"The Fates are just: they give us but our own," writes the American poet and abolitionist John Greenleaf Whittier, adding: "Nemesis ripens what our hands have sown."

The best Nemesis - your adversary, opponent, BBEG - is the one crafted exquisitely for you, the one that matches the contours of your heroism and magnifies your flaws as well as your strengths.

Tolkien gave us memorable heroes, but it's his villains that live in memory: the stooped and snuffling Ringwraith on the East Road out of the Shire, the mockney Orcs intriguing in Cirith Ungol, the schizoid Gollum, and the magnificently grandiose dragon Smaug.

The iconic scene in Ralph Bakshi's Lord of the Rings (1978)

Whittier's point goes even deeper: Nemesis is created by heroism, it emerges in response to it, it is the Jungian Shadow. You sow the seed of adversity, Nemesis makes it grow.

This is the basis for designing the Nemesis in Through The Hedgerow. The game is low-key enough that it doesn't need a moustache-twirling villain. Briar Knights might be searching for a child lost in the woods, aiding a widow facing eviction at Christmas, or rescuing miners trapped by a cave-in. The rules provide tables for generating all sorts of conflicts and crises in the different historical eras in which it takes place.

But then there's the Dark. Behind these workaday perils and dramas, a supernatural menace is at work. At first, its focus is not on you. But then you draw its attention. Perhaps your reveal yourselves to terrified mortals and their panic-stricken Dread sounds a supernatural alarm. Perhaps you take an ill-advised Respite or violate a Ban under which your mission labours. Or perhaps you encounter the Dark's spies. Evil sharpens its focus: the Dark is tracking you now.

In game terms, the Nemesis Die gets bigger, which means threats become more deadly, opponents are from further up the hierarchy of menace. Eventually, the Dark's Emissaries take notice of you. Excrement just got real.

Who are these Emissaries? Through The Hedgerow divides the Lords of the Dark into four factions and for each adventure the Judge chooses one to be active.

The Raven Margrave is a god-like entity, a spiritual force of death and horror. It is always off-stage, but it sends its Murthering Ministers through the Hedgerow to enact its purposes in different centuries: Feannag the Archer, Brandt the Necromancer, Kraaj Crowface, Dame Ragnall the Hag. These are apex Bad Guys, your classic supervillains. Briar Knights do not want to meet them in person. You certainly don't want to fight them. Best let them capture you (and Through The Hedgerow's combat rules encourage outcomes like this) so they can monologue you instead, as good villains do.

But if you run into the Ministers, things are already out of hand. Lower down the pecking order, you will probably meet the Raven Margrave's Undead emissaries: vampyres, wraiths, ghouls, and liches. 'Liches' here means walking corpses, like zombies, not the immortal sorcerers from D&D.

This means horror, and the Raven Margrave lets you create horror-themed adventures of corpses stirring in plague pits, wraiths unleashed from barrows, and vampyres predating on Victorian debutantes in stately homes.

It also means violence. Briar Knights aren't allowed to harm mortals, but the walking dead are quite another thing. Out with the flaming swords!

Moreover, the Raven Margrave is the principle antagonist in the Age of Swords (the 9th century). He has spread his cult among the invading Vikings, so in this era he has a human army at his command. This makes for a classic swords-and-sorcery adventure, helping Alfred the Great resist the Great Heathen Army as well as the Raven Margrave's necromancers and undead.

My favourite minions of the Raven Margrave are right at the bottom of the scale. The Margrave manifests through flocks of crows called Malignities. As threats go, a Malignity of crows isn't the most deadly, but the first time someone loses Resolve in a Challenge involving them, the Nemesis Die grows in size. Players learn to fear the sinister rooks swirling over the copse of trees, or the solitary raven perched on the farm gate.

Yes, I stole the vigilant crows from Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising (1973), especially the scene where the rooks assault the hapless Walker.

Maybe you like your horror a bit more subtle, more like a dark fairy-tale than Gothic or swords-and-sorcery. Maybe you prefer Roald Dahl to Stephen King.

The Cailleach is a coven of Hags who excel in illusion and shapeshifting, potion-brewing and poisoning, and of course mind control. They're pantomime villains compared to the Margrave Raven, but no less deadly than the Murthering Ministers. If you meet a Hag in person, you're in deep trouble, but typically you will interact with their lesser emissaries.

There are Witches doing their bidding, of course, and a tribe of doting Ogres that can pass for human. More troubling are their Manikins, cobbled together from junk and filth and woven with illusion to pass for human. The Hags control humans directly by making dolls called 'poppets': these mesmerised Changelings act as spies, in the same way as the crows that serve the Raven Margrave, but they're still human deep down inside, so Briar Knights can't just kill them.

The Cailleach's real menace is its agenda. The Hags hate innocence, cleanliness, and childhood - and they want to make everything filthy and corrupt. There's creepy comedy to be found in this: the Telltale Signs that someone is a Changeling or a Manikin by the dirt under their nails or their sudden taste for spoiled milk; the Hags can be repulsed with soap and tuneful singing. The gruesome aspect is what the Hags do to their victims - especially children.

