Inside the Realm of the Titan
Discover what makes the Titan tick with designer, Sherwin Matthews.
Prepare for battle as we bring you all the inside info on the Titan. Will your players stand against this colossal ancient Titan, or be ground to icy dust beneath its unrelenting march?
The Mystery of the Titan
In Realm of the Titan your intrepid player characters will find themselves ascending a snow wreathed mountain range, in search of a titanic Steelborn creature known only as the Titan.
The legend of this enigmatic creature is a contentious one amongst seasoned explorers and bounty hunters both. There’s yet no confirmed sightings of the Titan, nor clear evidence for its presence. Indeed, if the tales are true, the creature would be so heavy that it might never move. And even if it were able to do so, it would surely sink so deep into the snow and soil that it might never be freed.
Yet, stories of the colossal steel figure persist. The fables say only in years when winter draws closest and the air grows particularly cold, the titan strides down from the mountains to walk in the valleys, leaving a trail of destruction left in its wake.
Designing the Titan
And now a word from our designer
With every Epic Encounters set offering a different theme and story to bring to your table, as designers we use a similar process when designing, helping us to maintain consistency across the range. This ensures a straightforward and user-friendly experience. So no matter where an Epic Encounter box takes you, as a Game Master you know what to expect.
Whilst at its core, the Realm of the Titan follows this tried and tested template, I also wanted to adapt and evolve the format for this release, to better enable us to create a unique encounter for such a unique foe.
Unlike other big creatures, which are either living and breathing monsters, or undead abominations that were once living and now have reanimated in a dark parody of life, the Titan is a cold and purely mechanical construct.
As I thought more and more about how this creature would function in an encounter, I kept returning to a familiar quote from another formidable mechanical foe.
“It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop... ever, until you are dead!”
The Titan shares a lot with the Terminator. It isn’t a flesh and blood creature that will react in the same way as a living being when it suffers a particularly powerful attack—to the point where you wouldn’t even say that it has been wounded, but instead, damaged.
When we’re designing creatures and their behaviours, we want them to feel realistic. Even a large monster will screech in pain when it is hurt, and then either try to escape its attacker or lash out.
Not so with the Titan. At very most, your attack will carry enough momentum to force it back a step. Then, it will simply continue with whatever task it was performing. No emotions, no second guessing or doubts, and no reaction. Just inexorable action.
When creating an encounter that really encapsulated this idea, I started thinking about how the Titan’s behaviour would work. In every Epic Encounter boss set we include a list of attacks, set up like a flow chart, which is designed to create a cinematic experience and that helps guide the GM. For the Titan, I wanted to evolve that a little—and in doing so, created the Titan’s combat matrix.
The combat matrix is a list of parameters the GM can easily follow. Firstly, it dictates the Titan’s target(s) based on the player characters’ actions in the previous rounds. After doing so, it then makes its attack based on their relative position to the Titan on the map.
For example—if the fearless player character that caused the most damage to the Titan in the previous round is the target, they’re at range and amongst several other player characters, the armour plating around the Titan’s shoulders will retract, and launch a missile barrage at them. But if they’re standing alone, the Titan will instead opt for precise laser fire. If they’re within melee range and alone, the Titan will smash them with a massive fist, pummelling and slamming them backwards. If there are several player characters swarming the Titan, this will instead be a wide sweep of its huge arm.
This creates a fun, interactive combat puzzle for the GM and their players, where the players learn to understand how the Titan’s matrix works, and pick up on the ‘tells’. Of course, I’ve also written ways for the Titan to break this matrix too, to stop things getting too predictable—unique attacks that will really disrupt their game plan, and come back to those cinematic moments I mentioned earlier.
Before I go, I’ll touch on another new element—components.
In seeking to create the idea of mechanical damage, the Titan introduces a method for the player characters to target specific areas of the Titan. By doing so, they can render certain systems and attacks inoperable, allowing them to limit the Titan’s behaviour and prevent it from making its most powerful attacks.
Remember those missiles I mentioned before? Well, they’re not only in finite supply, but the armour plating housing them can be damaged, preventing it from retracting so they can be fired. Likewise, destroying the power coils housed at the rear of the Titan significantly reduces the potency of its lasers.
And, of course, like you’d imagine, at the heart of the Titan, should you be able to breach its armour, lies an essential powercore…
Gather your fearless party for this chilling new 5e tabletop roleplaying adventure!
Created to save experienced Game Masters time, and to give new Game Masters an easy way to add epic encounters to roleplaying campaigns, these adventure-in-a-box sets include everything from stats, story hooks, and tips to maps, tokens, and of course, highly detailed miniatures.
Sanctuary of the Steelborn and Realm of the Titan are available to pre-order now.
Don’t forget to join us over in the Steamforged Discord.
