[Beast]Lairs

Beast: The Primordial

Welcome back! Before we get into our next Beast reveal, I want to mention that if you happen to be attending GenCon in Indianapolis this summer, you can sign up to play Beast: The Primordial. Just plug the word “beast” into the “game system” slot when searching for events. I’m running the Thursday 8PM slot (“The Skull Beneath the Skin”).

And on we go!

Every dragon has her cave, every kraken his ocean. A Beast is both human being and an ancient, Primordial creature. Beast and Soul are permanently entwined — at any time, a Beast can concentrate and see through his Soul’s eyes, deep in the Primordial Dream. When the material, fleshy world is especially similar to his inner landscape, he can even step through physically, vanishing to fully inhabit his other self.

The monstrous form victims see in their dreams is only part of a Beast’s Soul, however, albeit an important one. The dream-landscape the Soul hunts in is as much a part of the nightmare as the monster at its heart, and equally vital to the Beast. That landscape grows as the Beast explores his Legend, incorporating places from his physical life as it expands. It’s his sanctuary within the Primordial Dream, his hunting grounds — his Lair.

Lair in Beast: The Primordial is an Advantage rated from 1 to 10 dots. It determines both the raw power of the Beast’s Soul and the size and traits of the Lair it resides in. As Beasts explore their Legends, their Lairs expand.

Chambers and Burrows

Only a very young Beast has his Soul confined to a single “location” in the Primordial Dream, and even one mere days from realizing his Primordial self has the potential for growth. As Beasts age and explore their Legends, their Lairs expand to incorporate additional Chambers based on locations they have encountered in the physical world. Within the Primordial Dream, the different Chambers of a Beast’s Lair act like rooms, connected by dream “passageways” called Burrows. Beasts have a much easier time accessing their Lair in locations resembling one of their Chambers, and can even open Primordial Pathways to allow others access, but the more Chambers a Beast has, the further her soul ranges when starving, and the more opportunities a Hero has to break into the Lair.

Expanding the Lair

The Primordial Dream is a deep, almost animalistic layer of the human soul. It exists beneath the veneer of sapience and civilization that comforts the World of Darkness’ population, and it’s in this unsettling layer that Beasts make their Lairs. To expand the Lair and add an additional Chamber, a Beast must find a location in the physical world that resonates with both her Legend and the Primordial Dream.

A location qualifies for inclusion in the Primordial Dream as long as it meets the following requirements;

The environment must contain at least one element matching a Lair Trait in the Beast’s Lair.

And either

The Beast must have achieved an exceptional success on a Nightmare activation roll within the scene

Or

Another character must have lost Integrity via a breaking point within the scene.

If the scene meets these requirements and the Beast has an available Chamber slot due to her Lair rating, the player simply pays one Satiety and the new Chamber forms with one Burrow of the Beast’s design connecting it to any already existing Chamber.

Even after the effort to trigger the Lair’s expansion, though, the process of adding to the Primordial Dream is taxing. A Beast can only add one additional Chamber to her Lair per story.

Lair Traits

Every Beast’s Lair is unique, an expression of her Primordial Self honed as hunting ground and sanctuary. By exploiting the Lair within herself, a Beast can cause the material world to take on some of its properties, with effects ranging from the subtle to the explosive.

Beast characters have a number of Lair Traits determined by their Lair rating. When the character gains Lair, the player can choose new Lair Traits as appropriate. These Traits are Environmental Tilts describing conditions within the Lair. For example, a kraken-form Makara might have the Lair Traits “Flooded” and “Freezing Cold.”

Imposing Traits

When a Beast finds himself in a situation outside the Lair where one or more of his Lair Trait Tilts is already in effect, the location is resonant with his Traits. While resonant, he may impose the effects of as many more of his Lair Trait Tilts as he wishes, up to the limit granted by his Lair rating within a single scene. At Lair 1, this limit is 1, so a starting Beast character may use the presence of either of her Tilts to cause the other.

Beasts may — and often do — create the initial Tilt through guile and manipulating the terrain, or capitalize on the powers of other supernatural beings. For example, a Makara with the Lair Trait of “downpour” may set off a sprinkler system to then use the resonance in order to impose her other Traits.

At the end of the scene, or when the Beast imposing them wishes to stop, the imposed Lair Traits vanish, though their aftereffects remain. For example, if a Namtaru whose Heart resembles the digestive tract of a gargantuan creature imposes the Corrosive and Flooded Traits to fill a room with acids, the damage to everything in the room remains when he stops imposing the Traits, without any trace of the corrosive liquid that caused it.

Flooded

Waist-high fluid or viscous material fills the Lair, making characters trying to move through struggle for every step. Whether it’s mud, gore, dead insects, effluent, or simply water, the Lair Trait affects all Physical dice pools. Waist-high floods impose a -2 penalty to actions by characters wading through it. Deeper floods force characters to swim or hold their breath to progress through completely submerged areas.

Corrosive

Whether it’s a pool of acid, a corrosive atmosphere, or more overtly supernatural environments such as metal flash-rusting or organic matter slowly petrifying or turning to salt, something in the Lair eats away at flesh and degrades matter. The Beast’s player defines what the corrosion affects based on the Lair’s description. Affected characters suffer one aggravated damage per turn of exposure, and objects lose one Durability per turn.