The Grudge System
Under the Drowned Reach, dying is rarely the end of an argument. The Abyss — the drifting wound beneath all the god-bones, the mouth that vomits horrors — does not forget. When you make an enemy worth keeping, you do not cross them off a list. You write them into the Grudge Ledger, because under this Reach they will be back. Changed. Angrier. Promoted. The Deep pays for grudges it finds entertaining, and it finds all of yours entertaining.
This chapter adapts the Vendetta System — a structural engine for recurring rivals — to the Drowned Reach. The names are new; the three rules underneath are unchanged.
The Engine — Three Rules
Rule One: The Deep Collects Its Debts
Dropping a rival to 0 HP is not a kill. Unless a rival is truly destroyed — beheading, a blade (or drowned-god bone) through the heart, or a blessed soul-weapon, and a moment of explicit intent spoken aloud — they return for the rematch. Tick Returns up by 1.
Returning is the default. The Abyss catches them on their way down — a horror surfacing in the water, a Veil-current dragging them back — and sends them up changed. True destruction is a deliberate act, and the Reach knows it the way it knows a name on the wind: the Deep feels the loss, and it is not pleased.
Rule Two: The Debt Is Paid in Kind
Each return adapts to the specific way you beat them last time. Pick one primary adaptation per return; the GM may layer a minor second change for drama, but the pattern stays readable — you are meant to learn your enemy, not guess them.
| How you beat them | How they come back |
|---|
| Blessed or drowned-god-bone magic / hallowed light | Weeping, silver-scarred hide — resistance to that damage type, a grudging tolerance. |
| Fire, Vent-flame, or explosives | Heavy Vent-Cinder plate from the Amber-Vents — immunity to fire, higher Armor Class. |
| Fog, stealth, or Veil-glamour | Ghostmad goggles of phosphor glass — they pierce invisibility, fog, and glamour. |
| Melee weapons | Bone-Graft prosthetics — a piston-driven arm, a blade for a hand, hits that land much harder. |
(See the Adaptation files under /Adaptations/ for the data models, and build new adaptations with the Rule Two Adaptation Generator below.)
Rule Three: The Abyss Rewards Persistence
When the rival beats the party — forces a rout, drops a character to 0 HP, captures someone — promote them: rank up (Tier 1 Grunt → Tier 4 Boss), gift a squad of horrors or reaver minions, or experimental black-potion that raises maximum health. The rival grows precisely when the party fails to make them stay dead.
The Card (Grudge Ledger)
One card per vendetta — a Grudge Card file (/Grudge Cards/). On a character sheet it lives beside the rival's arc; the card is the account the Abyss keeps.
| Field | What it holds |
|---|
| Name & Title | Sable Marr — the Half-Drowned. Captain Drago. The Nightingale of the Ninth Ledger. |
| Current Rank | Tier 1 Grunt → Tier 2 Enforcer → Tier 3 Favored → Tier 4 Boss |
| Intensity | The Vendetta Clock, 1–6. How hot the grudge burns right now. |
| Defeats | How many times dropped to 0 HP. Dropping is not killing. |
| Returns | How many times they came back. Each return usually adds an adaptation. |
| The Grudge | One line of why this is personal. |
| Grudge Moment | The instant it became personal — the scene you can still feel. |
| Strengths / Weaknesses | What to plan around / the cracks you can still exploit. |
| Adaptations | How the Abyss rebuilt them between returns. |
| Scars & Upgrades | The visible record of the feud. |
| Status | Active while the grudge lives, Closed when truly settled. |
Rank meanings: Tier 1 — one of a dozen, a horror barely made. Tier 2 — known, has a squad. Tier 3 — funded, the Abyss spends blood and shadow keeping them alive and angry. Tier 4 — personal, noticed by the Deep itself.
The Clock (Intensity)
Intensity is not a power level — it is a clock. Move it slowly: one tick per significant beat, never more than twice a session.
Rises by 1: the rival beats or captures the party; the rival hurts an ally, a contact, or a safe-house; the party humiliates them publicly; their scarred history is sung in every anchorage.
