza's irregular 8-11 m spacing is what decides where that puts him.
When it is hurt. No change of temper and no roar; he shortens his route, working fewer slabs and standing nearer the Seat, until the last of the fight is on the step-run itself.
In a group. He commands nobody. Two hold-levy stand the plaza gate because that is where the roll put them, and they converge on the nearest living player — a downed one is not a legal target.
Course-wardenHoldskarr's Citadel foundations, Halvnar, the Outer Hold
Abilities
The answer is the move the game expects: walk out, strafe, jump, blink or kite.
- Held ground
- physical · self · answer: kite
- Ground run
- stone · halt · answer: jump
- Shed mass
- stone · halt · answer: strafe
At range. It does not travel to you; it puts its own bay's floor up at you, so the answer to its range is to leave the bay rather than to out-range it.
When you close in. It steps to the bay mouth and no further — a body that has stopped being cold, standing in the one place the aisle can see it from.
When it is hurt. It sheds course — the dressed block it is made of comes off it and stays on the floor, so a hurt warden is a bay with less room in it.
In a group. One per bay, and no two share a fight — but the channel does not need another warden to run down. Where more than one length of the same warm course still stands (the pair at 23, together under the colonnade), each channels the run's warmth through whatever is left of it, so a warden fought alongside another of its own kind holds its full resistance and a warden fought alone does not. And at 18 it channels the same warmth OUTWARD : every mould-frost standing in its own bay's arc of the aisle carries a resistance it does not have alone, so killing the warden makes that arc's frosts ordinary. Huge resistance paired with a weakness, never immunity — the arc can be cleared without the warden, at twice the cost.
Mould-frostHoldskarr's Citadel foundations, the northern fjord-cluster, between keeps
Abilities
The answer is the move the game expects: walk out, strafe, jump, blink or kite.
- Cold contact
- frost · self · answer: kite
- Glaze
- frost · halt · answer: walk out
At range. It throws nothing. The only thing a mould-frost does at distance is arrive, and it arrives at a walk.
When you close in. It closes at a constant walking pace and never stops, so the read is distance itself — hold one metre continuously (kite verb) rather than watch for a moment to dodge, because there isn't one.
When it is hurt. It holds the same pace and the same pressure from full health to the last hit, so the metre a player commits to at first contact is exactly the metre that finishes the fight, with nothing to reassess in between.
In a group. This is the entry the density limit exists for — six of them are one demand on the concurrency budget, not six, and a room that reads as busy is doing its job.
The warping-masterVotskarr, the Voth confluence
Abilities
The answer is the move the game expects: walk out, strafe, jump, blink or kite.
- Knot
- frost · bolt · answer: strafe
- Taut
- frost · beam · answer: jump
- Rime under the line
- frost · drop · answer: strafe · leaves leaves slow
- Standing count
- frost · bolt · answer: strafe
- Live line
- frost · halt · answer: jump
- Slack
- frost · drop · answer: blink
- Arm length
- physical · beam · answer: walk out · leaves leaves weaken
- Letting go
- physical · beam · answer: jump · leaves leaves weaken
At range. He does not close and never needs to — the warping-line reaches the whole apron, and what he aims at is not where a player is but where he is about to put him.
When you close in. Closing is the one thing that shortens the line; he gives ground toward the next capstan and re-sets, so the fight walks the five capstans in an order the party chooses.
When it is hurt. At a health threshold he reverses the sign — he has been pulling, and he begins to push, which is the same read taught backwards inside one fight.
In a group. Two hold-levy stand the quay-front and they are not his; they are the market's, and they converge on the nearest player exactly as they would if he were not in the room.
Hedge tuskerThe Voth river-path wayhouse
Abilities
The answer is the move the game expects: walk out, strafe, jump, blink or kite.
- Picked line
- physical · bolt · answer: strafe
- Second beat
- nature · self · answer: strafe
At range. It lines up. A tusker at distance is a body that has stopped moving sideways and started facing you, and that is the entire telegraph.
