Salt and Thorn — A Campaign Frame for Daggerheart

Folk horror beyond the Thornhedge. You are heroes, and here that means nothing at all — yet.

Complexity Rating: •••

This frame requires the Daggerheart core rules. It adds folk charms, taboos, a shared Reckoning track, and a campaign countdown; it changes nothing about your class, your cards, or your dice.

The Pitch

Read this section to your players to introduce them to the campaign.

Where you come from, nobody believes in this sort of thing. Ghosts are a story for children, salt is for the table, and the old rhymes are only what a nurse sings to hush the small ones at night. You are heroes of that bright, reasonable country — your blade has a name, your magic answers when it's called, your deeds are sung — and not once have you needed a charm to keep the dark from your door.

Then the little wrongnesses started. Milk soured in the pail an hour after the milking. Mirrors would not hold a room quite true, and were turned to face the wall. A child wandered to the edge of the wood, and what came home was almost the child. No one could say why — and the one person who might have, a blind old seer dying half out of her wits, only caught your sleeve and sang two cracked lines of a rhyme older than she was:

Cover the glass and mind the door—
the Goodman's come to close the score.

Then she went cold, with the word still on her lips, and the word meant nothing to you. It meant nothing to anyone — until the scholars went looking. Deep in the oldest archives they found it, a name set down only sidelong and in dread: the Goodman — a power that once kept the whole ancient world in terror, until an age ago it simply left, for reasons no chronicle records, and the world over long centuries forgot to be afraid. Now the name is surfacing again, and every wrongness runs the same way home: out past the last hedgerow your maps trouble to draw, to a walled-off Old Country your world remembers only in rhymes. So you went. You found the Hedge — hawthorn and blackthorn grown black and high and older than any kingdom that ever named itself — and it opened for you like a held breath let go. You stepped through the dark of it and came out the far side into the Old Country: the light thinner here, the year later, the quiet all wrong.

What follows is the slow, dangerous work of learning a country that will never explain itself — earning its charms one hard lesson at a time, and minding rules no one thinks to tell you until you've already broken them. Village by village you follow the wrongness inward, while the year runs down toward its darkest night, and everything the old texts feared is proving true: the Goodman is coming back. You are still heroes here. No one here asked you to be.

Tone & Feel

Uncanny, Intimate, Seasonal, Bittersweet, Slow-Burning, Folk-Horror

Themes

Debt and what it buys · learning the rules the hard way · courtesy is not safety · the parish against the dark · power that notices you using it

Touchstones

The Wicker Man, Midsommar, Over the Garden Wall, Spirited Away, Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, the border ballads (Tam Lin, Thomas the Rhymer)

Overview

The Old Country

Beyond the last hedgerow your own maps bother to draw, the Old Country keeps turning the way a countryside always turned: villages scattered at the ends of lanes, a wood that belongs to no one, a manor on the hill and a gray church in the hollow, and folk who have worked the same fields since before anyone troubled to write down their names. It is poor and pretty and always a little afraid. Here the charms are not stories: salt goes over the left shoulder, iron waits above the door, the magpie is counted and greeted by name, the first sheaf is kept and the last one left standing — a hundred small observances stitched so deep into the day that no one thinks to call them magic. They are simply what you do so the night lets you alone.

Where you come from, none of this survives but in nursery rhymes — the one about the magpies, the one about never thanking a stranger, the verse your nurse sang and could not explain. The people who still understand those rhymes are the charm-wise: the cunning-woman at the edge of the village, the hedge-witch, the old man who knows the words to take the fire out of a burn. They are not your henchmen, and they are not kindly wizards. They are wary, proud, and owed. Each has a name and each has a price, and not one of them will hand an outsider the good workings for the asking — you earn a charm, or you go without.

And you came without. You crossed the Hedge to thwart a prophecy, and you crossed it knowing not one charm and not one taboo: a hero already breaking rules you have not yet learned exist. The early game is exactly that — learning the ropes the hard way, in a place where the ropes are the only thing holding the dark off your door.

The Thornhedge

They call the boundary the Hedge, or the Thornhedge, and the first thing to understand is that it is a hedge — hawthorn and blackthorn grown thick and high and older than any kingdom that ever named itself, run unbroken around the whole of the Old Country like a stitch pulled tight over a wound. From the outside it is utterly mundane: a tall dark hedgerow at the edge of an ordinary field, birds nesting in it, a smell of sloe and may-blossom on the wind. That is the horror of it. There is nothing to see and nothing to fear, nothing a sensible traveler would step around — and it holds a world shut.

No blade cuts it; the edge turns on the wood as though on stone. No fire takes it; the green will not catch and the dead wood only smokes and sulks. Nor can you go over it: climbing the Thornhedge is folk-logic, not a doorway. Go up the near side and you come down the near side, however long and however high you climb — down on the side you started. The Hedge is not beaten by strength. It is crossed only by knowing the way, and the ways are small, exact, and easy to get wrong:

a stile taken at dawn with salt in your left pocket
a gap in the thorn walked through backwards
the lychgate way, open only while a funeral is passing through it

— and your GM will know others, or invent them, for the Old Country grows new doors as quietly as it grows thorns.

Learn this much and you hold the shape of the whole campaign. The Hedge opens outward only at the great hinges of the year — the four quarter-days, the old settlement days when accounts come due — and even then no one leaves owing: a marked Reckoning and any standing, unclaimed Woes will hold the thorn shut against you as surely as a locked gate. And the last great hinge of this year falls on the night of the Great Reckoning itself: the one door out and the doom you crossed to stop swing open on the very same night.

The Great Reckoning

The prophecy your seer died naming is less an ending than a settling of accounts. At the dark end of this year — the long midwinter night the whole country has been counting toward — a ledger closes, and the Old Country comes due entire: every charm ever worked, every bargain ever struck, every observance kept or let slip, tallied and called in on a single night. What is owed is collected. And then the Hedge does the one thing a hedge knows how to do. It grows. The thorn creeps outward and takes in the next fields, the next lane, the next parish past the old line — an enclosure, in the flat old word for a common ground fenced off and lost — and the country your world remembers only in rhymes reaches one parish deeper into the world you left behind. That is what you crossed to stop.

You will not wait until midwinter to feel the weight of it. Long before the year turns, the accounts come due early: a Teind, a tithe taken ahead of the reckoning, as is his right — a child, a harvest, a name, lifted from a village that thought itself paid up — is the dread-beat that tells the table the ledger is real, and already open. And when the last night comes, there is no clean way to meet it, only a table laid with terrible ones. You might:

pay what is owed — settle the debt in full, if someone can be found to stand the price
break the covenant — unmake the folk magic itself, every charm and every taboo, forever, and learn what a country is with no terms left to keep
out-bargain him at his own table — sit down across the ledger and beat him at the reckoning he came to hold
discover what he owes, and to whom, and call that debt due before he can call in yours

Communities, Ancestries & Classes

Nothing is restricted, nothing is reskinned — you arrive exactly as you are; the Old Country is what changes. Build your character from the Daggerheart core rules exactly as written: any community, any ancestry, any class, any subclass. There is no Old Country tax on character creation, no swapped-out class list, no charm-flavored reskin of a domain card. You are not becoming a local. You are a stranger walking into a country that already has its own rules, and the friction is the point.

Play your community and ancestry as written, and let the locals have opinions about them. The Old Country reads you the way any parish reads a stranger: a highborne carries herself like gentry, and gentry-blood means something specific and uneasy this side of the Hedge, where the manor on the hill has its own long-standing arrangement with the dark. A simiah's tail draws a ward-sign behind an old woman's back before she can stop herself. None of it changes your sheet. All of it changes how a door opens, or doesn't.

Casters feel the crossing first. The moment you crossed the Hedge, your god's voice got quieter — and your spells kept working anyway. Who is paying for them now? Cast your domain cards exactly as printed, at full strength — but know that every casting here is a draw against a ledger that isn't yours, and that is why all magic feeds the Reckoning (see Campaign Mechanics), outsider magic most of all. Non-casters lose nothing by comparison: the Old Country's magic is a trade, not a gift, and it is learnable by anyone at the table. Folk charms need no Spellcast trait — only patience, a teacher, and a price paid — and your blades and your wits are precisely why you were sent across the Hedge in the first place.

