The Pistol is chief amongst the new gods of bloodshed; gunpowder and lead put a lightning strike in the palm of one’s hand. It has replaced the Sword as a mark of personal prowess - no longer do you have to train for years to use a weapon, or risk your skin by coming close to those you want to hurt. Anyone with a vendetta can set the odds in their favour with a Pistol in their pocket.

The Pistol’s small but versatile. With it in your hand, you can attack up close or from range, with a better capacity than the Rifle or Shotgun. The Automatic’s quick and easy to reload, the Revolver’s bark is as bad as its bite, and the Hand Cannon packs a punch as hard as a much larger gun.

There’s no single trick to using a Pistol. Even at Tier 1, you can focus on mobility and skirmishing – sacrificing an attack for an extra manoeuvre or boosting your stats when you move before you shoot – or dealing damage by unloading your pistol’s current capacity in lieu of making a manoeuvre. You can also choose abilities that let you take cover when you move, or when you wound the Entity.

Further options open up at higher tiers. At Tier 2 you can make better use of cover, ducking in to reload and gather your wits, then burst out in a blaze of gunfire. You can make an additional manoeuvre when you hurt the Entity – or confer the ability on an ally. You can make a bonus attack when an ally misses with their strike, or turn a glancing blow into a perfectly targeted wound. True masters of the Pistol accept that it’s easy to overlook – and so is its wielder – and use that to their advantage. Left for dead, they disappear from the field of battle to return next round, refreshed and reloaded.

The Pistol tells you: you’re unique, and special, and fascinating. The world is chaotic and unfocused but you, Pistol gripped against your skin, rise above the noise and move unfettered. A lack of success or prosperity doesn’t indicate that you’ve overestimated yourself; it’s everyone else’s fault that you’ve not made it yet. Your ideas are too new, too revolutionary. Everyone who passes you over or looks down on you knows the truth: they’re jealous of your ability and scared of what you might do.

This absolute refusal to change based on new information brings with it a bullet-proof confidence that the Pistol uses to propel its bearers forward into the future. Reality is what you make it: you’re the one holding the gun. 

The thing is, the Pistol’s nowhere near as self-assured as it makes out. It’s not an instrument of war; no great glories, no stern sacrifices, no tactical masterstrokes owe it thanks. It’s not a tool for hunting, either; thick hides turn aside little bullets, rifles outrange it, and it’s a coward’s crutch next to the cut and thrust of finishing the beast with blade and bludgeon. It’s not a part of anything greater, or ancient, or more noble. No abstraction or artifice unite it with the sacrosanct. 

All it does is kill people. Is that enough? Is the Pistol enough?

It knows it’s not, though it guards that truth most jealously, keeping others at arm’s length. It cleaves, deep down, to one single truth: if they ever learn how inadequate it really is, it will lose everything.

For millennia, the Sword has been a symbol of power and authority beyond measure: a tool for the masters of men to wield with skill and grace. To cut away the weakest parts of society and to do what must be done to ensure civilisation’s survival and prosperity.

The Sword’s almost as good at attracting attention as it is at actually causing harm. It’s flashy. It catches the eye. In game terms, it manipulates Threat (mostly attracting it). Whether it’s a Noble rapier, a Mighty claymore, or a Short but wicked gladius, its core ability is to earn some advantage by placing a Threat token on its area. That ability varies – restoring Resolve, dealing extra Resolve damage, or extra Wound damage – but the origin is the same: “look at me,” the Sword says, “see me,” and when the Entity plays into its attention-seeking behaviour, it makes the Sword stronger. 

The Sword’s Tier 1 abilities are all about leadership. Charge into close combat and rally your allies, helping them Focus or inspiring them to deal extra damage. The other early abilities rely on the Entity’s attention. You can spend Threat to Focus, stand on guard when the Entity spends Threat, or direct the Entity’s attention either to or away from you when you miss it.

At Tier 2, you can choose one or more ways to attract Threat to you, or flank the Entity to hamstring it – which fully clears Threat from one area of the grid as it howls in pain and loses focus. 