When you close in. It commits and it hits where it looked; there is no re-aim once the tell has played, so the answer is a step across the line and never a retreat down it.
When it is hurt. It over-runs further and turns slower, so the same charge becomes more readable as the fight goes on rather than less.
In a group. Two at most, and never with each other in mind — two committed charges from different angles are a concurrency problem, not a pincer.
Highland catThe Voth river-path wayhouse
Abilities
The answer is the move the game expects: walk out, strafe, jump, blink or kite.
- Second beat
- nature · self · answer: strafe
- Pounce
- shadow · bolt · answer: blink
At range. It closes the gap in one movement rather than crossing it, from above where the yard gives it a byre roof and a range wall to come off.
When you close in. It does not wait to be reached; the moment a player is inside the pounce it takes it, so approaching one is the same action as being attacked by one.
When it is hurt. It breaks off completely, goes back up onto a roof or a wall-head, and comes down somewhere else — the only body in the yard that leaves the floor.
In a group. One, never two, and always inside somebody else's pack — it is the body that arrives while the party is already answering the wolves.
Highland wolfThe Voth river-path wayhouse
Abilities
The answer is the move the game expects: walk out, strafe, jump, blink or kite.
- Worry
- nature · self · answer: kite
- Flank return
- shadow · self · answer: strafe
At range. Nothing thrown and nothing telegraphed — at distance it is working the unlit ring outside the two fire-pits, which the yard's light-from-the-middle makes possible without a stealth system.
When you close in. It breaks contact and comes back on a flank; giving ground changes who is nearest, and who is nearest is the whole of the targeting rule.
When it is hurt. The individual does not rout; the pack does, and only once it is down to two.
In a group. They do not surround by script — four of them each converging on whoever is nearest produces a surround for free the moment a party spreads.
Doorway-shadeTornskarr, the Bend-Cliff, the northern fjord-cluster, between keeps
Abilities
The answer is the move the game expects: walk out, strafe, jump, blink or kite.
- Held ground
- physical · self · answer: kite
At range. It stands where the light is and does not leave it, so its range is the shape of the lit ground rather than a radius around a body.
When you close in. It gives one step past the door-mouth and stops there for good — which relocates the fight rather than shrinking it, since the party now has to stand wherever that lit ground put them, and which of the six doors you're pulled into decides how many of the other five can see you.
When it is hurt. It thins rather than staggers — the same silhouette with less of it, which is the only damage readout the game gives besides the bar.
In a group. Six of them in six doorways are not a formation; they are six bodies each converging on whoever is nearest, and the street is what makes that look like an ambush.
The pit-keeperTornskarr, the Bend-Cliff
Abilities
The answer is the move the game expects: walk out, strafe, jump, blink or kite.
- Nearest dark
- shadow · bolt · answer: strafe
- Far quarter
- shadow · halt · answer: walk out
- Under the kerb
- shadow · bolt · answer: jump
- Glaze
- frost · halt · answer: blink · leaves leaves slow
- Reach
- shadow · bolt · answer: strafe
- Underneath
- shadow · self · answer: kite · leaves leaves vulnerability
- Silhouette
- shadow · beam · answer: walk out
- Smothering
- shadow · drop · answer: walk out
- Smothering p3
- shadow · drop · answer: walk out
At range. It is never at range in the ordinary sense — it acts out of whatever the four pits are lighting, so the read is which corner is bright rather than how far away its body is.
When you close in. It neither closes nor retreats; the court's four pits are what move the fight, and a player who walks at it has only changed which pit is behind him.
When it is hurt. The only thing damage changes about it is where it stands — it works the corner furthest from an occupied pit, which is the allocation problem stated from the boss's side.
In a group. It summons nothing and commands nothing; the doorway-shades in the court are the same material and it never once behaves as though it has noticed them.
