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Monsters and Knowledge

Monster Content Goals

Monsters should be more than stat bags. They should carry ecological identity, regional familiarity, material outputs, and player-discovered knowledge.

Drop Types by Creature Class

Creature families follow a consistent drop rule.

Human-type enemies (bandits, brigands, deserters, corsairs — the Raiders and Brigands family): - Drop coin on defeat - May also drop carried equipment or goods

All other creature types (beasts, goblinoids, undead, constructs, vermin, elementals, fae, drakes, trollkin, aberrations, and all non-human families): - Drop materials only — no coin - Materials must be collected through a wilderness activity selected before departure (harvesting beast carcasses, gathering, mining, etc.) - Each selected wilderness activity adds time to the expedition duration

This rule is consistent across all families. Goblinoids have no use for coin and carry none. Undead have no coin on them either. Only human-type enemies that would plausibly carry currency actually do.

Core Monster Families

The game should plan for a broader family set than the original sketch. See monster-families.md for the full family plan.

For the single-region Frontier Marches launch centered on Trevalkaan, activate at least six families and target around thirty distinct enemies so repeat expeditions do not become stale too quickly. See launch-bestiary-plan.md for the exact counts.

Each family should branch into regional variants so players learn both broad category and local behavior.

Knowledge Progression

Knowledge should build per area and per monster type through:

  • fighting
  • scouting
  • surviving encounters
  • reading codex entries
  • buying maps or reports
  • guild knowledge sharing

Knowledge should also stack at multiple layers:

  • family familiarity
  • species familiarity
  • regional variant familiarity

Knowledge Layers

  1. Unknown: vague silhouette or threat rumors.
  2. Identified: name, family, danger tier.
  3. Observed: attacks, resistances, likely habitat.
  4. Studied: weaknesses, preferred prey, drop hints, route behavior.
  5. Mastered: encounter modifiers, rare variants, efficient counters.

Why This Matters

The system makes repeated travel and regional hunting valuable. It also creates a market for information because veteran players can sell better routes, reports, and contracts tied to known threats.

Example Regional Pairings

  • Frontier Marches (launch region, Trevalkaan hub): beasts, goblinoids, brigands, grave-bound dead, vermin, ruined sentries.
  • Frost Tundra: ice beasts, frost wights, trollkin, white drakes, storm forms, aberrant cave things.
  • Sunscar Desert: tomb guardians, raiders, sand beasts, dust elementals, lesser netherborn, buried constructs.
  • Storm Coast: drowned dead, corsairs, reef drakes, aquatic horrors, storm spirits, lighthouse wardens.
  • Ashwood Wilds: fae hunters, cursed beasts, plant horrors, witches, root guardians, swarms.

Creature Grade Escalation

Every creature can escalate in grade over time if left unkilled. The four grades are Normal → Rare → Elite → Boss, driven by the daily settlement tick. A creature that survives for seven ticks (~1 real week) without being killed becomes a Boss of its species. Bosses are hard-capped at one per zone and three total per region to prevent map saturation.

See creature-grade-escalation.md for the full escalation timeline, boss spawn limits, grade-by-grade stats and board urgency rules, village security interactions, and knowledge visibility tiers.