Of course, Roald Dahl's The Witches (1983) is a huge inspiration for the Cailleach.

The Cailleach is the main adversary in the Age of Thunder (1940s, during the War) and their targets are often orphaned or evacuated children. Any adventure against the Cailleach is a journey into paranoia, where no one is who they seem and good people are being replaced by manikins and changelings; this is exaggerated in the febrile atmosphere of the 1940s, where everyone is on the lookout for spies.

Peter Johnston gives these Hags pantomime-themed Regency attire - and there in the background is Bilge with a bag on his head (the first Hedgerow PC)

Sometimes, you don't want horror, you want action-romance, perhaps with a bit of dark humour.

The Feral Squires are Fay Lords who crossed over into the Mortal Ages to serve the Dark. They were godlike beings once, but they've been enslaved by their own appetites and diminished into caricatures of what they once were. Caricatures still bite, so beware!

Their names of familiar from folklore: Isengrim Von Ulf and his wolfish wife Dame Hirsent, Martin Le Ape, Paddock the Baron of Toads, Tybault Prince of Cats, and Reynard the Fox. They're here to lord it over humanity: they want to hunt people, eat people, enslave and abuse people. Diminished they may be, but they've scaled the British class system and preside over walled estates where they conduct slave auctions, cannibal banquets, and debauched parties.

They are off-the-scale formidable as opponents in battle, but PCs will probably be dealing with their minions: Dark Druids curry favour with them, Werkynde are lycanthropes with buyer's remorse, Feraldines are wicked talking animals, but they have many Beast Spies, similar to the crows that work for the Raven Margrave. If Tybault Prince of Cats is your Nemesis, then every household tabby or farmyard mouser is a potential informant against you.

The Feral Squires are the main adversaries in the Victorian Age of Steel, where they enjoy the opportunities for greed and exploitation the British Empire brings with it.

Adventures against the Feral Squires are opportunities for high fantasy derring-do. They and their minions aren't human, so Briar Knights can unleash a bit more violence than they usually like to. The Squires are a fractious bunch, so politicking can play a part in defeating them. They're Fay Lords, so stories often involve other Fays lurking in the corners of British society. Plus: mansions! Think Downtown Abbey​ with werewolves!

Alternatively, the Feral Squires can be used for adventures focusing on tragedy and horror. The Werkynde are cursed were-creatures and the abuse of power by wicked aristocrats over ordinary commoners is more terrifying than any vampyre or hag.

The final Nemesis faction is in some ways the weakest, but most likely to cause problems for PCs. The Witch-Harrow is a human organisation, although one infused with the corrupting power of the Dark. It is a secret society, albeit one that operates quite openly in the 17th century Age of Plagues, wherein it is the principle antagonist for the Light.

The Witch-Harrow organises humans to identify and target 'witches' in their midst. It is driven by paranoia, intolerance, and authoritarianism. What constitutes a 'witch' might vary. In the 9th century, they are pagans and fays; in the 19th and 20th century, the Witch-Harrow targets reformers and non-conformists. Women are always a particular target.

In the Age of Plagues the Witch-Harrow reaches a pinnacle of power, seeking out witches to put on trial, torture, and execute. Some of these witches are actual sorcerers, some are luckless Fays, a few might even be servitors of other factions of the Dark, but the overwhelming majority are innocent humans, whose crime is defiance of convention, or simply being a woman.

The Witch-Harrow employs Snoops and Scolds, who act as spies and troublemakers, rather like the beasts serving the Feral Squires. As the Nemesis Die swells, the PCs can expect to meet Hexenhammers and Hexenhounds, armed with cold iron talismans and heavy weapons. The big hitters are the Inquisitors, who are formidable magic-wielders (though they don't think of themselves as such).

The problem with the Witch-Harrow is that their membership is entirely human. The Light bans Briar Knights from harming humans. In addition to this, the Witch-Harrow is influential and can bring to bear the power of the local authorities: unwitting magistrates, hapless constables, judgemental clergy.

An adventure against the Witch-Harrow is less likely to involve violence or supernatural horror; more likely, there will be moral dilemmas, intrigue, and stealth.

The touchstone for any adventure against the Witch-Harrow is Arthur Miller's The Crucible (1953), in which the witch hysteria in Salem in 1692 introduces the self-righteous witch hunters like Rev. Hale. 

For your first game of Through The Hedgerow, you have a choice to make: who is the Nemesis? 

A Through The Hedgerow campaign might involve just one Nemesis, being confronted in different ways in different centuries. A bit like the way the Master turns up all the way through the 1971 season of Doctor Who.

Alternatively, different adventures can pit the Briar Knights against different Nemeses, allowing you to vary the tone of the game between violence and politics, comedy and horror.

I tend to start games with the Raven Margrave. He's menacing, but never physically present. He's clearly BAD - no one is going to be playing the Relativism Card and saying "Well, he kinda has a point!" He's trying to spread death and destruction in a general sort of way, but he's not usually tormenting one person in particular. The Malignities of crows are very atmospheric and play well with the rural setting. Most players of RPGs know what the Undead are and how to deal with them. Also, the Raven Margrave tends to act in the same way in every century, so you can deploy him in any Age without complications.