The Sword’s Tier 3 abilities represent extensive drills and formalised schools of combat. Each one has a stance, which is active at the beginning of the Hunt, and a tactic: a special, one-use move that changes the battle significantly. Choose Fulcrum of War to resist damage, then gather your allies to you, unnerving the Entity with your display of unity. Take Noble Sacrifice to deal extra damage then reposition all Hunters, restoring their Resolve and dragging them out of harm’s way. Alternatively, select One Perfect Strike to keep your Focus, before drawing most of the Threat on the board straight to you and converting it into bonuses on a single, lethal attack. 

The Sword believes in heroes and strives to convince its wielders that they stand proudly amidst their ranks; that there are those who are born to lead, thanks to some indefinable spark of greatness deep within their being, and it is their duty to shepherd the people beneath them. It tells you: you alone are meant for greatness. The pitiful creatures of the feckless masses are nothing without you to lead them. You are worthy of the respect you see glinting in their bovine eyes.

It admonishes those who fight dirty and it births schools of duellists, manuals of techniques, and reams of rules designed to fashion the grim business of ending lives into something that demands admiration and grace. It is desperate to dictate the battlefield and hold onto its unfair advantage, because without it, it is nothing but a length of sharpened steel. The Sword knows its superiority is a lie. Spears outreach it. Knives carve and craft and make. It glances off Armour’s skin and every single gun outranges it.

That’s the Sword’s truth, the one it’s desperate to keep you from learning: it’s a relic, slipping into rite and ritual as the world marches on without it.

The Bludgeon doesn’t consider itself technology. Technology is unpredictable, fragile, and - honestly - an unfair advantage. It wants you to grab something heavy and mash anyone who would stand against you into a mewling pile of meat and splintered bone.

The Bludgeon’s a simple weapon to use. It can be Vicious (more dangerous when you’re flanking or behind an Entity), Brutal (gain extra damage each time you roll a critical success), or Massive (do a lot of damage, but take a little Resolve damage each time). It’s a huge Weapon, and it changes the way you interact with terrain. You can’t benefit from Sheltered terrain in the normal way, but you can claim terrain at the end of your turn then discard it to ignore more damage than usual. 

Bludgeon wielders charge directly at the enemy and deal large amounts of reliable damage. Heal when you hurt the Entity, or draw power from your own pain to restore Resolve. Burst out of cover and close rapidly with the enemy. Scare it even when you miss. You’re a superlative tank.

At Tier 2, you become vindictive and murderous. Get extra actions when you’re badly injured, deal extra damage to the Entity when you break it or when you attack from terrain. When you reach Tier 3, you can beat the enemy into a bloody paste, though you’ll take damage in the process. You can smash up the terrain to deal damage to the Entity, and you can deal as much Resolve damage when you miss as some Weapons can on a hit.

The Bludgeon speaks of a golden age, long ago, where men were unconcerned with petty squabbles and senseless politicking; an age where the pursuit of physical brilliance was not only expected but celebrated, honoured, and adored. Every technological and societal advancement since then, it says, has been a watering down of a fundamental concept. The world has grown too complicated, and the expectations and restrictions placed upon us have rendered us weak and immoral and less than we used to be.

The Bludgeon tells you: you are already perfect. The instincts that you’ve been told to stamp down were right all along. Your soul, the core of you, wants to be free. It wants to stand on its own two feet. It wants to eat raw meat, bellow at the top of its lungs, and rut until it passes out. 

The Bludgeon is unconcerned with the past or the future, but only the frantic present and the fulfilling of its desperate needs. It has one trick: hit it until it stops moving.

In truth, the Bludgeon is scared everyone thinks it’s stupid, and worse, that everyone is right. Let’s see how stupid they sound, it says, when we knock out all their fucking teeth.

“There is a line between us and them. Across that line is the Spear, keeping them away from us. Protecting the sacred from the profane. Defending right and killing wrong. The world is trying to swallow you and those you care about, but it’ll have to get through you first.”

The Spear is, in all likelihood, the oldest human-made weapon in existence. It’s archaic and unfashionable, but it doesn’t mind. The Spear predates machines, structures, clothing, the written word, language, and numeracy. It will be here long after the cities have crumbled to dust and the last bullet has been fired.