The settlingHalvnar, the Outer Hold
Abilities
The answer is the move the game expects: walk out, strafe, jump, blink or kite.
- The draw
- stone · halt · answer: walk out
- Set down
- stone · drop · answer: blink
- Loose course
- physical · bolt · answer: strafe
- Counterweight run
- physical · bolt · answer: strafe
- Standing ground
- frost · self · answer: kite · leaves leaves slow
- Downhill
- None · self · answer: kite
- Register line
- stone · beam · answer: jump
At range. It does not aim at a player at all; it takes a piece of the floor, and the party arrives where the floor went.
When you close in. It sets rather than evades, and it is one of only three things in that court that does not slide — the two charter-stones are the others.
When it is hurt. At a health threshold it reverses the sign; it has been drawing everything toward the colonnade and it begins to push everything away from it.
In a group. Two course-wardens stand under the colonnade and neither slides and neither chases past the piers; nothing in this room coordinates with anything else.
Headland goatThe Long Coast headlands
Abilities
The answer is the move the game expects: walk out, strafe, jump, blink or kite.
- Committed swing
- physical · self · answer: strafe
- Held ground
- physical · self · answer: kite
At range. It holds the crown of the spine and does not come down for anybody, which on this headland means it is standing on the only dry footing in the room and refusing to share it.
When you close in. It butts, and the butt moves a player rather than only hurting him — a shove toward ground that is going under, which is the encounter's clock made personal.
When it is hurt. It gives ground uphill and keeps facing you; it is the only body on the headland that retreats without disengaging.
In a group. Two or three, spaced along the spine rather than bunched, so the party is never fighting all of them and never free of one.
Ice bearThe Long Coast headlands
Abilities
The answer is the move the game expects: walk out, strafe, jump, blink or kite.
- Second beat
- nature · self · answer: strafe
- Cold contact
- frost · self · answer: kite
At range. It closes at an unhurrying walk that shortens and lowers in the last several strides before claw range — that shift in gait is the tell, readable before the two-beat starts, not the fact that it is walking at all.
When you close in. A two-beat combination, claw then bite, and the second beat lands where the first one was answered, so the read is the pair rather than either half.
When it is hurt. No flinch and no early withdrawal — but when the survival clock ends it does not vanish either: it is the last body off the spine, breaking for the ramp slowly and in full view once everything else already has.
In a group. One, and never at the start — it is the last thing up the ramp and it arrives while the party is already committed to something else.
Shore walrusThe Long Coast headlands
Abilities
The answer is the move the game expects: walk out, strafe, jump, blink or kite.
- Low sweep
- physical · self · answer: jump
At range. It bellows, and the bellow is a located sound rather than an attack — the one thing on this headland that comes from a place.
When you close in. A body ram along the ground, wide and slow and impossible to walk out of sideways, which is the range's one honest demand for jump.
When it is hurt. It goes back down the shore-ice and comes up somewhere else along the seaward side, so damage buys distance rather than progress.
In a group. Two or three hauled out along the whole seaward flank and arriving at different times, so the headland is never clear and never crowded.
Stair vultureGrevnfast, the Skara-mouth outer headland
Abilities
The answer is the move the game expects: walk out, strafe, jump, blink or kite.
- Stoop
- physical · drop · answer: walk out
- Held ground
- physical · self · answer: kite
- Wet stoop
- decay · drop · answer: walk out · leaves leaves damage over time
At range. A stoop out of the lantern-stage, and it is the range's one attack that arrives from directly above — the falling-shadow read the whole campaign reserves the vertical axis for.
When you close in. On the ground it occupies rather than attacks; the three-metre stair foot is the thing it is standing on, and standing there is most of what it does for the fight.
When it is hurt. It goes up the stair rather than away from it, so damage pushes the flock toward the objective instead of scattering it.
In a group. Many, and split into two visibly different states — wet and dark off the stain, or dry off the drum — which is what makes the pack a reading problem rather than an output one.