The Feral Squires are also straightforward. The Squires themselves are too dangerous to be fought directly, but they can be negotiated with, or tricked, or played off against each other. They're not omniscient gods (though they think they still are). As the centuries roll by, they diminish, becoming more comedic. In the Age of Swords, Isengrim is a wolf-god made flesh, ruling over a forest or an army of berserkers. By the Age of Thunder, he might be a tyrannical headmaster in a creepy boarding school.

The Cailleach are more challenging - and the themes of child abduction they raise are problematic, so check with your players. Their malice is often very focused on one particular child or family, but they work by corrupting whole communities. Their illusions make it difficult for players to know who to trust. Some players love the sort of supernatural thriller the Cailleach generate, others find it all a bit stressful.

The Witch-Harrow make the biggest demands on player ingenuity. A direct assault rarely works against them and they know how to incapacitate Fays and ward themselves against spells. These adventures are most likely to be rooted in historical situations and mortal politics. If your players love historical roleplaying and espionage, then the Witch-Harrow make compelling opponents, particularly because, like the best villains, they are heroes in their own eyes.

Ever since Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson termed D&D'scharacter options 'Classes', RPG designers have searched for different nomenclature: profession, archetype, career, template, etc. They're all 'Classes' really and there must be a tiny sorrow in the heart of every new designer, because whatever cool name you come up with for your RPG character types, once the game gets played, everyone is going to call them 'Classes.'

In Through The Hedgerow, I make my bid for immortality by terming my character classes 'Gentries' - partly because it's got an Olde English flavour to it that matches the game's Dickensian and folkloric themes, partly from the Latin gens meaning a clan or nation. Let's see if it catches on!

Buggebers are a Fay Gentry: they are headless trolls birthed from nightmare who (usually) serve the Dark, when they're not pursuing their own hideous hunger. They have teeth in their neck stumps, long prehensile tongues, hairy misshapen bodies, and big claws.

Peter Johnston's weirdly wonderful art for Through The Hedgerow. Here's a Buggeber from the Age of Steel (18th century), enjoying fine dining.

Not a very attractive option for a player character? Well, it takes all types. But in Through The Hedgerow all PCs are servitors of the Light, so how does this come about?

Perhaps your Buggeber is a condemned prisoner of the Light, fully deserving to be punished for their crimes, but offered a reprieve if they serve the Briar Company of Sky and Furrow. You're still a nasty piece of work, but fear keeps you in line (unless you think no one is looking!).

Or perhaps you're on the run from the Dark, having betrayed your ghastly masters or let them down in some nefarious task. The Light offers you protection, in return for service, but your monstrous nature is still unredeemed.

Then again, perhaps you seek redemption and a way to atone for your sins. Or perhaps you have become enamoured with humanity, or one particular human, or a place or a family, that you want to protect from the Dark. Or maybe you are just a supernatural mercenary and the Light commands your service for the time being.

Dark Buggebers wear their victim's skulls and animate them with their horrid tongues, but Buggebers serving the Light aren't allowed to do this: they wear hollowed-out turnips instead. The Glamour surrounding them can help them pass as (scary-looking) humans for short periods, but children and lunatics see straight through that.

The thing that distinguishes your Buggeber is its Appetites. Buggebers can eat anything, but they hunger for particular types of things: dead things, exotic things, beautiful things, things that belong to particular people. Feeding your Appetites during an adventure is a big deal, because you earn Free Respites that way (which Fay characters don't usually get). It will, however, send you off on side-quests to consume a corpse, a parrot, a family portrait, the Old Brigadier's wooden leg...

When an adventure starts, Buggebers will be living their best monster life: stalking small children, being hunted by pitchfork-wielding villagers, raiding graveyards, battling other monsters, masquerading as humans in an attempt to be 'good.'

You'll enjoy a Buggeber PC if you like playing the anti-hero or the touching (or comedic) attempts by a monster to learn humanity.

Another Fay Gentry, Flayboglins are animated scarecrows. That's the least of what they are, because Flayboglins are ancient (but now diminished) chthonic gods, now confined to a clumsy effigy and standing watch over a stretch of countryside.

These forgotten gods are motivated by a Fury - and you decide what you are furious about. Maybe it's the pollution of the countryside, or humanity's wickedness, or cruelty to animals, or the neglect of ancient traditions. Fury builds in a Flayboglin and is then released in a whirlwind that topples walls and blows open doors.

At the start of an adventure, a Flayboglin might be minding its own business, keeping the rooks off a far-flung field, until the Briar Company requests aid. Other Flayboglins drape themselves in Glamour and move among mortals, preserving those things they care about. The landlord of a local pub, the scoutmaster who trains a troop of Morris Dancers, the gamekeeper who chases down poachers, or the old woman who cares for stray cats and dogs: they could any one of them be a Flayboglin.