Player Principles

Read the room. The locals' habits are the rulebook — what they salute, what they never say aloud, what they leave on the doorstep.
Your magic is a loan here. Spend it like one.
Learn the ropes, then mind them. Ignorance fires taboos; knowledge is treasure.
Courtesy is not safety. Never thank them.

GM Principles

Telegraph the taboos through the folk, never through narration. Let a flinch, a hush, or a turned back teach the rule before the fiction ever has to state it outright.
Make the Goodman's attention felt, not seen — until it must be. A held breath, a coin gone cold, a debt quietly marked; let the dread arrive long before the face does.
Price everything; gifts most of all. Nothing crosses a threshold in the Old Country for free, and the offers that look free are the ones that cost the most.
Keep the horror parish-sized. One banshee is dread; ten is weather.

Setting Distinctions

Four things about the Old Country will bend your table's habits from the first session. Learn them before you learn anything else.

The charm-wise

Every village keeps one — the cunning-woman at the end of the lane, the hedge-witch in her hut past the plowland, the old man who knows the words to take the fire out of a burn. They are the only road to the folk magic, and they gatekeep it jealously: a working is not written down and not handed over for the asking. Each of the charm-wise has a name, and each has a price, and you will pay yours before you are trusted with so much as a salt-line. Befriend them, earn from them, owe them — but do not mistake them for allies. They were here long before you and they will be here long after, and they know exactly what a charm is worth.

The observance pantry

A charm is not a word said into the air. It is a word said over something — and the somethings are the same in every household from the manor kitchen to the poorest croft: salt, cold iron, a sprig of rowan, a length of red thread. The pantry is kept stocked the way you keep a fire lit, because a working without its material is only a wish, and a wish is what the dark feeds on. When you learn a charm you learn its observance with it; each entry in the charm appendix names the stuff it needs and the small correct way to spend it. Run low on salt at the wrong dark of the moon and you will understand, very fast, why the pantry comes first.

And one observance needs no pantry at all: in every field in the Old Country, one corner is left untilled — the Goodman's Croft, though no one will say whose croft it is, nor why the plow turns short of it. It is the one payment everyone makes and nobody mentions.

The hinge-days

No one here keeps your calendar. They keep the Wheel of the Year — the quarter-days and the cross-quarters between them, the turning-nights when the old folk say the veil wears thin. These are the hinges, and they run everything. The banshee cries loudest as one nears; the manor holds its rents against them; the whole parish counts its days toward the next festival the way you might count toward a reckoning — because that is exactly what a festival is here. A hinge-day is a deadline. Something is always owed by one, and something on the far side of the ledger is always counting down to it too.

But the four quarter-days are the great hinges, and they are something more. They are the settlement days — the days rents fall due, contracts turn over, and accounts are ruled off — and they are the only days the Hedge opens outward. A cross-quarter thins the veil and fills the green and empties the purse, but it does not unlock the gate. The country's one door keeps the country's own calendar: it opens when the books are balanced, four mornings in the year, and never between.

Warded things

Nothing that comes out of the Old Country dark is invincible, and nothing is safe. Everything that walks abroad has a folk remedy it answers to — cold iron laid across a threshold, an unbroken line of salt, a cross of rowan wood, a stream of running water it dares not step into, its own true name spoken back to it. Find a creature's ward and you have its leash; miss it, and your blade is only a way to make it angry. The adversary appendix marks the ward on every foe that keeps one — and tells you how to bolt a ward onto any monster you bring across from your own books.

The Inciting Incident

You cross on the bright morning of the spring quarter-day, the year's first great hinge, at a stile in the corner of an ordinary field, with salt in your left pocket the way the dying seer's last breath told you — the one small correct way through a boundary that turns blade and fire and any honest attempt to climb it. The far side smells of wet earth and blackthorn-blossom — the Hedge itself in white flower at your back. Behind you the stile is only a stile and the field is only a field, and when you turn to fix the way home in your memory, the latch will not lift for you again. It has shut. The Hedge does not open outward until the next great hinge of the year, and that is a whole season off. Whatever you left mid-sentence at home is going to have to keep.

The first roofs you come to belong to Bramblewick — a scatter of crofts along a lane, a green, a gray church in the hollow, a manor watching from the hill. (If you would rather run a village already drawn, make this Nettleden and use the haunting it already holds; either way keep the hedgerow names, for the Old Country christens its parishes after the things that grow in its ditches.) You arrive to a village that is not sleeping. For three new-moon nights now something has keened from the treeline — a thin, climbing cry that begins when the last light goes and does not stop until the black hour before dawn. The folk call her the banshee, and they are barring their doors and burning their lamps to the socket, because everyone in Bramblewick has worked out what her crying means and no one will say it in daylight: she is crying for someone who has not died yet. She names her dead a few days early. Long enough for a mother to watch her own child across the table and know. Long enough for the marked one to lie awake under the cry and wonder if it is for them.

They take you in, because a parish takes in travelers off the road, and that is exactly where it goes wrong. Somewhere between the doorway and the second cup you break a rule not one of you knew was a rule — and no one tells you which. They only go quiet, and still, and someone's hand makes a small sign low at their side, and they watch you differently after. (Choose the breach and keep it back to spring later. Perhaps one of you thanks the good-wife warmly for her luck or her kindness — and Never Thank Them is the deepest taboo in the country, for courtesy here is a confession of debt. Perhaps the salt goes over reaching across the welcome table for the bread, and Spill the Salt turns the whole board cold. Perhaps you eat what is set before you, grateful and half-starved, and Never Eat Their Food has just quietly changed what you are.) You will not learn what you did until it comes due — because that is the shape of every rule in the Old Country. You meet it by breaking it.

By morning you find the one soul in Bramblewick who can arm you: the charm-wise, the cunning-woman at the end of the lane, who has watched the banshee take its due before and lived to keep her threshold. She will teach you your first working — the salt-turn that puts a thing off your shoulder, say, or the iron that holds a door; the appendix is hers to choose from. She will not teach it for thanks, nor for coin, nor for the asking. She names a price — a night's errand she cannot walk herself, a thing fetched from the churchyard after dark, a promise she will hold you to when the year comes to its own dark end — and whether you can pay it, and what paying it makes of you, is the first true choice of the campaign.

Who is the banshee crying for — a stranger, a child of the parish, or one of your own? What does the cunning-woman ask in payment, and what does she already know that she will not say? What did you leave unfinished at home when the Hedge swung shut — and who back there is still waiting for you to return and close it? And when you finally learn which rule you broke that first night, who has been holding it against you ever since?

Beating the Bounds

Run this on the first cross-quarter after you cross — or later, about a third of the way through the countdown in The Year Turns, if your table wants longer to settle. A cross-quarter thins the veil and does not open the gate, so nobody can mistake the day for a way home. Whatever parish you have reached by then, this is what it does that morning.

The whole parish walks its boundary: the young and the old and the dogs, with peeled willow wands, following a line nobody has ever seen drawn. At every corner-stone they upend a boy and beat him against it, gently, laughing, so that he will know where the line runs when he is the oldest man in the parish and there is nobody left to ask. Then they set him right way up and go on to the next one. It is a good day. There is drink after, and the manor pays for it.

You are asked along, and the asking is not really a question — outsiders walk the bounds because outsiders are precisely who the bounds are walked for. (It is also a courtesy, in a country where courtesy is a confession of debt. Let whoever wants to thank the parish for the invitation try it.)

The stones are older than the parish. Nobody remarks on this.

At one stone the laughing stops. The procession turns its backs and walks a wide circle round it through the wet grass, picks the line up again on the far side and picks the laughing up with it, and the whole business takes less time than it takes you to notice it happened. Ask, and you are told that's the one you don't beat, in the tone of a man telling you which way a door opens. That is the whole of the answer. There is no other part of it that anyone here has ever had.

Nobody is watching you. You can walk back.

It is cut all down one face with notches: a tally, ruled off in fives the way a shepherd counts a flock, and far too many of them for a parish this size to have corners. Near the top, deeper and older than the rest, two marks stand side by side. You have seen the left-hand one before. It is cut into the gatepost of every field in this country, on the corner the plow turns short of.

You have not seen the right-hand one anywhere.

Below the last notch there is a great deal of clean stone left.