Falls by 1: the party defeats them in a fight they built to win; destroys or steals one of their assets; learns one of their adaptations and plans around it; a full night passes with no crossing and no song of their name.
At 6, the climax: the rival commits — a raid, a public accusation, a hostage, a trap. When the climactic move resolves, Intensity resets to 3 and the loop tightens: higher rank, a new adaptation, or a squad.
Grudge Moment
A vendetta begins when you can name the moment it became personal. That moment is the spine of the card — every later beat is measured against it. Naming it aloud is also the reward for opening the card; choose one boon:
- A lead — a contact who knows something real.
- A rumor of weakness — one concrete weakness on the card.
- A first strike — advantage on the first confrontation.
Learning the Enemy
Rule Two makes the rival adapt to you; this is the counter-move — you get to adapt to them.
Study: downtime Intelligence (Investigation) or Wisdom (Insight), DC 12 + rival's tier. Witnessing the adaptation used in a fight also reveals it, no downtime required.
While known, choose one edge: advantage on saves against the adaptation's signature tactic; a called strike that negates the adaptation for one scene; or a new weakness added to their card.
Permanent destruction of an adaptation: only by a deliberate act during a fight — a called shot, a ritual, a sabotage scene. Destroying an adaptation lowers Intensity by 1 and removes it from future returns.
The GM reveals an adaptation's cost or tell for free whenever the rival uses it. The whole point is that you are meant to learn them.
Adaptations — the data model
Adaptations are files of type Adaptation (/Adaptations/), referenced by Grudge Cards. Deliberately non-rigid: only the name is required.
| Field | Meaning |
|---|
name | What it is (required) |
boon | The mechanical effect, runnable as-is |
kind | How it was made — vent-forged, bone-forged, alchemical, scarred, ritual, relic… open tags |
weakness | The tell — what gives it away, how it is countered or destroyed |
origin | The play event that generated it — the defeat, the bargain, the forge, or the miracle |
The Rule Two Adaptation Generator
Roll or choose to build a new adaptation on the fly:
- The cause (d6): 1–2 the way they were defeated; 3 a bargain struck with the Deep; 4 a forge-blessing (Graveth or Malakar); 5 a wound they survived that changed them; 6 a miracle of the Veil.
- The form (d6): 1 cooling/armor plate; 2 a ghost-eye or sensory rig; 3 a grafted limb or blade-hand; 4 a scar-map that channels damage; 5 a familiar or bound horror that fights beside them; 6 a substance — black-potion, venom, cinder-dust.
- The boon — state one concrete mechanical effect that punishes exactly the tactic that beat them last time.
- The weakness — state one tell, and one way it can be countered or destroyed.
- The origin — one sentence tying it to play: the defeat, the bargain, the forge, or the miracle.
Finality
True destruction is a deliberate act with a price: beheading, a blade through the heart, or a blessed soul-weapon, plus explicit intent — you have to mean it, say it, and do it. When a rival is truly destroyed:
- The card is marked Closed.
- The Abyss notices: +1 Notice — a public execution is not a secret in a Reach that never sleeps.
- The rival's faction, family, or successor may take up the grudge — the feud continues, but the old enemy does not.
- Some rivals choose not to return: beaten so completely, publicly, or pointlessly that the Deep withdraws its investment. The Abyss only pays for grudges it finds entertaining.
Playing the Enemy
Horror rivals — things the Abyss spit back — are theatrical and hungry. You are entertainment, and they applaud with too many hands. Mortal rivals are desperate: every return makes them more machine than human — riveted, stitched, rebuilt by sea-forge and grave-bone out of spite — and they hate you with a purity immortals cannot manage.
The Tide-Songs
The grudge is never private. The fog carries the tidings at dawn and the tide-singers hum the news: returns are announced like premieres, promotions like appointments, new scars described in admiring detail. The tide can also be pointed — when Intensity rises, it often carries the reason, telling the whole Reach who is hunting you and who you were hiding it from.
The Abyss always collects its debts. Plan for the rematch, learn the adaptation, and above all — mean what you do when you finally settle it, because that is the only killing the Deep honors.
