Mortal Reins has 3 main types of foes: adversaries, monsters, and Titans. Adversaries are likely to be your most common type of foe. These are other people and sentient races like ogres, soldiers, & thieves, as well as wild animals. Much like player characters, adversaries are comprised of both narrative details and numerical statistics. Unlike player characters, however, you’re likely to need a lot of them, and sometimes you’ll need to write several of them quickly. For this reason there are a few tricks and shortcuts you can use to avoid writing up a whole character sheet for each of them. One Possibility is choosing from our premade list of adversaries and adjusting them to suit your campaigns needs. Alternatively, you can use this nifty difficulty chart to assign each adversary a +1-+5 difficulty.
The difficulty number also determines the value of the adversary’s core stat, or the strongest stat they have. From there, assign 2 secondary stats a value just below the core stat, and the two remaining stats are given a value just below those of the secondary stats.
Once you have numbers down, assign your adversary or group of adversaries a few words of description. This basic description of who they are and what they do will guide you in determining the skills and equipment they might possess. Choose a few spells if your adversaries use magic, and then come up with a game plan. Your game plan is the way your adversaries approach conflict. One group may run head-on into a fight while another may use stealth and illusion to confuse their enemies before striking from the shadows.
Monsters are typically larger, stronger, and rarer than adversaries. The people of your world may even think them to be mere myths and legends. This can be fun to play up, as it gives the Game Master an opportunity to build up to the encounter through foreshadowing and bits of lore. In addition, the legendary nature of monsters means fewer limitations to their statistical abilities. Most monsters will have a 0 empathy stat. They may be able to communicate, but their way of thinking is often incomprehensible to mortals. Monsters should have weaknesses that the players could utilize to gain an upper-hand, but there is no expectation of a fair fight or survival against a monster.
The last of the foes are titans. These beings are generally large enough to make a castle look like a toy, and are not recorded in terms of stat blocks. Individual parts and organs, however, may have the stat blocks of monsters size 4 and up (Your average human is a size 1.) Luckily for the players, these creatures rarely pay any mind to individual mortals. They can be killed if the party finds a sufficient weak spot, but they can also be traversed by the players as part of the setting, and may be host to other adversaries and monsters.
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