The lantern-nesterGrevnfast, the Skara-mouth outer headland
Abilities
The answer is the move the game expects: walk out, strafe, jump, blink or kite.
- The cast
- decay · drop · answer: walk out · leaves leaves damage over time
- The fetch
- physical · drop · answer: walk out
- Lane downdraught
- frost · beam · answer: strafe · leaves leaves slow
- Stage shed
- stone · bolt · answer: strafe
- Flight drop
- stone · drop · answer: jump
- Flight strike
- physical · bolt · answer: blink
- Mantling
- physical · self · answer: kite
At range. It does not leave the lantern-stage and does not need to; nine metres of height is its whole defence, and it is a legal ranged target from the yard for the entire fight.
When you close in. When the party reaches the stair's foot it steps round to the seaward flight and back — a committed move the player watches begin, never a disappearance.
When it is hurt. It does not defend itself, it defends the nest; what damage changes is how much of the flock is on the stair rather than loose in the yard.
In a group. It is the flock's price and never its captain — it orders nothing, and while it stands, the birds that have come down through the stain are expensive and the ones that have not are cheap.
The muster-serjeantGrevnfast, the Skara-mouth outer headland
Abilities
The answer is the move the game expects: walk out, strafe, jump, blink or kite.
- Held ground
- physical · self · answer: kite
- Committed swing
- physical · self · answer: strafe
At range. None. He stands in the three-metre fire-lane and waits, and a man standing in the only straight line in a yard is doing the whole of his job.
When you close in. He does not step off the lane, at any point, for any reason — the map's ordering stated as a body rather than as a rule.
When it is hurt. The drill tightens rather than breaks — hurt, he stops squaring to whoever is hitting him and holds square to the lane itself, so his front becomes exactly predictable while his ground never moves.
In a group. Two hold-levy on the charge-bins behind him, and he neither commands them nor acknowledges the brood coming down the stair four metres away.
Marked stoneThe inner-forest edge, the path to the hold
Abilities
The answer is the move the game expects: walk out, strafe, jump, blink or kite.
- Held ground
- physical · self · answer: kite
- Shed mass
- stone · halt · answer: strafe
At range. It does not travel and it does not throw; what it does is make the ground within a few metres of itself expensive, which is why the Mokrar walk around it.
When you close in. It turns to face and nothing else. It is not a pack member the party is choosing to leave alive — its kind is emplacement in everything but the schema's name for it: a placed body that acts and is never pursued, never counted toward what either room needs dead.
When it is hurt. It stops being able to turn as fast, so its safe side gets larger as the fight goes on rather than smaller.
In a group. It never moves with the brood and the brood never accounts for it; it is a fixed point that a wave happens to be arriving past.
Mound-broodThe inner-forest edge, the Mokrar clan-territory, inner forest, the path to the hold
Abilities
The answer is the move the game expects: walk out, strafe, jump, blink or kite.
- Worry
- nature · self · answer: kite
- Shed mass
- stone · halt · answer: strafe
At range. It has none and it does not need one; what it does at distance is cross the step out of dark into light, which makes it a silhouette before it is anything else.
When you close in. It closes and keeps closing, low and fast over root-mat and needle litter, and it makes no sound doing it on the wood floor.
When it is hurt. It comes apart into what it was made of and the pieces stay on the ground, so a fought-over floor is visibly a fought-over floor.
In a group. Many, arriving out of a treeline rather than standing in a room, and the number is what the encounter is spending rather than anything the creature decides.
The mound-headThe Mokrar clan-territory, inner forest
Abilities
The answer is the move the game expects: walk out, strafe, jump, blink or kite.
