While PCs gain Hope as a metacurrency during the game, you gain Fear .

Gaining Fear

When you start a campaign, you begin with an amount of Fear equal to the number of PCs. Whenever a PC rolls with Fear, you gain a Fear. You can also gain Fear from the players taking downtime, certain PC abilities or spells, and specific adversary features.

You can hold up to a maximum of 12 Fear.

Tracking Fear

You can track Fear with tokens, a die, or any other counting method, and you should keep this pool visible to players during the game. Fear carries over between sessions, so note how many Fear you have at the end of each session and begin the next time with that same pool.

Spending Fear

Whenever you spend Fear, describe how fate changes the world against the characters. What interrupts or counters the PCs? How does an adversary prepare for a powerful attack? What barrages the PCs’ senses as the raging avalanche swallows them?

When you spend a Fear, you can:

• Interrupt the players to make a move.
• Make an additional GM move.
• Use an adversary’s Fear Feature.
• Use an environment’s Fear Feature.
• Add an adversary’s Experience to a roll.

Tip: As with any GM move, spending Fear shouldn’t undermine the players’ fun. Fear is a tool for you to enhance the scene, create dramatic tension, and raise the stakes, not to shut down a PC’s heroic actions.

Interrupt the Players to Make a Move

You can spend a Fear to make a GM move as if the PCs had failed an action or rolled with Fear, allowing you to interrupt between the players’ moves. This tactic is most useful when you want to make a move during a slew of successes—for example, if the PCs roll a success with Hope four times in a row during combat and you want to give your adversaries a chance to fight back, you can spend a Fear to interrupt the action and spotlight an adversary.

Make an Additional GM Move

After making a GM move, you can spend a Fear to make an additional move this GM turn. For example, when a player rolls a failure or rolls with Fear, you might spotlight an adversary to show them stealing the party’s carriage and starting to ride away, then spend a Fear to have the archer in the tree shoot at the PCs as cover fire for the carriage heist.

Use an Adversary’s Fear Feature

In addition to each adversary’s standard features, some adversaries have powerful Fear Features. You can use an adversary’s Fear Features by spending the indicated number of Fear.

You can always improvise a Fear Feature for an adversary, even if they already have predetermined Fear Features. Just spend a Fear and come up with a big adversary move that might otherwise feel overpowered or arbitrary (see the upcoming “Improvising Fear Moves” section).

If you’ve spent Fear to make an additional GM move to activate an adversary, you must additionally spend the required amount to activate a Fear Feature. For example, once the thief steals the party’s carriage and you’ve spent a Fear to have the archer rain down a hail of arrows, you could spend an additional Fear to activate a third thief in the scene. If this thief has a Fear Feature you want to activate, you would spend a fourth Fear to utilize it.

Use an Environment’s Fear Feature

Environments can have their own features that require spending Fear to activate. You can use an environment’s Fear Feature by spending the indicated number of Fear.

Even if an environment has predetermined Fear Features, you can also spend Fear to improvise a big environment move that might otherwise feel overpowered or arbitrary.

Add an Adversary’s Experience to a Roll

When making a roll for an adversary, if their Experience would apply to the situation at hand, you can spend a Fear and add the Experience’s modifier to the roll. When you do, showcase how their Experience enhances the action to help ground this mechanic in the narrative.