The Horror

The Horror

There are lots of horrible things in the world, and you have most likely never encountered or experienced them.

Tell me you can fight a dragon in mele if you have never even seen one before and thought they were not real right up until all 2 tons of it landed at your feet with its 60’ wingspan and 20 foot long neck.  Yep, just roll initiative, that’s all.  Whatever.

Horror Checks are made each time you encounter a sufficiently scary situation, like being attacked by a Gater, or falling out of your skiff and into the bog.  Or sleeping in a marsh for the first time, without a moon, or seeing the undead up and close, despite not engaging it in combat.

IF you are Battle Hardened, you just need to roll a Horror Check, which is Wisdom and Strength, Divided by two and rounded down.

If you make it, your fine.  If you roll a 1, you get bonuses in combat with that type of creature.  If you roll a twenty, it becomes something you are Afraid OF.  It is possible to be afraid of several things, like crossing rivers, Rock Climbing, Horses and Wyverns.  Once you are afraid of something, you have 3 fear markers on that thing.  The can only be removed by Facing your Fear.

When you are afraid of something, it affects all aspects of your encounters with that thing.  What you are able to do is also affected, according to the DM’s Discretion.  Maybe you will have no real effects, and just block out the memory completely.  You might have to role play refusing to get into a boat, or climb a mountain, or get back on the horse.  You may simply just have a penalty to combat, or you may be come catatonic when presented with the fear.  All of these things happen all the time in the real world.

You may remove fear Markers with the permission of the DM, but you must ask, if you don't care and don't ask if you faced your fear well, you don't get any markers removed.  As a player you must track them.  Once they are all removed, you no longer suffer penalties when encountering that fear.  you may choose to live with your fear also, which will earn you bonus experience.  You resign to always fear the thing in question, and when roleplayed well, can get awarded bonus XP.

You may also seek magic to rid  you of your fears, or the Gypsies can brew a potion for you if your up to that sort of thing.

Being afraid of something makes it difficult for you to do that thing.  It does not mean its impossible.  Fear reactions will be determined by the DM.  If you encounter undead, it is the players responsibility to remind the DM that they are afraid of undead.  The DM can then decide what to do.  In the case of Rath, he  was with three other fighters and they were taking the lead so Rath experienced no penalties or modifiers even when it came time for him to step to the front line.  We was also able to remove a fear counter at the end of the encounter.  Loric however, is afraid of Flying Monsters, and while traveling alone, a wyvern surprised him and swooped down, knocking the halfling off his pony, but failed to catch him and carry him away.  When Loric got to his feet and saw it was a wyvern circling he debated standing to fight it with his short sword.  The Wyvvern did not appear to be interested in landing and was linign up for another swoop attack.  Loric received a -6 to hit, -6 to damage and a +6 t AC to attempt such a thing, so he quickly decided against it and sought shelter in the trees, and avoid combat entirely.  The wyvern tired and left to look for easier prey.  Loric, lived, but did not face a fear, so did not get to remove any counters for facing his fear, but because he did survive an encounter with a Wyvern and lived, the DM gave him a roll to see if he could remove a fear counter of 25%, he rolled 11% and so in the end was able to remove a fear counter.