Learnable Enemies for Through the Veil

sil_eibm

The suffering inherent in death is enough pressure to purify a soul like diamond or to crush a man. Even those souls of such caliber to pass through the Veil and retain some of their humanity cannot bear the weight of it forever. Their hearts twist and souls diminish. Their body is left. Acting out pain and violence.

This fate is not merely for the Undead which populate the Veil'd World, but all beings who walk in these shadows. Everything is consumed in the end when the flames goes out. 

Mindless, semi-predictable enemies are a cornerstone of the Souls experience. They reward careful attention and reading the telegraphing wind-ups of enemies is a skill a player can develop. This is why I have learnable enemies as a design goal. We'll use husks. You can tell a husk by empty eyes, slack jaws, and murderous intent. Constructs and other barely soul'd entities will behave similarly.

In our system, we can differentiate attacks by the number of stamina dice used and defensive moves are already nicely divided into Dodge, Block, and Parry. These are plenty. We will just choose the number of stam the husk likes to use to attack and its preferred defensive maneuver. 

Something like this:

Stowaway
Lurkers near the shore of souls, trapped or perhaps drawn to the rushing current of souls passing through into the Veil'd World. Some of them may have had hope that they could make it back across on the ferryman's barge. You can see how that worked out for them.
2 (9hp)/2 stam/2 focus/0 humanity
Attack: 1 stam claws/unarmed
Defense: Dodge
Armor: -
Stalks travelers in the shadows hoping to hide amongst them and be taken to wherever they are going. It must be better than here.

Combat, then is simple for a GM, but can still be dangerous and interesting for a player. Consider an encounter with a few of these Stowaways. 

"You notice a humanoid shadow stalking you from just beyond your torchlight."

!!!

"Uh, I pause, draw my sword, and approach."

"Two hands lunge forward from the dark toward your throat! 1d6 damage to you."

I block! 3 plus my armor of 1, 4.

"the hands grasp at your shield. No damage."

"I stab! 1d6, 4 damage."

"As the emaciated husk leaps backward you finally get a good look at them, rags cover a mummified body and empty eyes. Dodge roll of 3. You deal 4 damage."

So after the first round, you have performed both of this husk's typical actions. But the player doesn't know that necessarily. Does the husk attack with 1 dice all the time? Does it have another attack? Does it change strategy after its initial ambush attempt? Does it change behavior when there are more of them? All good questions yet unanswered. After an encounter or two, they will know what to look for and be ready. 

More complex husks are possible. Not much needs to be added to make it much harder to figure out just what a husk will do.

Robed Supplicant
Pilgrims once walked a path between the Standing Stones, providing maintenance at the holy sites and collecting alms from the sympathetic. I'm sure some of them are still wondering about.
1 (5hp)/1 stam/2 focus/0 humanity
Spell: prayer beads with light, hymnal with bless (+1 to rolls ongoing).

Attack: 1 stam claws if out of spells
Defense: Dodge
Armor: -
Walks the path, collecting alms. Will enrage if refused.

So now a monster which will spend a few turns casting spells before switching behavior. Let's push the concept a bit to something more dangerous.

Black Riders
Those Stones are important. There's something about them. Can't remember why. They are guarded though. Black riders want something to do with them. Maybe they could tell you.
2 (9hp)/4 stam/1 focus/0 humanity
Charge: curved glaive (3 stam) while mounted, rides at distance until stam returns.
Attack: glaive (2 stam) if dismounted
Defense: Parry with all current stam
Armor: 2 black robes and chain
Landing hooves are the only warning. Will keep all others away from the Stones.

The enemy's behavior for two phases (mounted, ground) summed up in a few lines. Also, quite dangerous as I bet a few cautious PCs will be tempted to attack without risking much stamina initially to test the waters, only to be parried into oblivion. Fun!!

Before we get to bosses, there is one more category. Those with a shred of humanity left. For those, no standard actions or patterns are necessary. They operate the same as a typical monster you may run in your game. Chose actions that with the narrative of the monster in your game. 

Tutor Duenweg

The tutor has always been here, as far as I can tell. Something about this place wants to teach and for you to know. To know that you don't have what it takes. Look at all the students there, they've learned their lesson.

stats as PCs/3 humanity
The tutor lectures all day. His class is open to anyone. He teaches through example and will mirror the equipment and stats of a single PC and challenge them to a 1:1 duel. Then he will kick their ass.

A few example monsters for our undead knights to battle. Since the best monsters are tied closely to the locale they are in, most of the monsters will be written along with a location. This post is to propose a simple notation and some design info for them.