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Creatures

The world is full of creatures of all sorts, from great dragons guarding hoards of treasure, to tiny rodents surviving in the sewers.

Creature Types​

Most creatures you will encounter will fall into one or more of the following categories.

Incorporeal​

Incorporeal creatures have a tenuous grasp on the physical world. This means they can fly, travel through solid objects and are often resistant to purely physical effects. Examples include:

  • Ghosts: When a creature dies under extreme stress or with unfinished business, their spirit lingers and haunts the physical world as a Ghost.
  • Shades: Shades are animated shadows that prowl and hunt in the dark.

Magical​

Magical creatures are those that possess some innate magical abiity. This also frequently means they are resistant to magical effects. Examples include:

  • Dragons: From the youngest of hatchlings to most ancient great wyrms, dragons can be majestic, wise, cunning or deadly, depending on their mood and nature.
  • Guardian Statues: Usually constructed from wood, stone or metal, and animated by specific magical rituals, Guardian Statues are bound a specific place or person and have the sole purpose of protecting their charge at all cost.
  • Sentient Slime: Often a byproduct of magical experiments gone wrong, sentient slime tend to have a single-mided purpose: consume everything.

Natural​

Creatures that are part of the natural world, result from natural phenomenon, or don't have the characteristics of other creature types. This encompasses most plants, animals, and sapient creatures. Other examples include:

  • Elementals: Concentrated pure elemental energy can result in sentient creatures known as "elementals". While fire, water, air, electricity and acid elementals are the most common varieties, hybrid elementals are known to exist in places where two or more of elements are prominent.
  • Clockwork Constructs: Clockwork constructs are purely mechanical inventions that can be designed for a variety of different purposes, from serving food in a tavern to being a bodyguard.
  • Insect Swarm: While a single insect is no threat to adventurers, a swarm of them acting in concert can be form a deadly foe.

Undead​

This type applies to creatures who, either through their own efforts or someone else's intervention, have subverted the natural cycle of life and death. Undead creatures often have a vulnerability, most commonly to silver weapons. Powerful undead creatures may also have specific requirements without which they aren't truly destroyed. Examples include:

  • Skeletons: Frequently found roaming graveyards and crypts, Skeletons are mindless servants to whatever power raised them from their rest.
  • Shamblers: Whether due to a curse or disease, sometimes a creature barely has time to die before undeath takes hold, creating a shambling shell that hungers for living flesh.
  • Vampires: There are numerous rituals through which Vampires are created, and no two Vampires are exactly the same. They can be powerful—if morally questionable—allies and dangerous enemies. Killing a Vampire in a fight is rarely enough to completely destroy them; To achieve that, one must discover the ritual which created them and figure out a way to reverse it.

Creature Resistance, Immunity & Vulnerability​

Creatures of a particular type, or powerful creatures of any type, may be resistant or outright immune to certain effects. Actions that a creature's resistance applies to have -1 effect, where as actions that interact with a creature's immunity always have no effect.

Creatures can also by vulnerable to certain effects. In this case, actions that a creature's vulnerability applies to have +1 effect.