GM onlyBehind the Hedge — what the chronicles left out. GM only. He was not driven out. He sold the leaving. The ancient world wanted him gone, so he named a price and let them pay it: the charms that put him out were his own, lent for the purpose, which is why they still work and why every one of them is a debt. The fee was the ground he stood on, every soul standing on it, and their children after them, in perpetuity, with a hedge to mark the line he had agreed not to cross. From the outside it looked exactly like leaving, and the chronicles wrote down what it looked like.

So this parish stood outside once. Its bounds are the Hedge's old line, left behind by an enclosure generations back, and the folk walking it are the grandchildren of people who were new accounts themselves. They keep his fence in repair and call it custom. The notches are not corners, they are reckonings, and there is room below the last one. The left-hand mark is his. The right-hand mark is the other signature on the agreement, and whoever owns it is the road the fourth ending walks (see The Great Reckoning). The Old Thing of the Wood was here before the parish and keeps the old bounds among its motives; it knows which line is which, and it has never once been asked.

Play the walk warm. The horror is not in the stone. It is in how much everyone is enjoying the day.

Whose boy did you watch them beat against the stone, and what will he be in forty years? Which of you went back to look, and which of you would not? If this parish stood outside once, what was it called then, and does any map you grew up with still carry the name? And the right-hand mark: is it something that can still be owed to, or something that signed and then died?

Campaign Mechanics

The following mechanics are unique to this campaign. Nothing here replaces a core Daggerheart rule — action rolls, domain cards, and class features all work exactly as printed. Hope and Fear remain the only currencies at this table. What follows is what the Old Country adds on top of them: a way to work folk magic without a domain card or a Spellcast trait, and a shared ledger — the Reckoning — that keeps count of what all of it costs.

Folk Charms

Folk charms are magic anyone can work — knowledge, not cards. They never occupy your loadout and no class feature is required.

Working a charm is an action roll using whichever trait fits how you work it: Presence to plead at a threshold, Finesse to tie the knot, Instinct to read the leaves (Read the Leaves). There is no Spellcast trait requirement.

Success with Hope — it takes, clean.
Success with Fear — it takes, but a cost lands. The GM picks one, flavored to the charm: it draws notice · the observance demands more next time · it half-works or catches the wrong target · mark one extra box on the Reckoning.
Failure with Hope — it fizzles; the materials are spent.
Failure with Fear — it twists. The GM makes a move through the charm itself.
Critical success — it takes beautifully — and mark one extra box on the Reckoning. The old power loves a flourish.

Observances. Every charm demands a folk condition — a material (salt, iron, a cord), a time (dusk, the new moon), or a place (a threshold, running water). Meet it and roll normally. Force the working without it and roll with disadvantage. Lack the material entirely and the charm cannot be worked at all.

The two faces. Every charm has a Fair face (ward, bless, heal, reveal) and a Foul face (curse, bind, harm, beguile) — the same belief, worked two ways. You know one face of each charm you learn.

Learning charms. The party arrives knowing none. Charms are learned only in the fiction — taught by the charm-wise, bartered from a peddler, deciphered from a dead practitioner's book. Each is a story beat with a name and a price attached. There is no list to shop from; there is a countryside to earn.

Rare charms. Some headings below end · rare. These are deep art, and not the sort of thing a neighbor teaches. An ordinary charm is learned from the charm-wise or bartered off a peddler; a rare one wants a source that costs something to reach — a dead practitioner's book, a bargain with the Goodman, a debt owed to someone who will not say how they know — and the finding of it should be a story of its own.

Awakening the second face. Face-growth is personal — every PC may pursue it in parallel. To awaken the other face of a charm you know, you need two things:

A source — you have seen the other face done, found it written, or bought the teaching from someone who will not say why they know it. The GM gates this in the fiction.
Practice — a personal countdown (3), your face-project. You may advance it only with the Work on a Project downtime move during a long rest. Every tick is a rest not spent healing or preparing.

The Goodman's tutelage. When your working of a charm fails with Fear, the charm shows you what it wanted to be. You may awaken its other face on the spot — if you accept his teaching: mark the Reckoning twice, or take Cursed until you atone. Patient scholarship, or a fast loan from exactly the wrong teacher.

The Reckoning

The party shares one Reckoning track of 6 boxes (for a faster, darker game, use 4 — this is the campaign's pacing dial). It marks:

1 — each time a charm is worked (any result);
+1 — when a charm working is a critical success;
1 — each time a domain card's roll is a critical success;
1 or 2 — when a taboo is broken, as the taboo lists.

When the last box is marked, the Reckoning comes due: the type carried by the mark that tipped it awakens. Mint one Wish and one Woe of that type, clear the track, and carry any overflow. Charms carry their own type; taboos list theirs; domain cards use the table below. Early in the campaign the ledger fills on broken taboos and flaring crits — debts of ignorance. Later it fills on charms — debts of mastery. The party will watch their own learning change what they owe.

GM, the dial's measure: at full stride the ledger should come due about once a session — twice in one heavy with charm-work or broken rules. A slow first fill, while the party still knows nothing, is the tutorial doing its work; if the track stays quiet once they have begun to learn, tighten to four boxes.

Wishes

A Wish is a standing offer to the whole table — a door, not a token. At most one Wish per type stands at a time. Any PC may claim the standing Wish by spending 3 Hope, to one of:

Unleash a great working of that type — a charm you know of that type takes effect as if critically succeeded, no roll (each charm in the appendix names its great working);
Waive an observance — work a charm of that type without its observance, with advantage;
Sweeten the result — a charm roll of that type you just made with Fear becomes with Hope; the GM returns the Fear that roll generated;
(Optional rule) Complete a face-project of that type instantly.

An unleashed great working is still a working: mark the Reckoning as for a charm worked and critically succeeded — two boxes. His lures deepen the debt.

An unleashed great working still owes its observance, too: waiving one is a separate claim on the Wish, not a part of this one. The Wish buys the roll, not the salt. The bone must still be aimed unseen, the water must still run, and the thread must still be red.

If a type comes due again while its Wish stands unclaimed, the old Wish is lost — the new offer takes its place. He does not leave the same offer standing twice.

Woes

A Woe stands against the countryside until spent — uncapped; the world's debt always stacks; each is one use. The GM claims a standing Woe by spending 1 Fear to make that type's signature move — a hard move with teeth:

Fend — a protection fails or turns: a ward inverts, a threshold stops being safe.
Blight — a sickness or curse takes hold that no rest clears; only the cause undone, an atonement, or a Fair face lifts it.
Boon — luck curdles: the party's next critical success this session becomes a success with Fear.
Bind — something holds fast: a door, a road, a person, a promise.
Ken — something now sees the party, wherever they are, until warded.
Guise — a familiar face is wrong: someone known is masked, replaced, or was never there.

While a Woe of a type stands, Fear features of Old Country adversaries and environments of that type cost 1 less Fear. Type a Fear feature by what it does — a thing that watches is Ken, a thing that holds is Bind, a curse laid is Blight; the GM's judgment rules. Most Fear features cost exactly 1, so while its Woe stands, the type's signature dread often comes free. That is deliberate. The six fae blocks in Appendix C print one typed Fear feature per type — a full set of his collections, ready to run.

What Feeds the Ledger

Domain cards carry a type too — the table below sets which. When a domain card's roll is a critical success, mark the Reckoning for the type its domain carries.

Domain	Type	Domain	Type
Valor	Fend	Bone	Bind
Splendor	Fend	Codex	Ken
Arcana	Blight	Midnight	Guise
Blade	Blight	Grace	Boon
Sage	Boon

Playing with The Void: Hex → Blight · Dread → Blight · Blood → Bind.

Taboos

A taboo is a hidden law of the world — a thing you must not do, or an omen you must not meet. It has no roll: break one and the consequence fires — on the transgressor for most, while a few wake a debt the whole countryside must carry: a Woe stands at once, minted directly. The ledger marks either way (1, or 2 for the grave ones, as each taboo lists). A taboo is broken three ways: by accident · by the world (the GM's omen tool) · by design — you cannot work a taboo like a charm, but you can contrive the world so another breaks it in your stead. Contrive it and the curse is theirs — though if the taboo's debt is the standing kind, it is everyone's, yours included; either way you have stoked the ledger on purpose, and the Woe side wakes with it.

The party arrives knowing none of this. GM: telegraph through the folk, never through narration — the locals salute magpies, pay a coin for a gifted knife, sweep spilled salt with real fear. What the players notice and ask about, they learn. A learned taboo is treasure.

