Running the Hunt: A Players Guide to Running Your Own Plots

“Not every hunt needs a Storyteller’s permission. But some hunts need a Storyteller’s protection.”

This venue runs on the idea that players should be able to create story for themselves and each other. Not every scene needs an ST behind it. But some scenes affect the whole chronicle, and those need oversight. The three-tier system tells you which is which.

Tier 1: Free Play

Free Play content is yours. Run it whenever you want, with whoever you want, no approval needed. These are the everyday stories of your pack or someone’s pack’s life: patrolling territory, dealing with low-level spirits, talking to contacts, training with packmates, or following up on personal goals.

Free Play covers low-stakes encounters with antagonists that do not affect the broader chronicle. If the fight happens, it stays local. If the spirit dies, the Shadow doesn’t shift. If the human runs away, no metaplot thread unravels. You can narrate these scenes entirely on your own or invite other players to participate.

Tier 2: Plot Kits

Plot Kits are pre-built scenario frameworks that you can grab and run without writing a proposal. They involve more significant antagonists and higher stakes than Free Play, but they stay within boundaries the ST has already approved. Think of them as recipes: we give you the ingredients and the instructions, and you cook the meal.

Tier 2 content involves Rank 2 spirits, Spirit-Urged or early-stage Ridden, small Host infestations, human threats with supernatural connections, and other antagonists that are dangerous but contained. You run the scenes, play the NPCs (within the kit’s guidelines), and resolve the story. The ST reviews the outcome afterward to make sure nothing needs adjustment.

Tier 3: Guest ST

Tier 3 content has the power to reshape the chronicle. It involves major antagonists, threats to the metaplot, changes to territory or loci, significant NPC deaths, inter-pack warfare, or anything that could have permanent consequences for the venue. This content requires a written proposal submitted to the Storyteller team for approval before play begins.

This is not a gate meant to slow you down. It is a safety net. The ST team needs to know about Tier 3 content so they can help to weave it into the metaplot, prevent contradictions, and make sure the payoff matches the setup. The best Tier 3 plots become major chronicle events.

“Know what you’re hunting before you decide to hunt it.”

This catalog lists common antagonist types organized by tier. Each entry includes what the antagonist is, what tier it falls under, and narrative hooks for how it might appear in your story. No stat blocks are provided — if you need specific numbers, coordinate with the ST. This keeps your plots flexible and prevents conflicts with existing chronicle NPCs.

Tier 1 Antagonists: Free Play

Rank 1 Spirits (Hursihim)

The smallest, most instinct-driven spirits. They are the insects and vermin of the Shadow. A Rank 1 spirit is barely self-aware. It acts on impulse, feeding on whatever Essence it can find. Individually they are not dangerous to a werewolf, but they can be annoying, persistent, and a sign that something bigger is wrong.

Hooks: A cluster of anger spirits infesting an alley where a fight happened. A technology spirit glitching out electronics near a locus. A small animal spirit that has bonded to a stray dog and is making it unnaturally aggressive.

Mundane Human Threats

Trespassers in your territory. Petty criminals. Nosy journalists. Concerned neighbors. People who are not supernatural but whose actions create complications: contaminating resonance, attracting attention, or stumbling into places they shouldn’t be.

Hooks: A true-crime podcaster investigating disappearances near your territory. A construction crew about to demolish a building that houses a dormant spirit. A homeless camp forming near your locus.

Dormant or Minor Resonance Problems

Pockets of bad resonance that attract the wrong kind of spirits. A house where domestic violence has created a knot of anger Essence. A stretch of highway where fatal accidents have generated fear resonance. These are problems your pack can investigate and begin to address through Flesh-side actions.

Tier 2 Antagonists: Plot Kits

Rank 2 Spirits (Hursahim)

Self-aware enough to negotiate, scheme, and hold grudges. A Rank 2 spirit has goals, territory, and enough power to be dangerous if provoked. They can use Influences to manipulate their environment and may have Numina that give them tactical options.

Hooks: A grief spirit that has latched onto a hospital ward and is feeding on dying patients. A building spirit that refuses to let anyone alter “its” structure. A rivalry between two Rank 2 spirits that is destabilizing a neighborhood’s resonance.

Spirit-Urged Humans

A human being subtly influenced by a spirit through the Urged Condition. The spirit reads their thoughts and pushes them toward actions that generate Essence. The human may not even know they’re being influenced. These make excellent mystery-style plots: something is wrong with this person, and the pack has to figure out what.

Hooks: A local politician making increasingly erratic decisions, pushed by a power spirit. A teacher whose students are becoming unnervingly obedient, influenced by a control spirit. A bartender whose customers keep getting into fights they don’t remember starting.