Flayboglin PCs are for players who enjoy taking on a mystical role, of a being that can pass for human, but has no humanity: only an passion for protecting a vanishing world.

This is the first Mortal Gentry: Clerks are ordinary humans who serve the Heathen Saints of the Hedgerow. The Saints are dimly personified beings: Elder Mandrake, King Wren, Lady Hagthorne, and Wuthering Stormcrow. This service binds them to the mysteries of the countryside and the battle against the Dark in small and great ways.

Clerks have access to a wide range of spells. They also gain powers from their Saint, as well as the ability to 'abjure' certain agents of the Dark. For example, Clerks of King Wren talk to birds, abjure the undead (like a D&D cleric!), and their spells can be violent or protective, but they are compelled by Elder Mandrake never to be the instigator of conflict.

Between adventures, Clerks have a role in the local community: a school teacher, the local squire, a farrier or ostler in a small village, a tramp who sleeps in the hay ricks. They carry out their Saint's work in minor ways until the Light summons them.

A Heathen Clerk is a familiar PC archetype: the rustic cleric or druid, serving a higher cause, but cut off from society by a lonely calling. Of course, your Heathen Clerk might be a family man, a housewife, or a local politician, in which case keeping their magical identity hidden will be a source of drama in itself.

Another Mortal Gentry, a Hodkin is a champion of the Light, albeit a tragic one. Each has been exalted as an immortal warrior in the war against the Dark, but the Light has robbed them of family and home. The power of Glamour means their loved ones no longer remember them and it is their doom to fight on, unrecognised, and hope only one day to die, unlamented.

Hodkins carry a magical treasure to aid them in their battle with the Dark. They are immortal until the Light finds no further use for them, and the Doom can be postponed over and over. Each suffers a very personal Sorrow, and roleplaying this burden and loss can earn you an extra Free Respite, in which to recover from your battles.

When not adventuring, a Hodkin might return to their loved ones - or descendants - to watch over them from a distance, or else dedicate themselves to defending little patches of history that mean something to them: an old farmhouse, an unmarked grave, a meadow where two lovers once parted.

Playing a Hodkin can be very straightforward: you're a time-travelling immortal warrior. The creativity comes in designing your magical treasure and in expressing your unique Sorrow.

Motleys originated as 'Holy Fools' - mortals whose madness gave them powers for the Light or the Dark. Credit to editor Phil Smith's team at Osprey for helping me develop this idea, This Mortal Gentry still consists of oddballs and eccentrics, but they are more like entertainers than simple lunatics. Each has been taught a cosmic Secret by the Light, a Secret that has transformed their perceptions as well as granting them powers.

This capering Motley from the Age of Steel carries a 'marotte' - a jester's stick, with an inflated bladder on the end

Your Motley is characterised by her Secret and the Day of the Week associated with it. As Monday's Child, you are a Harlequin who can lie and change appearance. As Wednesday's Child, you are a Lazar, your secret is Death, and you can kill with impunity - as well as talk with ghosts. AS Saturday's Child, you are a Jester who performs supernatural pranks.

Motleys are committed to Holy Poverty and never start an adventure with any equipment. Between adventures, they live a hand to mouth existence, begging or performing, or perhaps assassinating enemies of the Light if they are Lazars!

Play a Motley PC if you want to be the comic relief - or else delve more deeply into their Secret and the tragedy of being cut off from society by your own inexpressible strangeness. Each Motley Day functions like its own separate character class (there! I said it!) so there's a lot of variety with this Gentry.

Back to the Fay Gentries: this time the sorcerous Ouzels. These are humanoid Fays with the heads of birds who were expelled from Fayrie because of their determination to aid mortals against the Dark - or at any rate, that's the story they​ tell.

Ouzels cast spells pretty easily, but they are more than just magic-users. They can transform into birds, of course! There are eight noble houses ('sieges') that arrived from Fayrie, each aligned with a different bird.

Siege Cathartine are buzzards who revel in slaughter, while Siege Milhuyt are thrushes who delight in beauty and song. Dreoilin wrens are strategists and plotters, while Strigine owls are philosophers and knowledge-seekers. Each house has its own magical focus and powers.

Ouzels are political creatures: the sieges manoeuvre against each other, and Ouzels often involve themselves in mortal divisions too, taking sides in the conflicts of the Age they inhabit. In the Age of Plagues, they might be Cavaliers opposing Roundheads, or rebels rescuing accused witches from the Witch-Harrow. They are often in conflict with other Fays too, which unites the fractious houses as one.

Playing an Ouzel PC gives you plenty of spell power and shapeshifting, but it also involves you in politics and negotiations, often with the Proud Fay who live in the Mortal Ages and want nothing to do with the Light or the Dark.

The last of the Fay Gentries is probably the weirdest. Tomnoddins are humanoid spiders with lots of hairy arms terminating in hands, and human-like eyes.