Each taboo carries an aversion — the folk counter that turns it aside if performed in time. An aversion is not a charm working: it takes no roll and marks no Reckoning. Where a curated charm formalises the same gesture, the aversion names it — but it is the folk act that turns the law aside, not the working.

Cursed

A new condition, native to the Old Country. It carries no flat penalty. While you are Cursed, once per scene, when you succeed with Hope, the GM may declare the luck soured: the roll becomes a success with Fear, and the GM gains that Fear. Rest never clears Cursed. It lifts only three ways: a Fair-face charm worked over you, an atonement, or the cause undone. The Overlooked Hag in Appendix C is this condition's printed source; her ill-wishing lays it.

The Bargain

When you roll a charm working, you may bargain: name a price — the GM approves or sharpens it — and turn your Fear Die to 12. Recount your total. The roll now counts as rolled with Fear, and the GM gains Fear as usual. If your Hope Die also shows 12, it is a critical success: you bought boxcars. Mark the Reckoning one extra box. Bought boxcars are still a roll with Fear — the only critical success in the game that is — and the GM keeps the Fear. You keep a critical's spoils all the same: gain a Hope, clear a Stress, and the working lands as only a critical can. A Bargain is paid twice — the price you named now, and the ledger later. Bargains are for charm workings only; your sword is your own.

No One Leaves Owing

This is the Hedge clause stated as a rule, not just an omen: it opens outward only at the great hinges of the year, and never for a debtor. A marked Reckoning holds it shut. So does a single standing, unclaimed Woe — the GM needs only one uncashed debt on the board to seal the gate against you. No one leaves owing. Expect the table to feel this before anyone names it: sooner or later you will catch yourselves wanting the GM to spend a Woe, just to clear the board before the next great hinge comes and goes — and that want, once it arrives, tells you exactly what kind of place you have been playing in.

The Year Turns

A second countdown runs behind every session, longer than the Reckoning and independent of it: the year itself, ticking from the spring crossing toward its own dark end. It starts at 12 — shorter, for a game built to close in a single arc. Advance it by one:

at every long rest;
when a grave (2-mark) taboo fires; and
when the GM claims a Woe and narrates the countryside worse for it — the GM's judgment, and at most once a session by this route.

When it runs out, the year turns for the last time. The Great Reckoning arrives, and the book closes.

Tuning the Frame

Session Zero Questions

Ask these before anyone steps up to the stile. They set what each of you left behind, why your magic came with you, and what it will cost to go home again.

What did your grandmother's rhymes say about the Old Country, and which one turns out to be true?
What omen leaked across the border into your world, and who besides the seer noticed?
Your power kept working the moment you crossed the Hedge. What do you tell yourself about why?
The first rule you broke here, you broke within an hour. What was it, and who watched you break it?
What are you owed back home — and what would you pay to get back to it?
What courtesy of your homeland will you not give up, whatever it costs here?
Which of you read the nursery rhymes as a child — and which of you believed them?

Variant — the stranded crossing. If your table prefers castaways to emissaries, skip the seer: the party crossed by accident — a wrong turn at dusk, a funeral joined out of respect, a stile taken to cut across a field — and learned about the prophecy only once inside. Everything else holds; the Hedge does not care why you came, only what you owe.

Appendix A: Twenty-Eight Charms

Twenty-eight charms are drawn here out of the Old Country's own lore into the grammar of this table: four each to Fend and Boon, and five to each of the witch's four — Blight, Bind, Ken, Guise — for the witch types stand above the rest in the old catalog as they do here. Each is knowledge learned only in the fiction, from a charm-wise who names her price (see Folk Charms). Every entry gives the belief, the observance its working demands, and its two faces (the · folk-known face is the one the folk know — and here, the one you know when you first learn the charm); the Great working line is what a Wish of that type unleashes — the charm at full power, as if critically succeeded, no roll (see Wishes).

Salt at the Back (Fend · folk know it Fair)

A pinch of salt over the left shoulder, where the devil waits.

Observance: a pinch of salt, cast over the left shoulder.

Fair · folk-known — Blind the ill thing at your back: it loses you. It cannot pursue you as you withdraw, and until it finds you again its rolls against you have disadvantage.
Foul — Spill the salt and leave it at another's place, loosing the devil at their shoulder: the next roll made against them gains advantage.

Great working: The salt turns every ill thing in the scene at once — the party breaks contact cleanly, and nothing may pursue.

Iron Over the Door (Fend · folk know it Foul)

Cold iron hammered fast at a threshold. What it guards, it guards absolutely; what it refuses, it refuses by name.

Observance: cold iron, fixed at a threshold.

Fair — Shelter all within: while the iron holds, nothing uncanny outside can cross the threshold, and any roll it makes to breach the door has disadvantage.
Foul · folk-known — Bar one named being — friend or foe — from crossing this threshold: while the iron holds it cannot pass, and cannot make another pass it.

Great working: The iron seals every threshold of the house at once — nothing uncanny crosses any door or window of it for the scene, invited or not.

Rowan and Red Thread (Fend · folk know it Fair)

Two twigs of rowan bound in a cross with red thread. The tree the witch cannot pass, tied with the color she cannot cut.

Observance: a cross of rowan wood bound with red thread.

Fair · folk-known — Ward a soul or a home against witchcraft and the evil eye: while the cross hangs, no curse, ill-wishing, or overlooking eye can fix on what it guards, and any roll to lay one has disadvantage.
Foul — Unpick another's ward: cut the thread and the cross is only wood again. The threshold it kept stands open, and whatever it barred may walk in at its leisure.

Great working: Every rowan cross in the parish takes at once — no witchcraft of any kind lands on any soul under a warded roof for the whole of the night.

The Witch-Bottle (Fend · folk know it Fair)

A bottle of pins, iron, and your own water, corked and set under the hearth. What was sent at you goes home to whoever sent it.

Observance: a bottle of pins, iron, and your own water, corked and set under the hearth.

Fair · folk-known — Turn an ill-wishing back on the one who sent it: a curse laid on you rebounds, and the sender takes Cursed in your place. It festers in them and will not lift until they undo what they sent.
Foul — Stopper a soul's luck in the bottle and keep it corked: while you hold it they are Vulnerable, they waste thin and luckless, and no rest mends what the bottle keeps.

Great working: Every working laid against the household rebounds at once — each curse, ill-wish, and sending in play returns to whoever sent it, and they take Cursed for it.

The Evil Eye (Blight · folk know it Foul)

A stare that carries a curse. Fixed on a soul your ill-will lands; turned aside, it sends one back the way it came.

Observance: an unbroken line of sight to the one you name.

Fair — Turn the eye aside, warding the ill-wishing away: lift Cursed from a soul you hold in your gaze.
Foul · folk-known — Lay a curse of ill luck on the one you fix with your gaze: they become Cursed.

Great working: The eye falls on the whole gathering — every soul who meets your gaze becomes Cursed at once.

The Silver Pin (Blight · folk know it Fair)

Silver drawn to blood — the metal that bites what nothing else can. It marks the shapeshifter for daylight; against a true soul it festers into a slow wasting.

Observance: a pin, blade, or shot of silver, drawn to blood.

Fair · folk-known — Draw a shapeshifter's blood with silver and it bites where nothing else will: the creature is Vulnerable until the wound closes, and by daylight the same wound rises on its true face, for all to know it.
Foul — Work silver against a true soul — a pin in the seam, a coin passed with a curse — and the metal that should guard turns to a slow wasting: they take Cursed, and it festers in them until the cause is undone.

Great working: Every false face in the scene is forced up at once — each shapeshifter present stands exposed in its true shape, Vulnerable, for all to see.

Sour the Milk (Blight · folk know it Foul)

A grudging word said over the churn at dawn. The oldest accusation in the parish, and the easiest to make stick.

Observance: a grudging word spoken over the churn at dawn.

Fair — Keep the milk sweet and the cattle thriving: the household's milk, butter, and newborn beasts hold good through the season, whatever the weather or the ill-will around them.
Foul · folk-known — Blight a household's milk, butter, and newborn beasts: nothing they set to keep will keep. The loss is slow and total, and the neighbors will name a witch for it long before they name you.

Great working: The whole parish's increase sours in a night — every churn, every byre, every hive — and by morning the village is hunting for whoever did it.

