Fronts

What Fronts Are

• Fronts are secret tomes of GM knowledge: collections of linked dangers — threats
  to the characters and to the people, places, and things they care about — plus one or
  more impending dooms: the horrible things that will happen without player
  intervention. ("Fronts," from "fighting on two fronts" — the characters surrounded by
  threats, danger, and adventure.)
• Built outside of active play — the solo fun between games, cackling evilly as you
  craft foes. Tweak during play if inspiration strikes, but the meat comes from prep.
• An organizational tool: your notes, ideas, and plans for opposing forces. When in a
  bind, your fronts are where you turn and say "Oh, so that's what I should do."
• Think in broad strokes first, then narrow as you build dangers in.
• Campaign front: session-to-session trends across the whole game. Adventure
  fronts: what's important right here and right now.
• Unresolved dangers can move between fronts: promote a small adventure-front danger
  that's caught your fancy to the campaign front; bring a campaign danger to bear as an
  adventure front.

When to Make Fronts

• After your first session: the campaign front and one or two adventure fronts.
• An incomplete campaign front is fine — unknown parts are opportunities for future
  creativity, like blanks on a map.
• More adventure fronts than one or two? Leave the extras as notes for now.

Creating Fronts

The steps:

• Choose campaign front or adventure front
• Create 2–3 dangers
• Choose an impending doom for each danger
• Add grim portents (1–3 for an adventure front, 3–5 for the campaign front)
• Write 1–3 stakes questions
• List the general cast of the front

Creating Dangers

• Not everything warrants a danger — traps, roving monsters, ephemera add context but
  aren't important enough. Not every bad thing deserves to be one: dangers can always
  get worse later.
• Every danger has an impulse — the crucial motivation that drives it toward its
  impending doom. It helps you understand the danger and translate it into action.
• Think about how each danger interacts as a facet of the whole front. Good candidates:
  • People and monsters first — cultists, ogre chieftains, demonic overlords,
    monster groups (goblin tribes, a centaur khanate). Mere obstacles (like a guardian
    golem) are not dangers.
  • Less obvious elements — blasted landscapes, intelligent magic items, ancient
    spells woven into time.
  • Overarching dangers — godly patrons, hidden conspiracies, cursed prophecies.
• Limit yourself to 3 dangers at most — leave room for discovery, player
  contribution, and future inspiration.
• Choose a type for each danger — or peruse the types for inspiration.

Types of Dangers

• Ambitious Organizations
• Planar Forces
• Arcane Enemies
• Hordes
• Cursed Places

The Five Danger Types (with impulses)

Ambitious Organizations

• Misguided Good — to do what is "right" no matter the cost
• Thieves Guild — to take by subterfuge
• Cult — to infest from within
• Religious Organization — to establish and follow doctrine
• Corrupt Government — to maintain the status quo
• Cabal — to absorb those in power, to grow

GM Moves: attack by stealthy means (kidnapping); attack directly; absorb or buy out
someone important; influence a powerful institution; establish a new rule; claim
territory or resources; negotiate a deal; observe a potential foe in great detail.

Planar Forces

• God — to gather worshippers
• Demon Prince — to open the gates of Hell
• Elemental Lord — to tear down creation to its component parts
• Force of Chaos — to destroy all semblance of order
• Choir of Angels — to pass judgement
• Construct of Law — to eliminate perceived disorder

GM Moves: turn an organization (corrupt or infiltrate); give dreams of prophecy;
lay a Curse on a foe; extract a promise in exchange for a boon; attack indirectly
through intermediaries; rarely, when the stars are right, attack directly; foster
rivalries with similar powers; expose someone to a Truth, wanted or otherwise.

Arcane Enemies

• Lord of the Undead — to seek true immortality
• Power-mad Wizard — to seek magical power
• Sentient Artifact — to find a worthy wielder
• Ancient Curse — to ensnare
• Chosen One — to fulfill or resent their destiny
• Dragon — to hoard gold and jewels, to protect the clutch

GM Moves: learn forbidden knowledge; cast a spell over time and space; attack a foe
with magic; spy with a scrying spell; recruit a follower or toady; tempt with promises;
demand a sacrifice.

Hordes

• Wandering Barbarians — to grow strong, to drive their enemies before them
• Humanoid Vermin — to breed, to multiply and consume
• Underground Dwellers — to defend the complex from outsiders
• Plague of the Undead — to spread

GM Moves: assault a bastion of civilization; embrace internal chaos; change
direction suddenly; overwhelm a weaker force; perform a show of dominance; abandon an
old home, find a new one; grow in size by breeding or conquest; appoint a champion;
declare war and act without hesitation or deliberation.

Cursed Places

• Abandoned Tower — to draw in the weak-willed
• Unholy Ground — to spawn evil
• Elemental Vortex — to grow, to tear apart reality
• Dark Portal — to disgorge demons
• Shadowland — to corrupt or consume the living
• Place of Power — to be controlled or tamed

GM Moves: vomit forth a lesser monster; spread to an adjacent place; lure someone
in; grow in intensity or depth; leave a lingering effect on an inhabitant or visitor;
hide something from sight; offer power; dampen magic or increase its effects; confuse
or obfuscate truth or direction; corrupt a natural law.

Description and Cast

• Write a short nutshell description of each danger — not where it's going (grim
  portents and the impending doom handle that). Name the people involved and give a
  detail or two. Leave space; you'll add to it as you play.

