Running Threat Categories

AX.GHW.14.01.05 Brief operational notes for each threat category. Detailed mechanics are in the individual threat files; this covers GM approach and tone.

Undead

Undead scenarios have two registers: horror (the threat is disturbing and existential, someone you care about is now a zombie, the ghost is a murdered child) and action (clearing out a vampire's territory requires methodical tactical engagement). The best undead scenarios use both. The horror register creates emotional engagement; the action register gives it resolution.

Vampire social dynamics reward investment, Vampire Elders and Master Vampires have court politics, history, and long-term agendas. A Vampire Elder is not just a strong vampire; it is a centuries-old entity that has been managing its territory since before the city it lives in had a name. That history can be a hook, a complication, or a resource.

Shadow Entities

Shadow entity scenarios are about cost and consequence. The Hollow operate through compacts; everything has terms. The characters are always potentially at risk of inadvertently entering an obligation, saying the wrong words, accepting something that was offered with strings. Make sure the characters feel the weight of that risk without making them paralyzed by it.

The Crossroads Shadow and Greater Shadow Entity are both negotiation problems wrapped in a combat body. If the characters try to fight their way through a Shadow entity scenario without engaging the compact mechanics, they will solve it incompletely, the entity returns, or a bound individual is still bound, or the Shadow entity simply waits for the next opening.

Shapeshifters

Shapeshifter scenarios often have a victim within the threat. Werewolves were infected; they didn't choose this. The Alpha may have. The Wolf Pack is following instinct. The moral calculus of silver rounds is complicated, and making that complication felt, a player character reloading with silver to take down someone who attacked them, knowing the person on the other end was human last week, is a core genre beat.

Skinwalker scenarios should handle the cultural context with care. The entry in 04-shapeshifter.md includes a handling note; this is a place where player buy-in and table tone matter before the scene is run.

Fae

Fae scenarios reward patience and precision. The party that rushes to cold iron is not wrong exactly, but they're leaving the most interesting options on the table. The Banshee that seems like a threat is providing intelligence. The Trickster that seems like an obstacle might solve two other problems if offered the right deal. The Fae Lord that seems impossible to fight can be bound to a departure through negotiation.

Run fae with the sense that they have been here longer than the characters and know things the characters don't. They are not inscrutable, they have clear desires and follow consistent internal logic, but that logic is not human logic.

Cryptids

Cryptid scenarios are Veil management problems with a creature as the immediate cause. The characters are rarely in danger of not surviving a cryptid encounter; they are in danger of the encounter becoming public knowledge. Build the scenario around the investigative attention as much as the creature. The Sasquatch is manageable; the national news crew that's following up on the reports is not.

Mothman scenarios work best when the disaster it is heralding is something the characters can actually affect. The Mothman is not the problem; the bridge failure (or whatever) is the problem. Give them something to prevent.

Cursed and Possessed

These scenarios are at their best when the human being is present throughout. A possessed civilian who manages to surface for a moment and beg for help is a different engagement than a combat encounter. A cursed individual whose deterioration is visible session to session creates urgency that timer mechanics cannot replicate.

The exorcism as climax has a specific structure: the characters have to create the conditions (incapacitate the host safely, clear the space, give the practitioner time), and then the practitioner has to perform under pressure with the team protecting them. That structure creates interdependence, everyone has a role, and failure at any point changes the outcome.

Aberrations

Aberration scenarios require preparation and commitment. The characters need to understand what they're facing before they arrive (Lore research, Mediumship tradition sensing), they need the right tools (a Mediumship practitioner capable of Breach Closure), and they need a plan for managing the ambient Veil Fracture damage that accumulates throughout.

The Veil Fracture mechanic is the aberration category's unique contribution to campaign health management. Track it carefully; it is the resource the characters are spending throughout an aberration-heavy arc, and hitting 0 Wit should feel like a genuine consequence, not a bookkeeping exercise.