Stealthy Critter
You do not encounter a stealthy critter. It encounters you. The distinction matters, because by the time you are aware of its presence, the engagement is already on its terms: position chosen, target selected, escape routes assessed. These are the ambush predators of the wasteland, creatures adapted for concealment so thorough that they vanish into their surroundings and remain invisible until the moment they decide to strike. If you saw it coming, it was not a stealthy critter.
Natural camouflage is the foundation. The creature's coloring, body shape, and movement patterns are adapted to blend into whichever environment produced it. A forest stealthy critter holds so still among the undergrowth that the eye slides past it. An urban variant folds itself into the rubble and debris of a ruined building, indistinguishable from the wreckage until it moves. The Stealth ability, present at every tier, makes this concealment functional rather than cosmetic: the creature is genuinely undetectable without Awareness or similar counter-abilities.
At Nuisance tier, the threat is a small, agile creature that pops out of concealment, takes a few swipes, and vanishes again. An annoyance, but one that teaches the lesson early: watch your flanks. By Hazard tier, Mangle adds crippling limb damage, and Agile Movement improves the creature's ability to reposition. Menace tier is where the lethality escalates. Murder provides instant-kill capability. Choking Blow silences the victim before they can call for help. Sturdy Critter adds staying power if the creature is caught in the open.
Catastrophic tier adds Blinding, No Escape (which prevents retreat for five minutes), and Ranged Damage Reduction. The creature can blind a target, lock them in the engagement zone, and pick them apart without fear of ranged retaliation. At Apocalyptic tier, Abduct and Death Stalk turn the creature into an inescapable hunter with Area of Effect Blinding and Choking Blow for group encounters, ten uses of Agile Movement, and five uses each of Stealth and Murder. The critical weakness is that once detected, stealthy critters have no armor, no healing, and no regeneration. The challenge is detecting them before Murder resolves and your lookout is already dead.
Natural camouflage is the foundation. The creature's coloring, body shape, and movement patterns are adapted to blend into whichever environment produced it. A forest stealthy critter holds so still among the undergrowth that the eye slides past it. An urban variant folds itself into the rubble and debris of a ruined building, indistinguishable from the wreckage until it moves. The Stealth ability, present at every tier, makes this concealment functional rather than cosmetic: the creature is genuinely undetectable without Awareness or similar counter-abilities.
At Nuisance tier, the threat is a small, agile creature that pops out of concealment, takes a few swipes, and vanishes again. An annoyance, but one that teaches the lesson early: watch your flanks. By Hazard tier, Mangle adds crippling limb damage, and Agile Movement improves the creature's ability to reposition. Menace tier is where the lethality escalates. Murder provides instant-kill capability. Choking Blow silences the victim before they can call for help. Sturdy Critter adds staying power if the creature is caught in the open.
Catastrophic tier adds Blinding, No Escape (which prevents retreat for five minutes), and Ranged Damage Reduction. The creature can blind a target, lock them in the engagement zone, and pick them apart without fear of ranged retaliation. At Apocalyptic tier, Abduct and Death Stalk turn the creature into an inescapable hunter with Area of Effect Blinding and Choking Blow for group encounters, ten uses of Agile Movement, and five uses each of Stealth and Murder. The critical weakness is that once detected, stealthy critters have no armor, no healing, and no regeneration. The challenge is detecting them before Murder resolves and your lookout is already dead.
Basic Information
Anatomy
The body is built for concealment. Low to the ground, compact, with coloring that matches the environment so closely it borders on invisible when the creature holds still. The musculature favors quick, explosive movement over sustained speed: short lunges, rapid lateral repositioning, and the controlled stillness that predators use to avoid detection between attacks.
There is nothing visually dramatic about a stealthy critter. No glowing features, no crystalline growths, no obvious mutations. The adaptation is subtlety itself: a body refined through mutation for the single purpose of being unseen until the moment of the strike. The eyes are sharp and steady, fixed on the target with an intensity that survives reports universally describe as unnerving, the gaze of something that has been watching you for longer than you realized.
There is nothing visually dramatic about a stealthy critter. No glowing features, no crystalline growths, no obvious mutations. The adaptation is subtlety itself: a body refined through mutation for the single purpose of being unseen until the moment of the strike. The eyes are sharp and steady, fixed on the target with an intensity that survives reports universally describe as unnerving, the gaze of something that has been watching you for longer than you realized.