Despite their gruesome appearance, Tomnoddins are fascinated by humanity; so much so, they obsess over one aspect of humanity, which becomes their 'weaving.' Some Tomnoddins are fascinated by money and live as merchants, others by love and they pursue romance at all cost. The problem is, Tomnoddins have an erratic grasp of humanity, so their weavings are always faulty. The Tomnoddin merchant tries to sell horrific or absurd things, like severed fingers or bottled tears, while the lover pursues their beloved with disturbing gifts and distressing poetry.

Tomnoddins have spider-like powers too, of course: they can use multiple limbs, scuttle along walls, and squeeze through tiny gaps.

Being a Tomnoddin means committing to a role in human society, but never getting it quite right. Adventures often start for a Tomnoddin with a crisis in their weaving, when they are confronted by terrified or outraged humans.

Tomnoddin PCs can play similarly to Buggebers if you want the character arc of someone monstrous who is learning to be human.

Through The Hedgerow draws inspiration from children's fantasy literature and TV, so of course you must be able to play a child character, caught up in a fantasy adventure. Waifs aren't magical and don't have powers, but they are protected by their Innocence, which means they can't be seriously harmed or killed if the player doesn't want that to happen.

Waifs don't have to worry about a Doom Die and aren't bound by the Light's Bans, like the Law of Flint and Flame, so they can use technology and even harm mortals in a way that other Briar Knights cannot.

Eventually, a Waif's Innocence declines and is lost. When that happens, the Glamour might erase all their memories of adventures with magical companions: they have outgrown such things. Some, however, will join a Gentry, becoming a Heathen Clerk, Hodkin, Motley, or Warlocke, with a Doom weighing them down.

Playing a Waif PC is liberating: you don't have to worry about being killed or wounded. Nor do you have great powers to work out how to use. Instead, you concentrate on taking part in the story, using trickery, empathy, and honesty to win through. You also offer your companions 2 Free Respites, which will make you welcome in any Briar Company.

Warlockes are a Mortal Gentry of sorcerers who get their spells from an intelligent entity known as their Grimoire. The Grimoire could be a literal spell book, but often it's an animal or piece of technology that imparts magic to the Warlocke, who alone hears it speak.

This Warlocke from the Age of Swords has a Grimoire in the form of a talking pig. If you remember Hen Wen, the oracular pig from Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain, you'll know what this is like.

Warlocke's are pretty effective magic-users, maybe not with the same mystical punch that Ouzels enjoy, but very potent if they take time to cast spells as rituals rather than on-the-fly hexes. Their Grimoires store spells for them, to cast as needed. But the main fun to be had with your Grimoire is the Oath it offers you.

Your Grimoire has its own strange agenda and it offers you an Oath to fulfil at the start of every adventure. In Through The Hedgerow you enjoy certain advantages while under an Oath and you get helpful rewards for completing it. While your Grimoire is weak, it imposes fairly trifling duties on you (e.g. protect a child from bullies), but as it grows in power, the things it wants you to do become more grandiose (e.g. breaking an innocent man out of prison).

Most of the fun in playing a Warlocke PC is in your bickering relationship with your Grimoire. The main advantage is the Oath, which gives you a lot of control over the way your Doom Die grows. Warlockes won't meet their Doom in a hurry, giving you time to mature the Warlocke and his Grimoire into an awesome spell-casting team.

You can watch players bringing some of these characters to life in our play-through videos.

Behind the facade of normalcy, two forces contend. The farmer ploughs his field, sows the fertile seed. orders his land with neat hedgerows, tends fruit in the orchards, and blesses his family as they sit together at supper. This is the world of the Light. But at night, the Dark arises. The wolf scratches at the locked gates. The earth yawns open and disgorges the bones of the hungry dead that roam the lanes and lurk by stiles, waiting for the unwary shepherd hasting home, too late, far too late, as the sun slips from the hilltops and the night stifles his scream.

Through The Hedgerow borrows this trope from classic fantasy - but notably from Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising series (and perhaps F. Paul Wilson's Adversary Cycle is rattling around in there too). With my professor hat on, I can tell you that it's a mythological concept rooted in ancient Zoroastrianism and termed 'dualism' by scholars. It's the idea that the world around us is an arena in which two cosmic forces contend: the Light and the Dark.

The Light is the force the nurtures: it is creativity, discovery, lawful and ordered living, perhaps life itself. The Dark is its opposite: destruction, ignorance, chaos, death.

In Through The Hedgerow, the player characters have been plucked from their ordinary lives - or, in the case of Fay characters, their already-extraordinary lives - to serve the Light. They might not have chosen this service. They might resent it. It will certainly cost them dearly: at the very least, it will cost them their innocence.

Serving the Light means labouring under a Doom, which is a tragic (or at least bittersweet) fated end. You learn your Doom when you create your character. Perhaps you are fated to betray your companions, turn to the Dark, die defending someone you love, or settle down and lose all memory of the Light and the Dark and your erstwhile comrades.

Each character has a Doom Die which starts small (d4) but gets bigger as your Doom draws nearer. That's not a bad thing though - you can roll your Doom Die for any Check or Challenge, so the bigger it gets, the more powerful your character is. Advancing the size of your Doom Die is like 'levelling up' in convention RPGs, except for the fact that you can retreat the size of your Doom Die later, which is 'levelling down.' Why would you want to do that? Well, read on.