Bone-Point (Blight · folk know it Foul · rare)

A pointed bone or a blackthorn spine, aimed unseen at the one you mean. What the point finds, it wastes.

Observance: a pointed bone or a blackthorn spine, aimed unseen.

Fair — Draw a sickness out of the ailing and into the bone: they clear 3 Hit Points, and whatever ailed them is in the spine now. Burn it, or it will find somebody.
Foul · folk-known — Lay a wasting curse on the one you point out: they take Cursed and mark 2 Hit Points, and those will not clear by rest while the bone is kept whole.

Great working: The point takes them where they stand — the one you aim at is wasted to their last Hit Point in a breath, with no roll and no warning.

Wane with the Moon (Blight · folk know it Fair)

A thing of theirs — a clout, a lock, a leaving — set to waste as the moon wastes. What dwindles with it dwindles for good.

Observance: a thing of the target's, wasted as the moon wastes.

Fair · folk-known — Set a sickness or a curse to the waning moon: start a countdown (3), ticked once each night the moon wanes. When it fills the affliction is gone by the dark — Cursed among them, lifted without ever facing the one who laid it.
Foul — Waste a thing of a soul's as the moon wastes: start a countdown (3), ticked each night, and they fail with it. When it fills they are Cursed and Vulnerable, and nothing mends until the buried rag is found and unmade.

Great working: The moon goes dark on the instant — every curse and sickness you have set to it lifts at once, from as many souls as you can name.

Penny Found (Boon · folk know it Fair)

A pin or penny spotted on the road and taken up. Pocketed it carries the day's luck; left turned for the next hand, it passes your ill-luck on.

Observance: a pin or a penny, spotted and taken up.

Fair · folk-known — Pocket the day's luck: take advantage on your next action roll to put right a thing that has just gone wrong.
Foul — Leave it turned for the next hand: the next soul to take up the coin — or one you name to find it — has disadvantage on their next roll.

Great working: The road pays out for everyone — each PC banks a second chance, taking advantage on their next action roll this scene.

First-Foot (Boon · folk know it Fair)

The first foot over the threshold after midnight, bearing coal, coin, or bread. What that first-comer carries sets the year within — a blessing or a blight.

Observance: cross a threshold first after midnight, bearing a gift — coal, coin, or bread.

Fair · folk-known — Bless a household you first-foot: those within take advantage on their next action roll, and small fortune runs their way until the next hinge-day.
Foul — Carry ill fortune across: the household you first-foot with an ill gift takes disadvantage on their next roll, and ill-luck dogs them until the next hinge-day.

Great working: You first-foot the whole parish at once — every household takes the blessing, its luck holding bright until the next hinge-day.

The Bowl of Cream (Boon · folk know it Fair)

A bowl of cream set on the hearth by night, and no word ever said of it. Pay them, and never name the paying.

Observance: a bowl of cream set out on the hearth by night, and no word said of it.

Fair · folk-known — Keep the house-spirit sweet and it labors unseen: the household clears all marked Stress on their next rest, and small work done under that roof comes right without anyone asking who did it.
Foul — Foul the offering and turn a household's own helper against it: what kept the house now spoils it. Those within take disadvantage on every roll made under that roof until the bowl is set right.

Great working: Every hearth in the parish is paid at once — the whole village clears all Stress, and the unseen labor holds until the next hinge-day.

Third Time Lucky (Boon · folk know it Fair)

A thing tried a third time, the first two failures let go clean. The rule of three cuts both ways.

Observance: a thing tried a third time, the first two failed and let go clean.

Fair · folk-known — The third attempt at a thing twice-failed lands true: once per session, you succeed at it without a roll, so long as both earlier tries were honest and neither was argued with.
Foul — Lay the rule of three on a soul: start a countdown (3). Each ill that befalls them ticks it and each is worse than the last; when it fills, the third and worst falls as a hard move, with no roll to stop it.

Great working: The parish's luck turns on the third — every PC banks one, and each may once this session declare an attempt their third, and it lands true without a roll.

Knot the Name (Bind · folk know it Foul)

A true name tied into three knots of cord. What the knot holds, holds fast.

Observance: a cord and the target's true name, tied in three knots.

Fair — Bind a wound closed or a promise true: the bound one clears 2 Hit Points, or all parties to the promise know the instant it breaks.
Foul · folk-known — Bind the named one: they are Restrained until they break free (an action roll; the GM sets the Difficulty by how well the name is truly theirs) or the cord is cut.

Great working: Even a bodiless thing can be held for a scene, if you hold its true name. Somewhere behind the Hedge, that sentence matters more than any other in this book.

The Bridle (Bind · folk know it Foul · rare)

A bridle slipped over the head of the thing you would master. It bends a wild or uncanny creature to your service — or a sleeping soul, ridden through the night and spent by dawn.

Observance: a bridle slipped over the head of the thing you would master.

Fair — Master a wild or uncanny thing: while the bridle holds it obeys you and cannot turn on you, serving to the last of its strength — then it is spent (as the fiction demands).
Foul · folk-known — Bridle a sleeping soul and ride them through the night: they wake hag-ridden and spent — mark all their Stress, and no rest feels like rest until the bridle is burned.

Great working: The bit slips on with no roll and no fight — you master the creature or ride the sleeper outright, and nothing it does can throw the bridle while the night lasts.

The Poppet (Bind · folk know it Foul · rare)

A cloth figure sewn with something of theirs — hair, nail, or thread. What is done to it is done to them, and distance is no argument.

Observance: a cloth figure sewn with the mark of the one it stands for.

Fair — Heal the one it stands for from afar, stitch by stitch: they clear 3 Hit Points wherever they are, and they know who is healing them.
Foul · folk-known — Bind or harm the one it stands for, though miles lie between: a pin set is 2 Hit Points marked, or Restrained while the limbs are bound. They cannot reach you to stop it. They can only find the poppet.

Great working: The figure answers perfectly — whatever you do to it they suffer entire and at once, wherever they are, and no distance, ward, or roll stands between.

Witch's Ladder (Bind · folk know it Foul · rare)

A cord of three strands, knotted, with feathers worked in. Nine knots, and it tightens on its own.

Observance: a cord of three strands, knotted, with feathers worked in.

Fair — Knot a blessing or a ward into the cord and keep it: while it is kept whole and hidden, the one it was tied for takes advantage on rolls to resist any working laid against them.
Foul · folk-known — Tie a slow working onto someone: start a countdown (3), ticked once a day and unseen. Each tick is a worsening they cannot account for; when it fills they take Cursed, and cannot be rid of it until the ladder is found and every knot untied.

Great working: Every knot pulls tight at once — the whole ladder's patient work lands in a breath, and the one it was tied for takes Cursed on the spot.

Unpick the Knot (Bind · folk know it Fair)

The working itself in your hands, undone backwards — last knot first. Nothing is tied so well that a patient soul cannot untie it.

Observance: the working itself in hand, undone backwards, last knot first.

Fair · folk-known — Undo another's working backwards: with the thing itself in hand — witch's ladder, poppet, bottle, or bundle — it is unmade for good, and every condition it laid lifts with it, Cursed included.
Foul — Unpick an honest tie: a vow, a handfasting, a sworn friendship comes apart as though it never held, and those who swore it cannot say why they no longer mean it.

Great working: Every working in the scene comes apart at once — each charm, curse, and binding in play is undone, whoever laid it and whatever it held.

Hag Stone (Ken · folk know it Fair)

A stone worn through by water, held to the eye. Through its hole a glamour falls away to the truth — or a waking nightmare is sent the other way.

Observance: a stone worn through by water, looked through.

Fair · folk-known — Look through the stone and any glamour or false seeming falls away to the truth beneath — and against a thing whose true shape you have seen, your next roll has advantage.
Foul — Send a true and waking nightmare to the one you watch: they mark 3 Stress as the vision takes them.

Great working: Every seeming in the scene falls away at once — no glamour, disguise, or false face can hold before the stone, and all stand revealed as they truly are.

Magpie Count (Ken · folk know it Fair)

Magpies seen and numbered against the old rhyme — one for sorrow, two for joy. Their tally reads a soul's fortune; a lone bird's sorrow can be hung on the one you name.

Observance: magpies seen and numbered, the old rhyme said.