Early-Stage Hosts

A single shard piloting a human body. It retains the victim’s appearance and most of their personality, but something is off. Beshilu shards spread disease and gnaw at the Gauntlet. Azlu shards thicken it and build webs. At this stage, the Host is dangerous but beatable by a prepared pack.

Hooks: A rat infestation in a neighborhood that’s worse than it should be, centered on one house. A reclusive professional who has stopped leaving home and whose house has an unnervingly thick Gauntlet. Unexplained spider imagery appearing in a community’s dreams.

Magath

A hybrid spirit that has consumed conflicting types of Essence and gone mad. Magath are unpredictable and dangerous because they don’t follow the normal rules of spirit behavior. Their bans and banes are often bizarre and hard to discover.

Hooks: A fire-water magath causing flash floods of boiling water in the Shadow near a factory. A joy-pain magath that makes people in its territory oscillate between euphoria and agony. A technology-nature magath causing electronic devices to sprout organic growths.

Tier 3 Antagonists: Guest ST

Rank 3+ Spirits (Ensihim and Above)

Intelligent, powerful, and politically connected. These spirits lead courts, control territory, and have allies. Fighting one means fighting its network. Negotiating with one requires serious preparation and real leverage. These are chronicle-level threats.

Spirit-Claimed

A human permanently merged with a spirit. The Claimed has the spirit’s Influences, a material body, enhanced Attributes, and unique Dread Powers. They are among the most dangerous individual antagonists in the game. The Storm Lords hunt them as sacred prey.

Advanced Host Hybrids

A Host that has consumed enough shards to transform into a monstrous hybrid. These are terrifying opponents with Dread Powers, unnatural resilience, and the ability to Discorporate into a swarm of smaller creatures when killed. Finishing one requires killing every single shard.

Pure Tribe Packs

Organized, motivated, and hostile. Any significant encounter with the Pure affects the protectorate.

Bale Hounds and Maeljin Servants

Werewolves who have sworn themselves to the Lords of Wounds. They operate in secret within Forsaken and Pure society. Discovering one is a major chronicle event.

Wound Expansion or Locus Corruption Events that change the spiritual landscape of the chronicle’s territory. These are never Tier 1 or Tier 2 because their effects are permanent and wide-reaching.

“Here’s the recipe. You bring the ingredients.”

Each Plot Kit is a modular scenario framework. It gives you the setup, the antagonist type, a few possible complications, and a resolution structure. Fill in the specifics with details from your character’s territory and relationships. Run it at your own pace. Report the outcome to the ST when you’re done.

Kit 1: The Unwelcome Guest

Tier: 2

Antagonist: A Rank 2 spirit that has crossed the Gauntlet and anchored itself in the pack’s territory.

Setup: Something in the material world has created a pocket of resonance that attracted the spirit. It crossed through a weak point in the Gauntlet and has Fettered itself to an object or location. It isn’t hostile yet, but its presence is warping the resonance of the area, and it will defend itself if threatened.

Investigation: The pack notices the resonance shift first — people in the area behaving slightly differently, animals acting strangely, or minor Gauntlet fluctuations. Tracking the source leads to the spirit’s Fetter.

Complications (choose 1–2): The spirit is useful and offers chiminage in exchange for being allowed to stay. A local Rank 1 spirit is feeding off the new resonance and doesn’t want the intruder removed. The spirit has already begun to Urge a nearby human.

Resolution: The pack can negotiate with the spirit to leave voluntarily (chiminage), perform the Banish rite to force it back, destroy the Fetter to weaken it, or hunt it via Siskur-Dah. The choice affects local resonance and the pack’s reputation with nearby spirits.

Kit 2: The Rat’s Nest

Tier: 2

Antagonist: A single early-stage Beshilu shard piloting a human body.

Setup: Reports of unusual rat activity in a neighborhood. Pets going missing. A faint, wrong smell that Uratha noses pick up but can’t quite place. The Gauntlet in one small area has thinned slightly. A single Beshilu shard has taken a human host and is beginning to gnaw.

Investigation: The host is still mostly human and behaves normally in public. Clues include unusual pest control calls, a neighbor complaining about scratching sounds in the walls, and the host’s sudden aversion to cats. In the Shadow, the gnaw marks on the Gauntlet are visible.

Complications (choose 1–2): The human host is someone the pack knows or cares about. The Beshilu has attracted a second shard that hasn’t found a host yet. A Rank 1 disease spirit has moved into the thinned Gauntlet area.

Resolution: The pack needs to identify the host, corner the Beshilu, and destroy the shard without letting it escape into the rat population. Fire is traditional. The human host may be saveable if the shard hasn’t progressed too far. Repairing the Gauntlet damage is a separate task for the Ithaeur.

Kit 3: The Whisper Campaign

Tier: 2

Antagonist: A Spirit-Urged human being pushed by an emotion or concept spirit.

