The Bestiary
The alchemists of old did not stop at metals. Their creations — and their escapes — still walk the world.
Creature lairs
Five great lairs stand in the wilds, each heavily warded and each home to one of the great creatures:
| Lair | Creature | Fights like |
|---|---|---|
| Golem Foundry | Brass Golem | An anvil with fists — huge, armored, slow |
| Salamander Vent | Salamander | A walking furnace — searing ranged fire |
| Basilisk Pit | Basilisk | The crowned serpent — venom at speed |
| Quicksilver Well | Quicksilver Elemental | Living mercury — faster than any rider |
| Chimera Vats | Chimera | Three beasts stitched into one fury |
Capture a lair, march a party onto it and open Recruit: the beast that lives there is on the bench like any other hire — for a fortune up front and a ruinous daily gold upkeep. Miss a day's pay and the creature rampages: it mauls its own party for half their health, then abandons you. Feed your monsters.
A beast is bought, never sworn: it costs no Follower, and it can never be mustered from a holding or sent as a reinforcement. You go to the lair, or you go without.
The Wilds
Packs of Homunculi — vat-spill given legs, the little horrors of the wastes — roam the world and hunt any party they find, sometimes with an escaped creature among them. They belong to no guild, take no gifts, and cannot be tamed.
The Beastmaster
Any city grown to level 3 attracts a Beastmaster — hire one into a party from that city's Recruit bench (200🪙 and a Follower).
They are no soldier. A Beastmaster barely swings, and carries only a knife, a herding stave and charms: their trade is the snare. What they are worth is what they bring back alive — and the stave is there because a keeper's work is arts, which is what a staff is for.
- After a won battle, each downed creature has a chance of being taken alive and joining you, upkeep and all. Homunculi are never worth keeping; the Beastmaster won't even try.
- Setting a snare — the command bar's 🪤 Set Trap, on open ground away from any holding — baits something out of the wild. It costs the whole day's marching, and there is no declining it: the fight opens at once, and the quarry moves first.
On the field the Beastmaster gains a 🪤 Snare action against a beast standing next to them. The weaker the beast, the likelier it goes into the sack — wear it down first, but do not kill it: a dead beast ends the battle with nothing to show. A successful snare ends the fight then and there and the beast is yours.
Trapper's tools — snare-cords, torcs, muzzles — are accessories that add to those odds, and they only ever turn up as loot for a party that keeps a Beastmaster.
Taming
A beast learns no trade. What it earns instead is tameness — it gets used to its keepers — and a settled beast is far cheaper to feed. Keep one in a Beastmaster's company and it settles a little further every day.
Each kind also brings a trick nobody teaches it:
| Beast | Its own art |
|---|---|
| Chimera | Venom — the bite keeps working for three more turns |
| Basilisk | Petrifying Gaze — one look and they cannot take a step |
| Salamander | Ember Breath — fire over a three-tile square |
| Quicksilver Elemental | Quicksilver Surge — strikes, then moves again |
| Brass Golem | Brazen Guard — +3 guard to itself and everyone beside it |
Homunculi can be snared too. They are vat-spill and they learn nothing, but they have legs and they can be made to carry a spear.
The Bestiary
Raise a Bestiary in a city's ring (220🪙 and 20💎 at a level-2 city): a keepers' hall with stalls, a paddock and a feed trough. Post Followers to it as you would to any craft.
A level-3 city with four keepers posted to its Bestiary opens beast lore for research — skills no hall will teach you:
| Skill | What it does |
|---|---|
| Beast Bond | Every beast in the hero's party fights at +3 attack and +3 defence |
| Wild Heart | Beasts feed for half the gold and mend 15% of their health a day |
| Quickening Balm | Shared with the alchemists — see below |
These belong to a Beastmaster raised to Champion, and to no one else. A Beastmaster can be promoted like any other veteran.
The Quickening Balm
An alchemist's study (researched at a level-2 hall) that a Beastmaster shares. On the battlefield it is laid on ground, not on a body, and soaks in three battlefield turns later — turns of the fight, not of your own — healing everyone standing in that patch when it settles.
The delay is the point: you are committing to where your wounded will be, not where they are. In a Beastmaster's hands the balm tends only the beasts.