Your ultimate Doom also determines your Doom Trigger: a set of circumstances that reveals your heroic qualities, but also your destructive flaw. If it is your Doom to betray your cause, then your Doom Trigger occurs when you get up to something important behind your comrades' backs or against their wishes. A Doom Trigger only happens once per adventure, if it happens at all, but it causes your Doom Die to advance in size, so that d4 becomes a d6. It also makes your Doom Die 'unlimited' which means you can use it over and over and really rely on it. 

In The Lord of the Rings, the Elves have a Doom to depart Middle Earth and travel to the Undying Lands. For many, this is triggered by their first sight of the sea. Legolas experiences the 'sea-longing' when he arrives at Pelargir to battle the corsairs and hears the gulls. Art by Lorraine Brevig 

Relying on your Doom Die is a risky course of action. If you roll the highest possible number on your Doom Die, that also makes it advance in size. This also can occur once per adventure. This means even a starting character could trigger their Doom then roll the highest number when using their Doom Die and end up with a d8 Doom Die, which is quite a powerful asset.

The Doom Die can also increase when you gain rewards at the end of an adventure. In fact, there's one reward that forces you to advance your Doom Die whether you want to or not. The starting character I imagined earlier could end their first adventure with a d10 Doom Die.

Isn't that a good thing? Well, yes, insofar as it makes you powerful. Being able to throw a d10 at any particular Check or Challenge is a significant benefit. The problem is, sooner or later your Doom Die will advance past d12 size. When that happens, your character's Doom is at hand: you are about to lose your character.

Characters in Through The Hedgerow aren't at risk of dying on a routine basis. Even if they are defeated by a Challenge, they are usually just distracted or weakened or possibly captured. It's a rare Challenge that threatens to vanquish them, removing them from the adventure. Even vanquished characters can return in a future adventure: if the Judge allows it, the Light snatches its servants away from peril.

There's no getting round your Doom, however. Once that Doom Die peaks, your character's story has come to an end.

Through The Hedgerow imagines this Doom to be a collaborative process between the player and the Judge. The Doom should come about in a way that fits the theme of the adventure and respects the arc the character has been travelling. It might be brutal and tragic, or whimsical and bittersweet. Were you stabbed in the back by someone you trusted - or did you fall in love with the Elf Maiden of the Old Moor and decide to stay with her, renouncing your life of adventure? The Doom doesn't have to occur immediately and it might take place in the next adventure you take part in, which would allow the Judge to work your character's departure into the story in a dramatically satisfying way. But go you must!

It's easy to represent the Light as a force of cosmic goodness and the Dark as diabolic evil. Even handled this way, there's room for a lot of depth in character development. Some Briar Knight characters will be idealistic in their service of the Light, but many are bitter or reluctant.

​Hodkins are human champions who served the Light in their own age and were gifted - or cursed - with immortality to continue their service across the centuries. They have lost their homes, families, loved ones, everything they knew, to become warriors in an unending war across time. For many of them, their eventual Doom is a blessed release, 'a consummation devoutly to be wished,' as Hamlet says.

Buggebers are Fay monsters created to be minions of the Dark. Some have repented and seek atonement by serving the Light, some have offended their former Lords and the Light offers them protection, others are prisoners whose service to the Light is grudging at best.

For the bird-faced Ouzels, serving the Light is a political manoeuvre in the Courts of Fayrie: some see themselves as knights and strategists in a grand campaign, but others seek personal reputation or the means to defeat ancient rivals in the struggle between their Houses.

Peter Johnston's fantastic art for Through The Hedgerow brings these archetypes to vivid life. Hodkins of the Ages of Plagues and Thunder, a Buggeber of the Age of Swords, Ouzels of the Ages of  Swords and Plagues.

Dualism gets a lot more interesting as a fantasy trope when the Light and the Dark don't perfectly align with 'Good' and 'Evil.'

The Light promotes or perhaps arises from human flourishing - but in a rather abstract way. The Light tends to focus on the achievements of certain 'great souls' throughout history, strives to protect extraordinary treasures or locations of beauty, or tweak the destiny of pivotal figures. It isn't concerned with the 'greater good' and is unconcerned with causing suffering to bystanders as it furthers its plans. Briar Knights might be sent to abduct a child from its parents and entrust it to new guardians so that the child will grow up according to an important destiny - but along the way a family has been divided and parents left bereft.

Stories in Through The Hedgerow will often feature these dilemmas and part of the fun of roleplaying Briar Knights comes from exploring their reactions - from both mortal and immortal perspectives -to making these fraught decisions. Eventually characters will exhaust their idealism (if they started with any) and this is where the Doom comes in: there isn't only a game mechanism bringing your character's career to a close because Briar Knights end up seeking their Doom. Eventually, Briar Knights end up rebelling, or walking away, or finding their own corner of a friendly field to die in.

If the Light isn't entirely 'good' then what about the 'Dark'? Is it evil?