- Root run
- stone · bolt · answer: strafe
- Mat heave
- stone · halt · answer: walk out
- Splinter cast
- physical · bolt · answer: strafe
- Seep reach
- void · beam · answer: blink
- Ramp buck
- stone · bolt · answer: jump
- Mound close
- stone · self · answer: kite
- Still mat
- None · self · answer: kite · leaves leaves slow
- Ring gives
- fire · self · answer: jump
- Ring warmth
- fire · self · answer: kite
- Ramp close
- stone · bolt · answer: blink
- Run scar
- fire · halt · answer: walk out
- Rime line
- frost · bolt · answer: strafe · leaves leaves slow
- Pan shatter
- frost · halt · answer: jump
- Last warmth
- fire · drop · answer: walk out
At range. It never leaves the mound; what reaches a player comes up out of the root-mat he is standing on, along a root-run that is visible on the floor before it arrives.
When you close in. Nothing changes until the ramp is clear — it does not defend the climb, the brood does, and it does not react to being approached at all.
When it is hurt. The ring is what changes; hurting it makes the six to eight metres at the mound's base the expensive ground, so the last approach costs more than the first.
In a group. It is the brood's price and not its captain, and it is the only body in the clearing that has been here for three years.
Mokrar boundary-walkerThe path to the hold
Abilities
The answer is the move the game expects: walk out, strafe, jump, blink or kite.
- Drawn shot
- physical · bolt · answer: strafe
- Flank return
- shadow · self · answer: strafe
At range. A bow from the treeline, opened at the flank and never from the track, and they do not step into a clearing that already has a wave in it.
When you close in. They give ground along the field-walls and step over them; a waist-high dry-stone wall is nothing to somebody who has walked this boundary all his life and it is a real obstacle to what comes out of the trees.
When it is hurt. They break off and re-form further up the track, and they will do that as many times as the track allows.
In a group. Two or three, working as one because they have walked together for years rather than because anything told them to.
Clinker-walkerVorthskarr's slag-ground and walls
Abilities
The answer is the move the game expects: walk out, strafe, jump, blink or kite.
- Kept heat
- fire · self · answer: kite · leaves leaves damage over time
- Shed mass
- stone · halt · answer: strafe
At range. No attack, but a fact to track from across the floor — the line it is already walking, since a body with no face and no front gives you nothing else to read, and forty-six metres of flat floor is enough room to watch that line and decide, calmly, whether it is worth crossing before this thing does.
When you close in. It walks into the fight and stays in it; there is no wind-up to read and no moment to time, which makes it a kite problem and never a walk-out one.
When it is hurt. It sheds clinker and gets smaller and faster, so the same body asks a different question in the second half of the fight than in the first.
In a group. Three or four at a time, arriving out of the pours rather than from an entrance, and they are the whole of the floor's pressure while the boss is doing something else.
Forge salamanderVorthskarr's slag-ground and walls, the lower hall and the bench-forges
Abilities
The answer is the move the game expects: walk out, strafe, jump, blink or kite.
- Kept heat
- fire · self · answer: kite · leaves leaves damage over time
- Lit spill
- fire · halt · answer: walk out · leaves leaves damage over time
At range. A low spit along the ground that ignites where it lands and stays lit, so its range is measured in ground taken rather than in damage delivered.
When you close in. It gives ground backwards onto whatever is warmest and keeps its face to you, which in these two rooms means it retreats toward the wall course and the bench line rather than away from them.
When it is hurt. It goes to ground under a bench or against the hot course and comes back out, so damage buys a pause and never a rout.
In a group. Two or three, low and scattered, and the only body in either room a player can lose track of because it is below bench height.
The slag-founderVorthskarr's slag-ground and walls
Abilities
The answer is the move the game expects: walk out, strafe, jump, blink or kite.