Setup: Someone in the pack’s social circle is changing. They’re more aggressive, or more paranoid, or more obsessive than they used to be. The change is subtle enough that mundane explanations seem plausible. But the pack’s Ithaeur or Elodoth senses something off.

Investigation: Social investigation first: talking to the affected person, their family, their coworkers. Then spiritual investigation: checking the Shadow around their home and workplace for unusual spirit activity. The spirit is Fettered to the human and feeding on the emotional Essence it generates.

Complications (choose 1–2): The human doesn’t want help — the spirit’s urges feel natural to them. Removing the spirit will leave the human emotionally devastated and confused. Another pack is using the Urged human as an unwitting pawn in a separate scheme.

Resolution: Ending the Urged Condition requires ending the Fetter. This can be done through exorcism rites, breaking the spirit’s ban, destroying the spirit, or convincing the spirit to release its hold. The human will need support afterward. How the pack handles the fallout with the human is as important as how they handle the spirit.

Kit 4: The Territory Dispute

Tier: 2

Antagonist: A neighboring NPC pack (or another player’s pack, with their consent) disputing a border.

Setup: Something has shifted — a new locus appeared near the border, a building was demolished and the Shadow changed, or a third party stirred things up. Now both packs believe they have a legitimate claim to a piece of territory. This is a political scenario, not a combat one.

Investigation: Each pack presents its case. Who was there first? Who has been maintaining the spiritual health of the area? Who has the Renown to back their claim? The pack may need to gather evidence, call on contacts, or consult with spirit courts.

Complications (choose 1–2): A powerful local spirit has opinions about who should control the area. One pack’s alpha has a personal grudge against the other. A third pack is secretly manipulating both sides.

Resolution: Ideally resolved through negotiation, mediated by an Elodoth. Possible outcomes include shared territory, trade (one pack cedes the land in exchange for something else), a formal challenge, or escalation to a protectorate-level judgment. If violence occurs, it becomes Tier 3.

Kit 5: The Shadow Scar

Tier: 2

Antagonist: A localized resonance corruption that is attracting dangerous spirits.

Setup: Something bad happened in the Flesh — a violent crime, a building collapse, a mass layoff, a prolonged family tragedy. The resonance in the corresponding Shadow area has turned toxic. It hasn’t become a Wound (that would be Tier 3), but it’s on the path. Malevolent spirits are moving in to feed.

Investigation: The pack maps the corrupted area in both worlds. In the Flesh, they identify the source event. In the Shadow, they track which spirits are feeding on the bad resonance and how far the corruption has spread.

Complications (choose 1–2): The source event is ongoing and can’t be easily stopped. A Rank 2 spirit has already claimed the corrupted area as territory. Fixing the resonance requires the pack to do something difficult in the Flesh — mediate a family conflict, expose a crime, or organize a community response.

Resolution: The pack must address the Flesh-side cause to change the resonance, then deal with the spirits that have already moved in. The Resonance Shaper merit or specific rites can help. If the corruption isn’t addressed, report to the ST — it may escalate to Tier 3.

“The best proposals make you excited to run them.”

When your plot idea involves Tier 3 content, you need to submit a written proposal to the Storyteller team. This is not busywork. It is how we make sure your story fits the chronicle, gets the support it needs, and has the impact it deserves. A good proposal is short, clear, and specific.

The Proposal Template

Your proposal should cover these five things. Keep it to one page if you can.

Example Proposal

What Makes the ST Say Yes

Good proposals share a few qualities: they are specific about what will happen, honest about what could go wrong, respectful of other players’ stories, and open to ST input. The ST may approve your proposal as-is, suggest modifications, or offer to co-run it with you. All of these are good outcomes.

The ST will not approve proposals that contradict the active metaplot, sideline other players without their consent, introduce antagonists that outstrip the venue’s current power level, or resolve major threats too easily.

“You are the Storyteller. But you are also a player who is temporarily holding the spotlight for others.”

Running scenes for other players is a skill. It is different from playing your own character. Here are the basics to help you do it well.

Pacing

The single biggest mistake new scene-runners make is going too slow. In a persistent online environment, pacing is everything. People are playing across time zones, fitting scenes into their lives. Respect their time.

Set expectations up front. Tell participants how long you expect the scene to take.

Cut to the action. You don’t need three posts of atmospheric description before the spirit shows up. One good establishing post, then get to the point.

Keep momentum. If a scene stalls because you’re waiting on one player, move forward. They can catch up. The story shouldn’t stop for one person’s schedule.

End decisively. When the conflict is resolved, wrap up. A brief epilogue is fine. 

Voicing NPCs

When you run a scene, you control the NPCs. Here’s how to do it without overstepping:

Keep NPC dialogue short. NPCs exist to serve the scene, not to dominate it. A few lines of dialogue per post is usually enough.