In many ways, yes. The Dark employs monsters and undead that hate humanity or else regard mortals as chattel or dinner. But it's worth distinguishing between ends and means. Among the agents of the Dark are more philosophical villains, such as the inquisitors of the Witch Harrow and the emissaries of the Raven Margrave. These adversaries claim to have seen a vision of the future so dreadful that any means are justified in averting it, including retarding human progress, extinguishing inspirational leaders and art, and unleashing plagues and disasters. Even an immiserated humanity is preferable to what the future holds in store. Viewed this way, the Dark offers a home to servants of the Light who have lost faith.

The core rules don't explore this in depth: the Dark is simply 'the Enemy' and its progress is tracked by an abstract Nemesis Die. The focus is on Briar Knights serving the Light, their encroaching Dooms, and the travails of their tortured consciences.

I'm designing further expansions that correct this: the Coven of Curdled Cream is an organisation of servants of the Dark, antiheroes working in opposition to the heroic Briar Company of Sky and Furrow.

The Light and the Dark are not the only forces at work in this cosmology. I'm designing expansions that explore the others.

The Deep is the spiritual power of the primordial waters - and death, which lies within and beyond them. From the Deep come ghosts, revenants, and doppelgangers, as well as alien races that occupy the border between life and death. The Deep needs policing and the Light and the Dark collaborate on this: the Pardon of the Grey Haar is a team brought together by their respective masters to tackle incursions of the Deep. Along the Salt Strand is a planned expansion that moves the action of Through The Hedgerow to the coasts, islands, and rivers, to storm-lashed cliffs, fishing villages, and drifting ghost hulks.

The Spire  is the spiritual power of human progress - and the force of religion. From the Spire come Fiends who draw humans to them in devotion and set them to labour in factories and businesses, spreading city streets and chimney stacks that are the aisles and steeples of their churches. Here is another antagonist for the Light and the Dark to find common cause against; even the Deep rages against the binding of its riverways with bridges and charters. Out of the Rookery is a planned expansion that moves the action to the great city on the horizon of the Old Shires, in particular the slums, sewers, and rooftops, where the Fay and their mortal allies fight a guerrilla war against the stifling oppression of the Spire.

Somewhere beyond these contentions - and perhaps reconciling them - is the elusive High Magic. Under the Hollow Hills is a planned expansion exploring the Otherworld of the Fays and a setting where Light, Dark, Deep, and Spire confront each other openly.

Back in 2021 I published a little indie game called The Hedgerow Hack. You might be able to tell from the name that it borrowed the rules engine from David Black's influential The Black Hack. You can read about the inspiration on one of my earlier blogs.

Turning Hedgerow Hack into Osprey's Through the Hedgerow involved a fundamental re-think. Hedgerow Hack had its origins in an old school D&D session, albeit one with a rural and faerie theme. In particular, it was inspired by one player character from that game, a child cleric named Bilge who worshipped a scarecrow. Hedgerow Hack was created in the first instance to allow Bilge to have further adventures in a world that seemed more suited to him.

Here (above) is Karl McMichael's original character art for Bilge. I was delighted when the talented Peter Johnston incorporated Bilge into the artwork for Through The Hedgerow - there he is, spying on the Cailleach as the brew their potions and lay their plots.

With this origin, Hedgerow Hack followed the broad parameters of D&D: PCs were adventurers, they equipped themselves with weapons, they confronted the forces of evil with force of arms, combat was the central feature of most scenarios, albeit combat with talking squirrels and undead farm labourers, taking place in windmills, manor houses, or stone circles on hilltops, rather than dungeons. The tone was quirky, but it was still D&D at heart.

With Through The Hedgerow, there was the opportunity to build a brand new rules engine and a completely different conception of what an 'adventure' might involve. What I wanted to do, was de-centralise combat.

I discussed in a previous blog post the inspirations for Through The Hedgerow and they were the TV shows and fantasy literature of my '70s childhood. What I didn't notice as a child, though it seems so clear now, was the strong theme of pacifism running through them. Not just Dr Who (that was actually quite a violent show by comparison); the Tomorrow People were literal pacifists. In Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising, Will's great powers as an Old One cannot defeat the Dark Rider by sheer force; in Greenwitch, Will's fraught negotiation with Tethys is awe-inspiring, but it is the child Jane's act of compassion that brings about a resolution. ​

But surely the best illustration of this theme that knowledge and imagination always trump power and force - so alien to 21st century children's storytelling, which is rooted in the violent fantasies of the Harry Potter series - is the wizard Ged's confrontation with the Dragon of Pendor in Ursula LeGuin's A Wizard of Earthsea:

Dragon of Pendor by Wild-e-Eep on DeviantArt

It only now strikes me that Marvel's Dr Strange (2016) stole this very scene, when Strange confronts Dormammu, saying, "I've come to bargain." 

It's hard to imagine how one could go about setting up a moment like this in most fantasy RPGs, where to be a wizard means having lightning bolts at your fingertips and a Dragon (or Demon) is, at the end of the day, just a problem expressed in terms of Armour Class, Hit Points, and damage output.