The Spear’s a tool of control, and its uses in a Hunt reflect that. The Spear’s core ability is keeping an Entity at bay: at the cost of some of the wielder’s own Resolve, they can reduce the amount of Threat on the combat grid. That denies an Entity crucial Interrupt actions and prevents it adding extra damage to its attacks.

The Spear can be Light (making you faster), Long (better at keeping Entities at arm’s length, distracting, and harrying them), or Heavy (dealing more damage). Whatever form it takes, a lot of the Spear’s early abilities are Threat control: move Threat from one area, remove it entirely, or attack with Advantage when you’re the centre of the Entity’s attention. 

At Tier 2, you can throw yourself in front of allies to protect them or dig in alongside them and grant Terrain tags. Your control of the battlefield increases: reposition your allies or drive the Entity off and prevent them making Interrupt or Reposition actions. By the time you reach Tier 3, the battlefield is your home and the Entity’s an outsider. Prevent it from spending Threat to hurt you, or force it to counterattack you - which only makes you stronger. 

The Spear knows that the home – the hearth, the space you claim as your own – is sacred, and it wants to help you keep it sacred by ensuring the profane (which is to say, anything you don’t like,) is excluded by force. To breach the sacred is unthinkable, and anyone who would consider it must be destroyed.

“Home” is a malleable concept. It can mean one’s house, church, town, or kingdom – or an entire plane of reality besieged by parasite godlings. It always means that anything the Spear does is defence, no matter how pre-emptive it might seem or if it has to be carried over borders and jammed in some poor bastard’s guts to do it.

The Spear is a simple Weapon, and its lies are different to the ones the other Weapons tell. It tells you it can protect you and those you value. That it can help you control them. (They owe you their lives, after all.) It brags of sole mastery over its domain – of permissions granted and contracts bestowed, of sworn oaths and kind allowances – but dreads the day that its power is found wanting and those under its protection are killed, or worse, decide to leave before it is ready to let them go.

That’s the truth of the Spear: it keeps enemies out. It can’t keep allies in.

The Staff is of the old blood. It is steeped in old magic: gore and gristle, stone and stars, root and bone. It is the herald of old gods, long-slumbering, now awakened. It is the first and greatest tool designed by humans, and the lever upon which they lean to exert their will on the world.

The Staff changes the world around it. In game terms, it’s really good at manipulating terrain. It gives its wielder access to a special type of terrain, the Briar token, that many of the Staff’s abilities utilise.

Even at Tier 1, the Staff’s abilities indicate power in excess; unnatural vigour and overflowing power. Hunters with Briar get a screen of living plants that reduces Threat, are infused with will and energy (Resolve) at the cost of a little health (Wounds), or can draw strength from the Briar to boost their attacks. Not all the Staff’s powers are linked to Briar, though. You can destroy terrain to replenish your health, or restore others’ Resolve from the overspill of power when you miss with an attack.

At Tier 2, you can travel to wherever your Briar is (an excellent trick for Book and Staff wielding healers), change your Staff’s form, create a simulacrum of a useful piece of equipment, or manipulate your Briar to make an extra attack in your turn. By Tier 3, you’re the ultimate master of the land. You can sacrifice terrain, including your Briar, to resurrect a dead or dying Hunter or deal massive damage to an Entity.

The Staff knows that humans, for all their ingenuity, are nothing but meat. Meat rots away, but symbols endure far beyond the reach of the most powerful. Some meat is lucky enough to bear those symbols and carry them onwards to the future – a small link in a chain that extends back before the dawn of history.

No Weapon’s relationship with its wielders is more fraught and fragile than that of the Staff; it rides a razor-edge balance of abuse and reward, hoping to keep those it ensnares enticed by the promise of power.

It knows it’s lying. The Staff is useless without a hand to hold it. It is entirely reliant on humans – it wouldn’t exist without them – but it postures and pontificates and spins tales of ancient power, of unknowable secrets buried in the mouldering tears between worlds, of its absolute majesty and the artless grasping hands that sully its surface. 

The Staff’s secret truth is this: the world is not as complex and mysterious as it makes it out to be; it just needs you to believe that it is.