Don’t make NPCs cooler than the PCs. The players are the stars. NPCs are obstacles, resources, or scenery. Even antagonist NPCs should lose.

Stay in the antagonist’s lane. A Rank 2 spirit is cunning but not a genius. An Urged human doesn’t have perfect information. Don’t make your NPCs omniscient or unreasonably effective.

Voice spirits as alien. Spirits don’t think like humans. They speak the First Tongue. They refer to concepts, not names. They want Essence, not friendship. Lean into the weirdness.

When to Fade to Black

Not every moment needs to be played out. Fade to black when:

The outcome is certain. If the pack has cornered a Rank 1 spirit and there’s no dramatic tension left, summarize the kill and move on.

Content gets uncomfortable. If a scene involves themes that might upset participants (graphic violence, psychological manipulation, body horror), check in and offer to fade to black for the rough parts.

You’re not sure of the rules. If a mechanical situation arises that you don’t know how to resolve, summarize the outcome narratively and flag it for the ST to review later. Don’t guess at rules and risk getting it wrong.

Time is running out. If the scene is dragging and participants are losing energy, it’s okay to fast-forward to the resolution. A clean ending is better than a slow death.

“The hunt earns glory whether or not the Storyteller is watching.”

Player-run content generates rewards just like ST-run content. The system differs slightly by tier to reflect the scope and stakes involved.

Tier 1: Free Play Rewards

Free Play scenes generate standard personal Beats. You earn Beats the same way you always do: by hitting breaking points, resolving Conditions, fulfilling Aspirations, or making dramatically interesting choices. Free Play does not generate Renown directly, but consistent patrol of territory, respectful treatment of spirits, and other Oath-keeping behavior all contribute to the narrative case for Renown.

Tier 2: Plot Kit Rewards

Completing a Plot Kit makes your character eligible for hunt-based Renown. When you submit your scene summary to the ST after completing a kit, include what Renown category you believe the story demonstrated. The ST will review and confirm. Typical Renown earned from Plot Kits:

All participants in a kit earn Beats as normal + 2 Beats for joining a Player Run Plot (PRP). The primary scene-runner can take an additional Beat for running the content.

Tier 3: ST-Level Rewards

Tier 3 plots are treated as full ST-run content for rewards purposes. The GST assigns Renown, Beats, and any special rewards (fetishes, spirit allies, territory changes) based on the outcome. Because the ST is involved from the proposal stage, they can work with the GST to ensure the rewards match the story’s significance.

“Your story is part of a bigger story.”

The metaplot is the story arc that the ST team is running for the entire venue. It is the thread that connects everyone’s individual stories into a shared chronicle. Player-run content should enrich the metaplot, not contradict or undermine it. Here’s how to make sure your stories fit.

The Five Rules

1. Don’t Solve Someone Else’s Problem

If the ST has established a major threat — a Wound forming, a Pure incursion, a rogue idigam — your player-run plot should not resolve that threat. You can and SHOULD run scenes to investigate it, gather information about it, deal with its peripheral effects, or set up the groundwork for a future resolution. But the big kill belongs to the whole chronicle, not your Tuesday-night scene.

2. Don’t Create Permanent Changes Without Approval

Loci don’t appear or disappear in Tier 1 or 2. Major NPCs don’t die. Territory doesn’t change hands. The Gauntlet doesn’t collapse. These are all Tier 3 events that require ST approval. If your Tier 2 scene is heading toward a permanent change, pause and check in.

3. Don’t Contradict Established Facts

If the ST has said the local spirit court is led by a fire Ensih, your plot should not introduce a scene where a different spirit claims to lead the court. If the metaplot says the Beshilu have been quiet this season, your plot should not feature a massive Beshilu uprising. Read the venue’s lore documents. Know what’s been established.

4. Don’t Force Other Players Into Your Story

Your plot is an invitation, not a draft notice. Other players choose to participate. You cannot create threats to their territory, harm their NPCs, or create consequences for their characters without their consent. If your story naturally involves another player’s character or territory, talk to them first. Out of character. Before the scene starts.

5. Do Feed the Metaplot

The best player-run content creates hooks that the ST can pick up later. Your Tier 2 investigation of a spirit-Urged human might reveal that the spirit was sent by something bigger. Your Tier 1 patrol might discover resonance changes that foreshadow a seasonal event. When you submit your scene summary, include any loose threads or unanswered questions. The ST loves loose threads. Loose threads become future content.

Final Words

This venue exists because players create content for each other. The three-tier system is here to make that easier, not harder. Tier 1 gives you freedom. Tier 2 gives you structure. Tier 3 gives you scale. Together, they make a living, breathing chronicle where every player can contribute to the story.

Hunt well. Run well. And always leave a loose thread for the next hunter.

Every hunt is a story.
The best stories are the ones you share.