Running Slatterscratch

Prepare the scene

A chair scrapes once in the next room. Four uneven footfalls hurry across the boards; long claws rattle along the table edge. The sound stops beside the doorway.

A nocturnal, four-legged stalker moves unseen through urban homes and narrow streets. Clambering steps and long claws clattering over furniture precede a swift rake of searing slashes.

Encounter settings: Urban.

Establish the surroundings, each participant’s position, and what the party can perceive before resolving the encounter. Use the current core rules for surprise and turn order when combat begins.

Establish an ordinary place

Choose an inhabited urban space after dark: a bedroom above a shop, a cramped workshop or a storeroom adjoining an alley. Place furniture, doors, a light source and a physically usable route into or out of cover. It enters by ordinary openings; its profile grants no passage through solid walls.

Begin with evidence that can be investigated: parallel scratches on a chair rung, claw marks along a table edge or brief movement behind stored goods. An early scrape is a clue. The rapid clamber and clatter belong to the final approach.

Resolve the unseen approach

Use Night Prowler when it conceals its position in urban cover under darkness or dim light. Roll Maneuver d10 + Agility d8 against Perception + Intellect. Apply the core concealment and Surprise procedures, including an existing applicable concealment record and the observer winning ties.

Choose an isolated victim when possible, then identify the most exposed body part within reach. Describe the visible hand, face or gap in clothing that draws its attention. The preference guides its choice and the description of the strike; use the target’s normal legal defenses and protection.

Give the attack its sound

When it declares Searing Rake, resolve Last Sound: units within 15 feet that can hear the clamber and clatter learn its location. Reveal that position before resolving the attack. Learning its location does not end Surprise early; Surprise still ends at the start of that unit’s first turn.

Roll Agility d8 + one supplemental d8 Wound (slashing). Keep the dice distinct so only the Agility die triggers a critical. Resolve the normal physical attack and one permitted defense. The burning sensation is the description of the slashes, not Burn damage or the Burning Condition.

Track the wound

Only a Damaging Hit applies this attack’s Bleeding. At the start of the wounded unit’s turn, apply 1 Wound from that Bleeding. Do not roll another attack or defense for this tick. Repeated applications of the Slatterscratch’s Bleeding do not stack.

A unit can spend an Action applying pressure and binding the wound to end this Bleeding without a Test. Track the injury separately from Resolve recovery: restoring Resolve alone does not stop it. Make the bleeding apparent so the party can decide between pursuing the monster and treating its victim.

Run the pursuit

After attacking, it can use remaining Movement to seek cover. It needs an Action on a later turn to use Night Prowler again; moving behind furniture does not automatically resolve concealment. Clamber permits a 20-foot climbing movement along usable holds, not movement through solid surfaces.

It can keep attacking at close range or spend its Action hiding; it cannot do both with its ordinary Action. Keep its route and any sounds perceptible. Lighting the space and watching intersecting approaches reduces the cover it can use without imposing an unlisted damage weakness.

It has Resolve 10, Stamina 6 and Mana 0. Evade d8 + Agility d8 is its ordinary avoidance pool when feasible; Withstand d4 + Vitality d6 is its ordinary unarmored physical resistance. Use normal permission and costs for defensive Reactions and supplements.

Leave the mystery unresolved

If it is exposed to an alert group, it prefers to retreat along an available route and stalk a less guarded victim. It has no guaranteed escape. Let the party block the route, maintain watch or bring the pursuit into clear view.

Use the witness lines as recollections or reports, not as speech from the monster. Preserve uncertainty about why it selects exposed flesh; no explanation is established by this draft. Its threat estimate and resource values require playtesting.

Run the profile

Use the following source instructions for the encounter’s actions and effects.

Present the counterplay

Illuminate hiding places, keep shared sight lines and protect isolated sleepers. Listen for claws against wood. Bind bleeding wounds promptly and keep an injured companion within reach.

Make the relevant behavior or environmental clues perceptible through the scene so the party can act on them.