Fair · folk-known — Read the omen their number foretells: the GM answers one honest question about what is coming truthfully, and a salute to the lone bird can soften a sorrow already named (as the fiction demands).
Foul — Hang a lone magpie's sorrow on the one you name: their next roll has disadvantage, and small sorrows dog them until it lands.

Great working: The birds answer plainly — the GM tells you, truly and in full, the shape of what is coming to the parish before the next hinge-day.

Read the Leaves (Ken · folk know it Fair)

Spent leaves settled in the bottom of the cup, read at rest. The cup does not lie, but it does not explain itself either.

Observance: spent tea leaves settled in the cup, read at rest.

Fair · folk-known — Glimpse a true omen of what is coming: the GM answers one honest question about the near future truthfully, though in the cup's own language — a shape, not a sentence.
Foul — Plant a false omen that others will read as true: set a shape in another's cup and they will act on it. Rolls made on the strength of that reading have disadvantage, and they will not think to doubt the cup.

Great working: The cup shows the whole of it — everything that is coming, in order and entire, and still in the cup's own shapes. You will not mistake them this time.

The Sieve and Shears (Ken · folk know it Fair)

A sieve balanced on the points of the shears, and the names said over aloud. At the true one, it turns.

Observance: a sieve balanced on the points of the shears, and the names said aloud.

Fair · folk-known — Name the thief, or find what is lost: say the names and the sieve turns at the truth. The GM names the guilty party, or the place the lost thing lies.
Foul — Turn it against an innocent: the sieve turns where you will it, and every soul who watched will swear they saw it turn true. The named one is held guilty by the whole village, whatever the truth.

Great working: The sieve answers everything asked of it — name any number of thieves, lost things, or hidden hands, and it turns true for each in turn.

The Dumb Supper (Ken · folk know it Fair)

A supper laid at midnight in silence, backwards in every particular, with one chair left empty at the head. Someone always comes to sit in it.

Observance: a supper laid in silence at midnight, backwards in every particular, with an empty chair at the head.

Fair · folk-known — Lay the supper and the dead take the empty chair: they must answer you truly, and must go on answering until cock-crow. Ask what only the dead can know. Speak one word aloud before it is finished and the supper is spoiled.
Foul — Lay it in a living soul's name and their spirit is called from them to your table: the body drops where it stands, and the spirit must answer you until cock-crow, when it goes back whether you release it or not.

Great working: The whole table fills — every dead soul you can name comes and sits, and all of them must answer, truly, until dawn.

Turn the Coat (Guise · folk know it Fair)

A garment worn inside-out at dusk, when the light is uncertain. It turns you unseen to the thing that hunts you — or dresses you in another's seeming.

Observance: wear a garment inside-out at dusk.

Fair · folk-known — Turn the coat and the thing that hunts you loses you: you are Hidden from it until you act against it or the light fails.
Foul — Dress in another's seeming: you wear their face until the light changes, taking advantage on rolls to deceive those who know them.

Great working: The turned coat hides the whole party at once — you all pass unseen by anything hunting you until you break cover, no light and no roll needed to hold it.

Running Water (Guise · folk know it Fair)

Living water — a running stream or ford, never still. What hunts you cannot follow across; a soul stranded on the wrong bank is left to it.

Observance: living water crossed — a stream or a ford, running and not still.

Fair · folk-known — Cross living water and the thing that hunts you — dead, fae, or ill-wished — cannot follow: it is stopped at the bank, and any roll it makes to reach you across the water has disadvantage.
Foul — Strand a fleeing soul on the wrong bank: the water will not take them, and they are left Restrained at the crossing with the thing at their heels.

Great working: The ford closes behind the whole party — nothing that hunts you, of any kind, can cross the water for the rest of the night.

Fairy Gold (Guise · folk know it Foul)

A glamour laid over a poor thing and shown by dusk or candlelight. It is only ever a loan, and the light always changes.

Observance: a glamour laid over a poor thing, shown by dusk or candlelight.

Fair — A fair seeming on a poor thing: rags show fine and copper shows gold, and rolls to pass as what you are not take advantage, until the light changes.
Foul · folk-known — Pay in leaves and dust that pass for coin and silver: the bargain is struck and the goods are yours. By dawn it is leaves again, and whoever took it knows exactly who paid them.

Great working: The whole company is gilded at once — every soul and every thing you name shows fine and true, and the seeming holds until you choose to let it drop.

The By-Name (Guise · folk know it Fair)

A by-name given and answered to, and the true one kept behind the teeth. What cannot be named cannot be called.

Observance: a by-name given and answered to, the true name kept unsaid.

Fair · folk-known — Cloak a soul under a by-name: no curse, calling, or knotted working can catch their true one. Anything that needs their name to reach them — Knot the Name included — simply does not find them.
Foul — Speak out the true name another hides: say it aloud where it can be heard and they stand open to any working at all. The next working laid on them lands without a roll.

Great working: The whole party goes unnamed — for the rest of the night nothing in the Old Country can call, curse, or knot any of you, because none of it knows what to say.

Lose the Count (Guise · folk know it Fair)

A tally, a muster, a counting of souls — and one slipping through it unnumbered. What was never counted was never there.

Observance: a tally, a muster, or a count of souls, and one slipping unnumbered through it.

Fair · folk-known — Go unnumbered through a count of souls: you are Hidden from anything that finds its target by counting, and no law that turns on a number can fix on you.
Foul — Miscount another: strike a soul from the count so they are overlooked entirely, or slip them in as the one it marks, and let the count fall on them instead.

Great working: The whole party goes uncounted — no tally, muster, or counting of any kind can find a number for you, and the night ends before anyone works out who is missing.

Appendix B: Fourteen Taboos

Fourteen of the Old Country's taboos, drawn here into the grammar of this table — the laws themselves: type, trigger, effect, and aversion. Every occasion the countryside keeps is represented here, and every Reckoning type, so the ledger can come due on any of the six. How a taboo breaks, how the GM telegraphs it through the folk, and how aversions play at the table all live under Taboos in Campaign Mechanics.

Never Thank Them (Boon · marks 2)

Trigger: thank the Fair Folk aloud for their help. The gift undone, the helper gone for good.

What fires: a Boon Woe stands at once — minted directly, no track required; the GM claims it as usual.

Aversion: praise the work, never the worker; pay in silence.

Telegraph: locals receive uncanny favors with studied silence — a nod, a coin left on a stump, and never one word of thanks.

Spill the Salt (Fend · marks 1)

Trigger: spill salt and leave it. The devil slips in at your side.

What fires: a Fend Woe stands at once — minted directly, no track required; the GM claims it as usual.

Aversion: a pinch thrown over the left shoulder, at once — the gesture Salt at the Back formalises.

Telegraph: every kitchen keeps its salt cellar full and its floor swept; watch a local's face when a shaker tips.

A Blade as a Gift (Bind · marks 1)

Trigger: give a knife uncoined. The friendship cut in two.

What fires: a Bind Woe stands at once — minted directly, no track required; the GM claims it as usual.

Aversion: the taker pays a coin — a sale, not a gift.

Telegraph: watch any local hand over a blade — a coin passes back in the same breath, quick and wordless, before anyone calls it a gift.

The Lone Magpie (Ken · marks 1)

Trigger: one magpie, seen alone. One for sorrow.

What fires: a box on the village countdown Magpie's Sorrow (6). When it fills, a Ken Woe stands and a sorrow settles on the village — a death, a parting, a grief that spreads. The countdown is then spent.

Aversion: salute it — "Good morning, Mr Magpie" — the courtesy Magpie Count is built on.

Telegraph: every local eye that finds a solitary magpie tips a hat or nods and murmurs the greeting before walking on.

Never Eat Their Food (Bind · marks 2)

Trigger: eat or drink at a fairy feast. Bound to their hall, and no road home.

What fires: the transgressor takes Cursed.

Aversion: carry your own bread, and taste nothing offered.

Telegraph: seasoned travelers keep a heel of bread in a pocket and touch nothing set before them at a strange table, however hungry.

Cross a Funeral (Ken · marks 1)

Trigger: cut across a funeral procession. You are marked as the next to go.

What fires: the transgressor takes Cursed.

Aversion: turn, and walk three steps with the dead.

Telegraph: anyone caught crossing a procession's path turns at once and falls into step with the mourners for three strides before peeling away.

Break a Mirror (Boon · marks 1)

Trigger: shatter a looking-glass. Seven years' shattered fortune.

