Environments represent everything in a scene that is not the PCs or the adversaries, from the physical elements of the space to background characters and forces of nature. Much like adversaries, each environment has a stat block that provides a framework for influencing the PCs and the wider scene. These aren’t restricted to combat—you can use adversary stat blocks to enhance any scene, from festive galas to crumbling ruins.

Environments and adversaries are built to interact and support one another, both mechanically and narratively. Environments can represent creatures, such as supporting cast and groups, who are present in the background of a scene but don’t need specific adversary stat blocks. Environments can also represent other aspects of the world, such as a dangerous landscape, a damp dungeon, or a noble’s court.

This section describes how to use each environment’s stat block, while chapter 3 presents general rules on running combat and tying these scenes into the larger story. Finally, the “Environment Stat Blocks” section at the end of this chapter presents examples of environments, grouped by tier to represent their general threat level.

Environments can be used with or without the action tracker. When not using the action tracker, any Environment action can be activated with a GM move, regardless of the number of action tokens it costs.

The environment framework is meant to be inspiring and practical, rather than unchangeable and prescriptive. Feel free to customize the environments to fit your game’s characters and events—perhaps changing the Baronial Court environment into a “Baron’s Birthday Feast,” or creating a stat block for a “Castle Siege” using environment features. These stat blocks provide a way of organizing and preparing ideas for important scenes, but perhaps you don’t want to use this adversary-like system for environments; in that case, you can ignore these stat blocks entirely, or adjust them to meet your needs. You might decide that your environments only require a couple sensory details, potential moves to improvise, and/or a default difficulty number.