Biological Traits
Stealth and Agile Movement are the foundation, present at every tier. Stealth renders the creature undetectable without counter-abilities like Awareness, scaling from two uses at Nuisance to five at Apocalyptic. Agile Movement provides rapid repositioning, scaling from one use to ten. Together, they create a hit-and-vanish cycle where the creature strikes from concealment, repositions, and disappears again.
Murder (Menace through Apocalyptic, two to five uses) is the primary kill mechanic. Choking Blow (Menace through Apocalyptic) silences targets to prevent alarm. Mangle at Hazard tier cripples limbs. Blinding at Catastrophic tier removes the target's ability to see, and No Escape (five-minute duration at Catastrophic and Apocalyptic) prevents disengagement entirely. At Apocalyptic tier, Abduct separates individuals from groups, Death Stalk ensures pursuit, and Area of Effect versions of Blinding and Choking Blow disable groups.
Sturdy Critter appears at Menace tier, and Ranged Damage Reduction at Catastrophic, but the defensive profile is otherwise sparse. No armor, no Natural Armor, no Mental Armor, no healing at any tier. The stealthy critter's defense is not being found. Awareness abilities are the hard counter, and groups that maintain consistent detection coverage reduce the creature's effectiveness dramatically. The moment it is caught in the open, it is vulnerable.
Murder (Menace through Apocalyptic, two to five uses) is the primary kill mechanic. Choking Blow (Menace through Apocalyptic) silences targets to prevent alarm. Mangle at Hazard tier cripples limbs. Blinding at Catastrophic tier removes the target's ability to see, and No Escape (five-minute duration at Catastrophic and Apocalyptic) prevents disengagement entirely. At Apocalyptic tier, Abduct separates individuals from groups, Death Stalk ensures pursuit, and Area of Effect versions of Blinding and Choking Blow disable groups.
Sturdy Critter appears at Menace tier, and Ranged Damage Reduction at Catastrophic, but the defensive profile is otherwise sparse. No armor, no Natural Armor, no Mental Armor, no healing at any tier. The stealthy critter's defense is not being found. Awareness abilities are the hard counter, and groups that maintain consistent detection coverage reduce the creature's effectiveness dramatically. The moment it is caught in the open, it is vulnerable.
Behaviour
Patience defines the stealthy critter's approach. These creatures wait, concealed, for the optimal moment to strike. They do not rush. They do not telegraph. They evaluate the target, assess the surroundings, and commit only when the odds are decisively in their favor. Lower-tier specimens prefer isolated targets: the survivor who wandered too far from the group, the lookout whose attention drifted, the scavenger separated from their partner by a single room.
At higher tiers, the patience becomes predatory sophistication. Murder eliminates targets before they can raise an alarm. Choking Blow prevents screaming. The creature takes one target, neutralizes them silently, and repositions to do it again. Groups that maintain tight cohesion and active Awareness are far less attractive targets, which is exactly the behavior the stealthy critter is designed to exploit: it waits for the moment cohesion breaks, for the gap in the formation, for the lapse in vigilance. One lapse is all it needs.
Apocalyptic-tier stealthy critters do not merely ambush. They hunt. Death Stalk pursues fleeing targets. Abduct removes individuals from the safety of their group. Area of Effect Blinding and Choking Blow disable entire groups for the few seconds the creature needs to eliminate its chosen target and vanish back into concealment. The engagement is over before most of the group understands it has begun.
At higher tiers, the patience becomes predatory sophistication. Murder eliminates targets before they can raise an alarm. Choking Blow prevents screaming. The creature takes one target, neutralizes them silently, and repositions to do it again. Groups that maintain tight cohesion and active Awareness are far less attractive targets, which is exactly the behavior the stealthy critter is designed to exploit: it waits for the moment cohesion breaks, for the gap in the formation, for the lapse in vigilance. One lapse is all it needs.
Apocalyptic-tier stealthy critters do not merely ambush. They hunt. Death Stalk pursues fleeing targets. Abduct removes individuals from the safety of their group. Area of Effect Blinding and Choking Blow disable entire groups for the few seconds the creature needs to eliminate its chosen target and vanish back into concealment. The engagement is over before most of the group understands it has begun.
Ambush predators that strike from concealment and vanish before retaliation.
Scope Type
Stealthy
Threat Range
Nuisance through Apocalyptic
Body Range
10-250 (base) + scope modifiers
Key Trait
Stealth, Murder, Agile Movement, Choking Blow
