A new DnD 5e and Draw Steel experience, Enshrined: Red of Tooth and Claw is a bite sized piece of Enshrined that plunges the party into an Eldritch landscape caught between the forces of savagery and hunger.
Welcome to Enshrined: Red of Tooth and Claw, the first installment of the wider Enshrined setting. Within the mist-covered islands lurk vast, layered swamps, vibrant and deadly above, dark and filled with blind horrors below. Those who enter would do well to prepare themselves, for unique dangers lurk therein and are unforgiving of those caught unawares. Enshrined: Red of Tooth and Claw will show you what happens when Starvation has an agenda and Savagery is the one to rise in opposition.
Your lifelong training has allowed you to do what few others can: embrace the consuming void, harness its power and not be consumed yourself. Way of the Maw Monks draw their strength from the infinite hunger that underpins reality, a false floor through which one may fall without warning. In addition to standard Monk actions, Way of the Maw Monks gain access to the Hunt, Scavenge, Feast and Hunger features. Hunt allows Way of the Maw Monks to spend a ki point to target specific parts of their opponents, slowly crippling them over the course of an engagement with long-lasting debuffs. Scavenge allows them to gorge on their fallen enemies, gaining buffs that last until a rest. Feast expands the Hunger ability, allowing the Monk to siphon off a small portion of the offering to the Maw to empower themselves. As your foes weaken, you grow stronger. Finally, the Hunger ability allows the Way of the Maw Monk to share these accumulated buffs with allies. After all, the pack is only as strong as its weakest member.
The world is filled with creatures, aberrations, monstrosities and a whole host of things that will inevitably be brought low by the party. Why leave it all to rot when these corpses are a treasure trove of materials and ingredients? In addition to the harvest lists sported by all Enshrined flora and fauna, the Harvesting, Crafting and Alchemy system also provides robust rules for creating harvest blocks for other creatures, and rules for getting at the goodies. This leads into the Crafting and Alchemy system, which uses material classes to create a free-form and creative way to turn those materials into weapons, armor, trinkets, potions and whatever else you can think of. No more choosing from a limited list, make what you want.
An adventurer’s life is not boring. It is filled with deeds of heroism, unspeakable horrors, romances, betrayals, grievous wounds, victories, defeats and sacrifice and debauchery. No mortal can remain unchanged by such a life, a whirlwind of lofty highs and abyssal lows. A modifier to the familiar Trait system, the Ego system adds mechanical advantages to character traits along with the means to intensify, lose or replace them as an adventurer is shaped by their journey. No more will an adventurer shrug off an encounter with Zsan’goth the Mind Shatterer or saving the world for the second time that month. Their minds will carry the scars and laurels as surely as their bodies.
Enshrined: Red of Tooth and Claw brings several new feats empowering characters to become true master gatherers, crafters and alchemists, as well as the means for a character to taste the Way of the Maw lifestyle without fully committing.
Spells are focused on our unique multi-turn casting, they reward planning, patience and a good concentration saving throw every now and then. By concentrating on a spell for a couple of turns instead of firing it off immediately, you don’t only benefit from its initial effects but also from its secondary effects that scale the longer they are held.
The real world is interconnected, pull a string here or swat a mosquito there and you may upset entire delicately balanced ecosystems. Nothing exists in a vacuum, everything is shaped by the world and creatures around it and in Enshrined it is no different. The bestiary is designed as an interconnected food web, with primary producers and apex predators, each reliant on those above and below them in the food chain to maintain balance. Undisturbed, these ecosystems will find and maintain a balance, but when has an adventuring party not been a disturbance?
The bestiary is filled with a variety of plants and creatures, each unique in their appearance and playstyle but all undeniably part of the same world. From underground worms using psychic lures to creatures that will stalk the party, weakening them over multiple encounters before picking them off one by one, to a creature split between the material and ethereal planes, there is something new and terrifying for any party to face. This is all presented in the style of a Victorian naturalist sketch-book, complete with in-world scientific names, breakout sketches and captivating art.
Enshrined: Red of Tooth and Claw ships with a mini adventure taking place over the course of 4-6 sessions. The party comes to the aid of a village beset by the loss of their hunters and foragers, presumably at the hands of a beast which none have yet survived to tell of. The quest will lead the party into the darkness of the swamp floor, mired in muck and darkness where the Swamp itself is reacting to a foreign presence. All who come here must resist the call of the Swamp, the demand that all must hunt and feast, for it is the only way that it knows to resist the intruder that has come to claim it. Red of Tooth and Claw will see the party trapped between the forces of Starvation and Savagery, which will they side with or are they just here to do a job and collect a reward?
Not all creatures of the swamp are natural-born, some exist at the behest of a greater force. The Genus Loci is one such entity, the will and instinct of the Swamp made manifest and given form through the consumption of the denizens of the Mire. It is amalgamated from the teeth, sinew and bark of the swamp, inheriting its ferocity and appetite, a barely sentient force brought into existence solely to hunt, feast and gorge until Starvation is driven from its borders.
Mother Hollow, the Bone Wraith, the Quiet Harvest, these and many more are the names given to Famine and Hunger in the land of Enshrined. All fear the visitations of Mother Hollow, for while it is not a violent end, few can truly be safe. It is a natural part of any living creature, the necessity to satiate oneself is ever present, be it food, drink, physical or spiritual needs. But Mother Hollow is more than a need, it is alive, in a sense and it too needs sustenance. That sustenance just happens to be the deprivation of others and Mother Hollow is looking for a feast.
An encounter is only as good as the map that it takes place on. Enshrined: Red of Tooth and Claw comes with 6 beautifully detailed and dynamic maps, each with accompanying art to set the mood and notes for the DM. Run them as written or use them for a completely different encounter, either way they are sure to bring a bit of spice to the next fight.
We believe that AI cannot match the creativity or skill of human writers and artists, and so no part of Enshrined: Red of Tooth and Claw uses it…for anything.