What fires: the transgressor takes Cursed.

Aversion: bury the shards, or grind them to dust.

Telegraph: a broken glass here is never swept into a bin — watch where the shards get carried, and how quickly.

Thirteen at Table (Blight · marks 1)

Trigger: thirteen sit down together to eat. One of them is marked — the first to rise, the first to go.

What fires: a box on the village countdown Table's Reckoning (6). When it fills, a Blight Woe stands and the death foretold comes to one who sat — a passing that shadows the whole village. The countdown is then spent.

Aversion: let no thirteen sit — lay a fourteenth place, or let two rise together — the slip Lose the Count is built on.

Telegraph: count the places at any village table and there is never a thirteenth; watch the host lay one more than is needed, without comment.

Drop the Ring (Bind · marks 1)

Trigger: let the wedding-ring fall at the altar during the vow. The one it was meant for is marked.

What fires: the transgressor takes Cursed.

Aversion: let the priest take it up from the floor — never the bride, never the groom.

Telegraph: at a wedding here the ring is passed with both hands and watched by every eye in the church until it is safely on.

Course the Hare (Guise · marks 1)

Trigger: set hound or gun on the hare that runs by moonlight — to course a hare is to run it down. The wound you deal it comes home on your own skin.

What fires: the transgressor marks 2 Hit Points, and the wound rises on their own skin where they dealt it.

Aversion: call off the dogs and beg its pardon; let it run.

Telegraph: no local will course a hare after dark, and one seen at moonrise turns the whole party for home without discussion.

Begin on a Friday (Boon · marks 1)

Trigger: begin a voyage, a work, or a marriage on a Friday. Friday for losses — what is begun this day comes to grief.

What fires: a Boon Woe stands at once — minted directly, no track required; the GM claims it as usual.

Aversion: break the first ground the day before, so the thing is not truly begun on the Friday.

Telegraph: ask when anything starts here and the answer is never Friday; watch a carter turn a load around rather than set out on one.

Cry Witch (Ken · marks 1)

Trigger: name a neighbor witch without proof. The word comes home to roost, and the ill it names looks back at the namer.

What fires: a Ken Woe stands at once — minted directly, no track required; the GM claims it as usual.

Aversion: prove it, or beg pardon of the one you named before sundown.

Telegraph: the village will talk around a suspicion for a whole season without ever saying the word; notice how carefully nobody says it.

Fell the Fairy Thorn (Bind · marks 2)

Trigger: cut or fell a lone hawthorn. The wasting takes the hand that held the axe.

What fires: the transgressor is wounded — 2 Hit Points marked, and they do not clear by rest while the thorn lies felled.

Aversion: leave it standing; hang a rag on it and beg pardon.

Telegraph: a lone thorn stands in the middle of a plowed field, worked around for generations, with rags tied on its branches.

Walk Under a Ladder (Fend · marks 1)

Trigger: pass beneath a leaning ladder. A protection severed, the trinity broken.

What fires: the transgressor takes Cursed.

Aversion: keep your fingers crossed until you see a dog.

Telegraph: watch anyone here reach a leaning ladder and step wide into the road rather than pass beneath it.

Appendix C: Adversaries & the Map

Adversaries of the Old Country

The five kinds of trouble that answer to the bestiary's grain. Reskin freely — nature and Ward matter more than name.

Nature	What it is in this frame	SRD analogs
Dead	The restless dead: banshees, revenants, things that would not stay buried.	Skeleton Warrior (Tier 1 Standard), Skeleton Knight (Tier 1 Bruiser)
Fae	The Fair Folk proper: redcaps, wisps, the trooping gentry.	Sylvan Soldier (Tier 1 Standard) — reskin its forest court as a fae one for the court-soldier; for the stranger kinds, six blocks stand ready below under The Fair Folk: Six Stat Blocks
Witch	Hags, familiars, hares, the cunning gone to curdle.	Jagged Knife Hexer (Tier 1 Support) and Cult Fang (Tier 2 Skulk) for the coven's supporting cast; the centerpiece and her sent thing stand ready below under The Witch and Her Sendings: Two Stat Blocks
Beast	Wolves, black dogs — no ward.	Dire Wolf (Tier 1 Skulk), Bear (Tier 1 Bruiser)
Folk	Dangerous people — no ward.	Jagged Knife Bandit (Tier 1 Standard), Sellsword (Tier 1 Minion)

For anything the table above doesn't cover, the core rulebook's guidance on building your own adversaries — motives, difficulty, thresholds, features scaled to tier — still applies untouched; just add a Ward line to whatever you build.

The Ward Line

Every supernatural adversary in the Old Country carries a Ward line — one folk remedy it answers to: cold iron, salt, rowan, running water, or its true name. Add one to any stat block you use. A ward is not damage: it is what the thing must answer. Presenting the ward forces the creature to break off, go around, drop its seeming, or give up what it came for — and a charm built on the same material works against it with advantage. Beasts and folk carry no ward; that is how you know them.

The Fair Folk: Six Stat Blocks

Six blocks, six roles, six dreads. With the court-soldier reskin in the table above they cover the whole point-buy menu: Minions to spend, a Bruiser on the road, a Skulk at the ford, a Horde out riding, a Leader at court, and a Solo under the leaves. Each prints its Tell — the soft move, ready to telegraph — and its Ward, as every supernatural thing in the Old Country must. And each carries exactly one Fear feature, typed: one per Reckoning type across the bench, none repeated. While a Woe stands, its type's feature costs 1 less Fear — usually free. The Fair Folk's dread and the Goodman's collections run on the same rail; that is deliberate.

The Wisp — Tier 1 Minion

A small cold flame that walks the mire by night, always a little ahead, always where the ground is worst. They come in twos and threes.

Motives & Tactics: beckon, drift, go out, leave you to the dark

Tell: a lantern-light swinging out on the moss where no path runs, keeping pace like a walker's hand.

FEATURES

Minion (3) — Passive: the Wisp is defeated when it takes any damage. For every 3 damage a PC deals to it, defeat an additional Minion within range the attack would succeed against.
A Little Ahead — Passive: the Wisp never closes. It keeps its distance and drifts at the pace of whoever follows, toward ground of its own choosing — the mire, the pit's edge, the deep water.
Group Attack — Action: spend a Fear to choose a target and spotlight all Wisps within Close range of them. Those Minions drift into Melee range of the target and make one shared attack roll. On a success, they deal 2 physical damage each; combine this damage.
Go Out — Action: the light vanishes. A PC who was following it is lost on bad ground — they mark a Stress, and the GM says where the dark has led them.
Every Light at Once — Fear · Guise: lanterns kindle in every direction. Each PC following a light makes an Instinct roll or the GM chooses where they arrive — separated, or on ground of the Wisps' choosing.

Ward: keep your own flame lit and your eyes on your feet; turn your coat (Turn the Coat) and its lead is broken; and it will not draw you past a line of salt.

The Redcap — Tier 1 Bruiser

Iron-shod and dye-handed, an old murder that walks like a little man. It keeps a tower on some old border, and its cap must be kept wet.

Motives & Tactics: run down whoever flees, dye the cap, hold the tower

Tell: iron boots ringing on old stone at dusk, and a cap of a red no dyer sells.

FEATURES

Iron Boots — Passive: ground, stair, and mire do not slow it, and no mundane bar or door holds against it. Wards hold.
Run You Down — Reaction: when a creature within Far range moves away from it, the Redcap may move up to that distance straight toward them. It cannot be outrun.
The Cap Wants Dyeing — Fear · Blight: the next wound its pike deals this scene festers. The HP marked cannot be cleared by any rest — only the cause undone, an amends made, or a Fair face worked over the wound will close it.

Ward: holy words turn it — it flees, and leaves a tooth behind; rowan holds it at a threshold (Rowan and Red Thread); and its true name knotted (Knot the Name) drives it from its tower. Cold iron is no bar to a thing shod in it.

The Water-Horse — Tier 1 Skulk

A drowned prince of a horse, sleek and saddle-ready, standing where the water is patient.

Motives & Tactics: be admired, be mounted, hold fast, make for the deep

Tell: a lone horse at the water's edge with weed in its mane, and hoofprints that fill with water.

