Absolute Threat Level
The Adventurer’s Guild categorizes threats based on their potential to wreak havoc on life, civilization, and even the natural order. This seven-tier system offers a way to gauge the gravity of each encounter, from creatures that menace a small settlement to forces capable of shattering the world itself. Each level represents a leap in danger, testing even the mightiest of adventurers.
1. Menace
A Local Danger
Menace-level threats include dangerous yet low-tier creatures like giant wolves, goblins, or packs of venomous beasts. Though individually weak, they can terrorize small villages or travelers and require vigilance from new adventurers. A Menace threat is deadly to the unprepared, though it rarely endangers more than a local area.
2. Hazard
A Significant Risk
Hazard-level threats encompass creatures like trolls, large ogres, and minor elementals, which can cause severe harm and are often cunning or resilient. Capable of wreaking havoc on small towns or trade routes, Hazard threats demand seasoned adventurers who can confront them with care and strategy. If left unchecked, these creatures can sow chaos across rural regions.
3. Calamity
A Major Devastation
Calamity-level threats are monstrous entities—such as manticores, chimera, or lesser demons—that can obliterate villages and spread fear for miles around. They possess potent magic or deadly physical prowess, often necessitating coordinated teams of skilled adventurers. Calamities pose a regional threat and must be dealt with swiftly to prevent disaster.
4. Catastrophe
City-Shattering Forces
Catastrophe-level threats include high-ranking fiends, lesser dragons, and cursed monstrosities capable of leveling entire towns or cities. These creatures wield powerful magic, destructive attacks, or corruptive influences that can destabilize entire regions. Only the Guild’s elite adventurers can hope to defeat them, and even then, success is uncertain without careful planning and unity.
5. Annihilation
Existential Risk
Annihilation-level threats are apocalyptic entities—archdemons, elder dragons, and celestial judges—whose power is sufficient to destroy entire cities or plunge entire nations into ruin. These foes are immensely intelligent, highly magical, or nearly invincible. When faced with an Annihilation-level threat, entire Guild resources are mobilized, as the fate of nations hangs in the balance.
6. Cataclysm
World-Ending Power
Cataclysm-level threats are devastating entities such as ancient titans, avatars of chaos, and legendary beings who hold the power to reshape landscapes and end entire civilizations. Their magic or raw power can alter the balance of life on a global scale, often warping the environment itself. Cataclysms require the greatest champions and all the Guild’s might to even stand a chance of survival.
7. Armageddon
Cosmic and Primordial Entities
Armageddon-level threats are near-mythic in nature, often ancient forces of the cosmos—primordial dragons, incarnations of chaos, or embodiments of divine wrath. These threats exist beyond mortal comprehension and can warp reality itself, shattering civilizations or altering existence. Only the most legendary of heroes dare face such beings, and even then, the outcome is never assured. An Armageddon threat is an extinction-level event, calling upon every possible force in the realm to avert catastrophe.