- The pour
- fire · drop · answer: walk out
- Slag run
- fire · bolt · answer: strafe
- Clinker cast
- stone · bolt · answer: strafe
- Curtain spall
- stone · bolt · answer: strafe
- Tap run
- fire · halt · answer: jump
- Founder close
- fire · self · answer: kite
- Runoff line
- fire · beam · answer: blink
- Heavy pour
- fire · drop · answer: walk out
- Both taps
- fire · halt · answer: jump
- Live ridges
- fire · halt · answer: strafe
- Course line
- fire · self · answer: walk out
- Gantry run
- fire · bolt · answer: strafe
- The shove
- stone · bolt · answer: strafe
- Over the side
- fire · drop · answer: walk out
- Wall spall
- stone · bolt · answer: strafe
- Stairhead
- fire · self · answer: kite
At range. It pours. What it throws is the hold's own poured waste, arcing onto the flat black floor, and the arc is the tell because the floor is dressed thinly enough to show it.
When you close in. It does not back away and it does not climb to escape; the two ways up are the party's decision and it will be waiting at whichever one gets used.
When it is hurt. At a health threshold it takes the gantry, and after that the floor is a place the party has left rather than a place it is fighting on.
In a group. The clinker-walkers on the slag are not commanded and are not summoned; they are what the floor is made of, standing up, and they arrive on their own schedule.
The unfinishedVorthskarr's slag-ground and walls, the lower hall and the bench-forges
Abilities
The answer is the move the game expects: walk out, strafe, jump, blink or kite.
- Kept heat
- fire · self · answer: kite · leaves leaves damage over time
- Committed swing
- physical · self · answer: strafe
At range. It has none, and it never had one; every version of this body is a half-shaped piece of stock that has to be brought to you.
When you close in. A single heavy swing on a long commitment, and it lands where it looked because commitment is global and this body has nothing else to trade on.
When it is hurt. It does not stagger and it does not stop mid-swing; a promise it has started is a promise it finishes, which is the range's plainest statement of that rule.
In a group. Several, and never in a line — they come out of the bench rows in a busy, bright, shrinking room, and the aisles are what decides how many arrive at once.
Dead-air driftThe lower hall and the bench-forges
Abilities
The answer is the move the game expects: walk out, strafe, jump, blink or kite.
- Dead air
- None · halt · answer: walk out
At range. It does not attack. What it does at any distance is carry a patch of the hall's own dead air to a new stretch of floor and leave it there, and the patch is the whole creature's contribution to the fight.
When you close in. It gives way. It is the one body in the range that will not close, will not stand and cannot hold ground, and killing it is easy and usually the wrong use of a party's attention.
When it is hurt. It disperses without a death throe, and the patches it has already set down stay exactly where they were until they lift on their own.
In a group. One or two at a time in a hall with three or four other bodies in it, and everything it does is aimed at making somebody else's fight more expensive.
The instrumentThe great central hearth
Abilities
The answer is the move the game expects: walk out, strafe, jump, blink or kite.
- The draw
- pure · beam · answer: strafe
- The surround
- fire · self · answer: kite
- Channel margin
- pure · self · answer: kite
- The samples
- stone · bolt · answer: strafe
- The grid
- stone · halt · answer: jump
- The cold channel
- frost · self · answer: kite
- The kerb
- fire · self · answer: walk out
- The relight
- fire · beam · answer: strafe
- The outer arc
- stone · halt · answer: jump
- The far draw
- pure · beam · answer: blink
- The hold
- pure · self · answer: walk out
- The inner ends
- fire · self · answer: strafe
- The return
- pure · beam · answer: strafe
- All eight
- pure · self · answer: walk out
At range. It acts along eight fixed channels cut into the floor rather than from a body outward, so what a player measures is his distance from whichever channel is currently bright, never his distance from the boss.
When you close in. The apparatus keeps running its own comparison at its own rate regardless of where the party stands; what approach actually changes is the room's own phase state, and the ground near the hearth costs to stand on because the surround has never cooled.
When it is hurt. Damage shortens the reading, and a shorter reading draws from more channels at once rather than harder from one — the fight escalates in concurrency, never in a number.
In a group. It is alone; the eight cressets are its sources — they hold a channel awake or asleep, stand to be occupied, and can be broken, and nothing here ever hunts anybody.