Custom Moves

• If a danger suggests a move no existing one covers, write a custom move — player or GM.
• For player moves: keep your hands off the dice, mind the basic structure — 10+ is a
  complete success, 7–9 a partial success; on a miss, something specific, or a move
  toward a grim portent.
• Example: standing in the Light From Beyond, roll+Wis — 10+ judged worthy, a vision or
  boon from the Argent Seraphim; 7–9 under suspicion, a vision of your dark fate; miss,
  weighed in the balance and found wanting.

Grim Portents

• Dark designs for what happens if a danger goes unchecked: what if the danger had its
  run of the world without the PCs? They codify the danger's plans and machinations.
• A single interesting event or a chain of steps. When unsure what to do next, push a
  danger toward resolving a grim portent.
• Usually a logical order (bad → worse → much worse); sometimes unconnected pathways to
  the doom. In complex fronts, cross off or alter portents as dangers come to pass.
• Scale varies — portents needn't be world-shaking; a change in direction for a danger
  works too.
• Treat them as possible moves waiting in the wings — unleash them when the time is right.
• When a portent comes to pass, check it off — and check the ramifications for your
  other fronts; one small portent can resound across the campaign.
• Advance them descriptively (it happened in play, mark it off) or prescriptively
  (as your hard move on a failed roll or golden opportunity — show its effects, then
  "What do you do now?").

Impending Doom

• The final toll of the bell at the end of every danger's path. As portents pass, the
  doom grows more apparent and present in the world. Give your chosen type a concrete form.
• Choose from:
  • Tyranny — of the strong over the weak, or the few over the many
  • Pestilence — the spread of sickness and disease, the end of wellness
  • Destruction — apocalypse, ruin and woe
  • Usurpation — the chain of order comes apart, someone rightful is displaced
  • Impoverishment — enslavement, the abandonment of goodness and right
  • Rampant Chaos — laws of reality, of society, of any order dissolved
• When all of a danger's portents pass, the doom sets in: the danger is resolved, but
  the setting has changed meaningfully — and the front at large with it. Let these
  effects reverberate through the world.
• Dooms often change in play as characters meddle; you can change them later.

Front Structure

• Campaign Front: Cast, Stakes, Custom Moves → per danger: Name, Type, Grim
  Portents, Impending Doom (2–3 dangers, 3–5 portents each).
• Adventure Front: same structure (2–3 dangers, 1–3 portents each).

Stakes

• 1–3 questions about people (PCs or NPCs), places, or groups you're interested in.
  Stakes are how you remind yourself what you want to find out.
• Concrete and clear — not vague feelings or incremental changes, but important changes
  to the PCs and world. A good stake, once resolved, means things will never be the same.
• The most important thing: you find them interesting — genuinely want to know, and
  are willing to leave to play. Once written, they're out of your hands: no making it
  up anymore. Play to find out.
• With stakes written, your front is ready to play.

Resolving a Front

• Adventure fronts often resolve simply: dangers killed, turned to good, or overcome.
  The front dissolves — but leftover dangers or surviving members may move to the
  campaign front as new dangers.
• Campaign fronts resolve in pieces over the campaign's course, not all at once. You
  know it's resolved when the Dark God is confronted or the plague claims the world —
  heroes victorious or defeated and despairing. Longer to deal with, most satisfying to resolve.
• After resolution, review the aftermath: did any grim portents come to pass? Even a
  stopped danger may have changed the world. Who moves, gets promoted or reduced? Keep
  it in mind for future fronts — a resolved front is an important event.
• Resolving an adventure front is a good time to break, look at the campaign front, and
  let it inspire the next adventure front.

Multiple Adventure Fronts

• Partly-resolved fronts piling up is fine — it makes the world feel alive and organic.
  Fronts advance apace whether the characters see it or not. Think offscreen.
• Concurrent fronts can be intertwined or independent — anarchists corrupting the city
  inside, orcs massing outside; or one dungeon holding a cursed place's front and the
  warring tribes within it.
• A situation warrants multiple fronts when there are multiple equally potent impending
  dooms, not necessarily related. The fronts deal with each other too — room for the
  players to pick sides or turn one front's dangers against another.
• Players will prioritize; the neglected front advances slowly, breeding new problems
  and new adventures. Three or four fronts gets complex — take care not to get overwhelmed.

Example Front: The Opening of the White Gate

• Concept: an ancient gate buried for aeons in the icy north, opening into a realm
  of pure light, guarded by the Argent Seraphim — crafted only to open on Judgement Day
  to purge the realm of men. Recently uncovered by the College of Arcanists, who don't
  yet understand its power.
• Dangers:
  • The College of Arcanists (Cabal — to absorb those in power, to grow). Portents:
    expedition sent, the Key discovered, the Gate's Power harnessed, the College seizes
    control. Doom: Usurpation.
  • The White Gate (Dark Portal — to disgorge demons). Portents: First Trumpet
    sounds, Second Trumpet sounds, the Gate is opened. Doom: Destruction.
  • The Argent Seraphim (Choir of Angels — to pass judgement). Portents: a Champion
    is chosen, an organization of power formed or co-opted, the Herald appears,
    Judgement is passed. Doom: Tyranny.
• Cast: Oren Balserus, Arcanist Supreme; Hali'el, voice of the Seraphim; Drudge, a
  manservant.
• Custom Move: stand in the Light From Beyond, roll+Wis — 10+ judged worthy (vision
  or boon); 7–9 under suspicion (vision of your dark fate); miss, found wanting.
• Stakes: Who will be the Champion? How will Lux respond to the holy light? Will
  the College be able to recruit Avon?