Hello all. This past gather was my first in town, and as such I found myself standing against many foes I had never heard of nor faced. Man sized birds, land beasts called angler fish, large wolves under the command of necromancers and many other beasts I can not even recall what people called.
Neither myself nor my fellow newcomers knew how to handle many of these threats, and many we asked also had no clue. We were lost and ended up fruitlessly throwing martial and magical skills in the hope something would work and we learned little for our trouble.
For at least the benefit of those who can read texts, and for those who can benefit from texts being read to us, can those with the knowledge come together to draft a list of the beats and forces that have been encountered in the witchwood and what has and has not worked against them?
I feel it would not only be the new among us who would benefit from this endeavour.
I have been considering assembling a formal bestiary and antagonist guide for some time; I know many of us “old hands” (a relative term at best) have a smattering of knowledge but I suspect we’d all benefit from sharing information about what we have seen and found to be effective. For example, these are impressions I have, but I welcome additional information or corrections:
Vigamor: Immune to Sleep and Silence, take Weakness as significant damage.
Undead: Immune to Sleep, Poison, and Venom, take Spirit Darts as Spirit Strikes and Spirit Strikes as very significant damage. Can be turned (i.e. held at bay) by Mystics; more powerful Undead may require multiple Mystics working together. Incorporeal Undead and Shades (which are somewhat rare but occur regularly) cannot be harmed by physical attacks, but magic (especially Spirit Darts/Strikes) is still effective. Some Incorporeal Undead CAN be harmed by physical attacks while they are being turned, often requiring two or three Mystics to effectively turn them.
Drakes, Elementals, etc.: Usually immune to their own element and take increased damage (as Undead with Spirit attacks, above) from their opposing element. Earth Drakes (at least) have stone-hard limbs and do not suffer damage, Maims, etc. when struck there.
Giant Spiders: Immune to Venom, Poison, Trip, Maim, Wither, and strikes to their hard chitin backs. This includes immunity to being Subdued.
Anglerfish: Anglerfish possess a regenerative organ near the base of the skull that allows them to rise and resume fighting a few minutes after being dealt a mortal blow. This organ must be excised by applying a Maim to the top of the neck after striking the creature down (OOG: a gentle touch, obviously, don’t thwack downed NPC’s on the back of the head)
(Out-of-game note: it might be useful to remember this post and thread from the spring: Monster Revisions (2019). Some minor details (like exactly what is immune to exactly what) have changed, and I am willing to say that at least one thing in the above post is incorrect: Vigamor are not immune to Silence.)
Vigamor are not immune to sleep and silence, just more resistant to them. I’ve successfully silenced a green one before - I want to say it took 6-8 silence. It is worth noting that Vigamor probably take weakness like undead take spirit strikes. Vigamor with a caster in the group tend to have a spellshield, and more powerful ones seem to be able to resist a small number of spells, in addition to their sleep/silence resistance. While not poison resistant, many vigamor can parry. Its also worth noting that Vigamor are color coded - the eye stripe indicates their power level with red being the weakest and blue being the strongest. So a weakness might drop a red one, and significantly annoy the rest in varying amounts.
Gryndelow are poison resistant to various degrees, and can frequently maim. There seem to be similar tiers among them as there are among Vigamor but they do not conveniently color code themselves.
There were rumors that Anglerfish may also draw power from having multiple foes facing them, so you may need a small group to face them successfully.
Creatures from umbra tend to be fairly varied in what weaknesses they have. Of note are “Endings” who if they kill you sometimes grant you a spirit shard if they think your death had a good story.
A related note from your local Alchemy Guildmaster. Which creatures should you harvest components from?
Vigamor: cut out their eyeballs.
Giant Spiders: wearing gloves, trace their fangs back to the venom gland, and cut out the gland.
Grindlekings: these powerful creatures are often leading a large group of grindelow. Cut out the grindleking’s heart.
Phoenixes: if you see one explode or burn up, search the area for an egg. The egg should be gold, with little red stars.
Hydras: you need to death strike each head within I think a minute of each other for it to go down. Then cut open the hydra to find an egg. It should be large and dark green with mustard yellow splotches.
The Alchemists will purchase any of these, or exchange them for a wide variety of elixirs or favors. Help us help you.