FEATURES

A Lone Horse at the Water's Edge — Passive: its seeming is its stealth. Until it strikes, or its ward reveals it, it counts as Hidden in plain sight, and its first attack from the unbroken seeming has advantage.
Hold Fast — Reaction: when a creature willingly touches or mounts it, they are held — Restrained, carried wherever the horse goes — until freed by a Strength roll against its Difficulty.
Plunge for the Deep — Fear · Bind: it makes for the deep water with all it holds. Start a countdown (3); when it ends, each creature still held marks 2 HP as direct damage, and the countdown begins again. Freed first, they surface.

Ward: seize its bridle and it must serve you to the last of its strength (The Bridle); its true name knotted bars it from the hunt (Knot the Name); and cold iron at the ford turns it by.

The Trooping Gentry — Tier 2 Horde (3/HP)

The court out riding — a glitter of banners and bells on a road no map carries, lovely at a distance and at every other distance too.

Motives & Tactics: ride the old road, gather dancers, take offense beautifully

Tell: thin music from the hollow hill on a fine evening, and a ring trodden bare in the grass by morning.

FEATURES

Horde (1d8+3) — Passive: when the Gentry have marked half or more of their HP, their standard attack deals 1d8+3 physical damage instead.
The Music Pulls — Action: each PC within Close range must succeed on a Presence or Instinct roll or step toward the ring and mark a Stress. A PC who reaches the ring is dancing, and spends their actions only on breaking free until they do.
Courtesy of the Court — Passive: at the revel, food is offered and thanks are invited. Never Eat Their Food and Never Thank Them apply as written. And be out of the ring before dawn, or the night costs more than hours — a year for a night is the old rate.
The Old Road Runs Through — Fear · Fend: the riding passes through wall, ward, and bar as if they were not there — tonight no threshold is safe, and the Gentry arrive wherever the GM pleases. Their roads are older than the houses built across them.

Ward: turn your coat and their road cannot hold you (Turn the Coat); salt in the pocket keeps your feet your own (Salt at the Back); and eat nothing, thank no one, and be out of the ring before dawn.

The Fair One — Tier 2 Leader

One of the gentry proper, tall and finely made, with a voice like a signed agreement.

Motives & Tactics: bargain, collect, keep the old courtesies, never lie outright

Tell: the hedgerow goes silent, and a too-sweet smell like blossom out of season.

FEATURES

The Court Attends — Action: mark a Stress to spotlight up to two allied fae within Far range; they move as the Fair One pleases, and one of them makes a standard attack.
Terms — Passive: its bargains bind as true vows under the Old Country's law, and what it is owed it may sell.
Offense Taken — Fear · Boon: name the offender. Their luck curdles: the next critical success they roll this session becomes a success with Fear instead. Amends made to the court lift it first.

Ward: cold iron burns it (Iron Over the Door), rowan turns it (Rowan and Red Thread), and a hag stone shows it as it truly is (Hag Stone).

The Old Thing of the Wood — Tier 2 Solo

Whatever was here before the parish. The wood is not where it lives; the wood is what it wears.

Motives & Tactics: be left alone, wear what it pleases, keep the old bounds

Tell: the paths lead wrong, the birds go still, and someone you trust is not quite themselves.

FEATURES

Relentless (2) — Passive: the Old Thing can be spotlighted up to twice per GM turn. Spend Fear as usual to spotlight it.
The Paths Lead Wrong — Action: under its branches the ways rearrange. A PC traveling its wood arrives where the Old Thing wishes, or marks a Stress to hold their own path.
A Face You Love — Passive: it wears the seeming of someone dear. A hag stone (Hag Stone) shows what wears the shape, and its first attack from an unbroken seeming has advantage.
Only a Shape — Passive: when it marks its last HP, the shape falls — and the Old Thing sheds it. The fight ends; the thing endures. It is truly laid only by its true name knotted (Knot the Name), or by salt, cold iron, and fire together; otherwise it returns by the next hinge-day, wearing something new.
The Wood Has Eyes — Fear · Ken: while the party is under branch or leaf of its demesne, it knows where they are. It stops knowing when they are warded — salt at the bounds, or the demesne left behind.

Ward: only its true name, or salt and cold iron and fire together, will lay it; a hag stone shows what wears the shape.

The Witch and Her Sendings: Two Stat Blocks

The other half of the Old Country's trouble, and the other hole in the SRD: no book prints a hag. Here is the pair a witch-mystery runs on — the sent thing that comes first, and the neighbor who sent it. They are a matched set, threaded together: kill the one and its mistress feels it; name the one and you have named them both. Their dreads are typed Ken and Blight — the watcher and the curse — doubling the fae bench's tags on purpose; the one-per-type set above is the Fair Folk's contract, not the book's.

The Familiar — Tier 1 Skulk

The small sent thing a witch keeps and feeds at her mark — a black cat, a toad, a rat with a knowing eye — loosed into a house she cannot herself enter.

Motives & Tactics: spoil, spy, be beneath notice, carry malice home

Tell: one beast that is always underfoot and always watching, and small ruin following it room to room.

FEATURES

Sent Past the Sill — Passive: no watch keeps it out and no mundane door bars it; while it goes unregarded — a beast underfoot, beneath notice — it counts as Hidden.
Spoil and Spy — Action: it fouls something small but needed — a pantry material, a meal, a night's rest; whoever it costs marks a Stress — or it carries word of what it has seen home down the thread.
Only Sent Home — Passive: when it marks its last HP, the shape dies — but the Familiar is only sent home. Its mistress marks a Stress, and it may be sent again on another night, in another shape. Only its name knotted (Knot the Name) — which names its mistress too — ends the sending for good.
What It Sees, She Sees — Fear · Ken: while the Familiar keeps the party's company, its mistress knows where they are and what they do — until it is barred, named, or the company left behind.

Ward: name it and you name its mistress — a knotted name sends both off; cold iron over the door (Iron Over the Door) bars it from the house it was sent to; rowan turns it at the sill (Rowan and Red Thread); and a witch-bottle corked under the hearth (The Witch-Bottle) turns its mistress's malice back down the thread to feed on her.

The Overlooked Hag — Tier 2 Leader

A worker of the Foul faces with a grudge and a long memory, paying the village back slow.

Motives & Tactics: nurse the grudge, pay back slow, send rather than strike, keep her standing

Tell: a black look on the lane, and by evening the milk is soured and the child feverish.

FEATURES

Overlooked — Passive: she is a neighbor in good standing. While her craft is unproven, a PC must mark a Stress before making an attack against her — the hand hesitates, and the lane is watching. Once her craft is shown plainly, this ends.
Send the Night-Things — Action: mark a Stress to spotlight up to two allied witch-nature adversaries within Far range — her Familiar first among them, a made thing, a nightmare given legs; they move as she pleases, and one of them acts.
The Ill-Wishing — Fear · Blight: she names her grudge and lays it. The target is Cursed (Campaign Mechanics): once a scene, their success with Hope may sour to a success with Fear, until it lifts — a Fair-face charm worked over them, an atonement, or the cause undone.

Ward: rowan wards her (Rowan and Red Thread); turn her own poppet back on her (The Poppet) and the working recoils; and meet her eye and turn it aside (The Evil Eye), and her ill-wishing cannot land.

Building the Map

Above is the country as one table drew it: the Hedge closed all the way around, the crossing-stile at the top where the party came through, three parishes named for what grows in the ditches, and the Wheel of the Year on the rim with the four great hinges bold. The places keyed on it are the ones the adversary bench already lives in — the mire, the ford and the deep water, the wood, the tower on the border. Use it as it stands, or draw your own; what follows is how.

Start from any blank map. Draw the Hedge as the border running all the way around — the edge of everything, the boundary that shut behind the party on the crossing-morning. Mark the crossing-stile where they came through; it is the one point on the border that will ever open outward again, and only on a great hinge.

Place three to five villages inside the Hedge. Set the banshee's village — Bramblewick, in the Inciting Incident above (or Nettleden, if you're running the village already drawn) — nearest the border, the first roofs a party finds after the crossing. Give the map a church, a corpse-road connecting the dead to their ground, and one course of running water threading through — a boundary of its own, and a ward.

Draw the Wheel of the Year in the margin, and mark its hinge-days around the rim, the four great hinges bold. The campaign's clock lives on the map's edge: the Hedge opens outward only on a great hinge, the year's countdown ticks toward the dark one, and a glance at the margin tells the table exactly how much time is left.