Hope and Fear represent the duality of the world beyond the characters, and how the world around them impacts the action they’re attempting. One of your Duality dice is your Hope die, and the other is your Fear die.

Hope. When you roll your Duality dice and the Hope die rolls higher than the Fear die, you “ roll with Hope.” When this happens on an action roll, mark one of the Hope slots on your character sheet, up to a maximum of five. You might also gain Hope from spells, abilities, or other things that happen in the game.

Fear. When you roll your Duality dice and the Fear die rolls higher than the Hope die, you “ roll with Fear.” When this happens on an action roll, even if you succeed on your action roll, there are consequences or complications that come from it.

As a player, rolling with Fear doesn’t mean your action roll failed (see “Action Rolls”)—but you’ll face some type of complication. For example, you might only learn partial information, face a strike from the enemy you just attacked, or encounter an unexpected danger. If you also failed on the action roll where you rolled Fear, you’ll instead face major consequences or complications.

When you roll with Fear, you don’t record it on your character sheet. Instead, the GM makes a move to reflect the complications of your Fear roll. This move might immediately affect the scene, but the GM sometimes uses that move to instead collect a Fear token. The GM can later spend these stored Fear tokens on effects such as powering big adversary and environment moves (see “Spending Fear” in chapter 3).

GM Fear

Whenever you spend Fear, describe what changes in the world as Fear manifests. What interrupts the PCs? How does an adversary prepare for a powerful attack? What does it look/sound/smell like when an avalanche crashes down on the PCs?

When you spend fear, you can:

• Interrupt the players while the action tracker is out to make a move.
• Add two tokens to the action tracker.
• Use an adversary’s fear feature.
• Use an environment’s fear feature.

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 outright shut down a PC’s heroic actions.

Interrupt the players while the action tracker is out to make a move.

You can spend a Fear to interrupt between PCs while the action tracker is out and make a GM move as if they had rolled a failure or with Fear. This is most useful when PCs have been rolling successfully with Hope for a significant number of actions and you want to act in response. For example, if the PCs have placed five tokens on the action tracker but you haven’t had a chance to spend them yet, you can convert two of those tokens into a Fear, spend that Fear to make a move immediately, and have three tokens left on the action tracker to activate adversaries during your move.

Add two tokens to the action tracker.

You can always spend a Fear to add two tokens to the action tracker. This is most useful if you have a large number of adversaries on the battlefield and a decent pile of Fear built up when play returns to you—you can spend a few Fear to put more tokens on the action tracker, and use them to activate those adversaries.

Use an Adversary’s Fear Feature.

In addition to each adversary’s standard features, some some adversaries have powerful Fear features (see “Using Adversaries” in chapter 4). You can use an adversary’s Fear features by spending an action token (as usual) along with the indicated number of Fear.

Even if an adversary has other Fear features, you can always spend a Fear to improvise a big adversary move that might otherwise feel overpowered or arbitrary.

Use an Environment’s Fear Feature.

Environments can have their own features that require spending Fear to activate (see “Using Environments” in chapter 4). You can use an environment’s Fear Feature by spending an action token (as usual) along with the indicated number of Fear.

Even if the environment has another Fear feature, you can always spend Fear to improvise a big environment move that might otherwise feel overpowered or arbitrary.

Improvising Fear Moves

When you’re improvising adversaries or environments or when you’re using existing ones, you might find a moment where you want to put your thumb on the scale to make something dramatic happen or to escalate the scene. You can always improve a GM move, whether it’s for an adversary, an environment, or otherwise, but there may be situations when you want to make an especially hard move. In those situations, you may want to treat it as a Fear move. You can spend Fear and declare the move, spending the resource to communicate and respect the scale of the action you’re taking.

A Fear move should redefine a scene, change the terms, raise the stakes, modify or change the location, etc.

Fear moves commonly include one or more of these elements:

• Introducing new adversaries to a scene.
• An adversary activating a powerful spell or transformation to deal massive damage or boost their capabilities.
• An environment taking strong action against the party.

For additional guidance on creating Fear Moves, check the existing Fear Moves included in the “Adversary Features” and “Environment Features” sections and stat blocks of chapter 4.