To be fair, there are other RPGs that have experimented with de-emphasising combat, Tales From The Loop, for example. It's a good comparison, because Loop features PCs who are all children. Hedgerow likewise introduces PC 'Waifs' who are innocent children drawn into the battle of the Light and the Dark. It's absurd to place child characters in violent conflict and repugnant to places players and GMs in the position of sending children to violent deaths - unless you want to run some grimdark, amoral game; I could envisage (but not enjoy) such things in a horror or cyberpunk style game. 

What I felt Through The Hedgerow needed was a rules engine that allowed even potentially deadly encounters to be resolved using all sorts of abilities besides weapons and physical force: fast talking, bluff, trickery, emotional appeals, mystic pronouncements, running away and hiding, and courageous defiance.

In a game like Through The Hedgerow, PCs succeed at most thinks they attempt and dice rolls aren't necessary. Every now and then something happens where the outcome is truly in doubt. This is the time to make an Outcome Check. The PC rolls any one of of their relevant dice and the Judge rolls a Peril Die; as a player, you just have to match or exceed the Peril Die. This isn't hard: most of the time the Peril Die is a d4, or a d6 at most; something really horrible has to be abroad in the night to roll a Peril Die bigger than that.

If you fail an Outcome Check, you don't find what you're looking for or get to where you were going. I'm a big fan of a House Rule which says that you can salvage the situation just by spending Resolve equal to the difference between what you rolled and what you needed. If you do this, a player can usually turn a bad roll into a success, but it's draining to do so.

That's a pretty simple system. You, the player, choose the Die based on how you roleplay the situation. If you're trying to talk your way out of trouble, roll Charm; if you're hiding, roll Wits; if you fight your way out or just outrun them, roll Might; if one of your Virtues looks relevant, roll your Virtue Die - and of course, you can always roll your Doom Die. If you've got a useful piece of Gear, that let's you roll d8 instead, or perhaps d6 if it's only marginally useful for the problem at hand. 

Checks are easy but sometimes the problem is bigger, more complex, or threatens very nasty consequences. This sort of problem is a Challenge and there's a different system for that.

Every Challenge has a Threat Level (TL), from TL0 up to TL5. This indicates how many steps or episodes are needed to resolve it. Picking a lock might be TL0, just a single Threat, but being attacked by a pack of hungry wolves might be TL2, indicating three Threats in succession.

Players get to describe how their PCs deal with each Threat. In a sense, they become the games masters and take up the narration. You might say, "I pick up a burning branch from the fire and wave it towards the wolves!" or you might say, "I climb a tree to get away from them!" or even, "I look deep into the wolf's eyes and commune with its wild spirit." If it fits the situation and your character, you can describe it.

The Threat then dishes out Peril, which is deducted from your Resolve score. This wolf pack might roll a d6 Peril, but the Judge might rule that climbing a tree is a good idea and the Peril shrinks to d4 for that character.

If you don't want to lose Resolve (and usually, you don't) then you can roll dice to try to 'soak' the Peril. You can roll dice based on any relevant Quality, Gear, or Virtue. You can roll your Doom Die. You can roll a die for any of your personality Traits that apply. Using the burning branch might be worth a d6 (it's not really what the firewood is for which is why you don't get a d8 for it); climbing a tree might justify rolling your Wits Die; communing with spirits would use your Charm Die or perhaps your Gramayre Die, or both. You use the highest result and deduct it from the Peril, hopefully you won't lose any Resolve.

This happens for the next Threat, and the next, until all the Threat Levels have been experienced. If you lose all your Resolve, you are defeated; if you're still standing at the end, you win, and the wolves retreat, or your escape them, or their leader submits to your authority.

The catch is, most dice get exhausted after they are used, so for subsequent Threat Levels you have to change tactics, or else justify what you are doing in a new way. Maybe for TL0 you look into the wolf's eyes and roll your Charm and Gramayre. For TL1 you declare, "I'm overwhelmed by the beast's hunger and I stagger, but I find a reserve of strength in myself and maintain eye contact!" and the Judge agrees you can roll your Might this time. For TL2, you suggest, "I offer the wolf a sandwich from my satchel," and the Judge decides this is worth a d6 too. Assuming you didn't lose all your Resolve, the Challenge ends with the wolf leader devouring your sandwich, then the pack leaves you in peace. This is how a PC schoolboy can overcome the challenge of a pack of hungry wolves armed with a sandwich.

Some Challenges don't just drain your Resolve. Hazards are penalties you suffer if you lose any Resolve to the Challenge. For example, the wolf pack might have the 'Injury' Hazard, which means that, if you lose even 1 point of Resolve, one of your own dice is 'burned' and is treated as a size smaller until you get healed.

The Judge might ignore some Hazards based on the way you roleplay your behaviour. Climbing the tree or waving the burning branch around definitely risks an injury, but a sympathetic Judge might rule that communing with the wolf's spirit does not (at least not while you're using Charm rather than Might).

Humours alter the way a Challenge works. For example, the wolf pack might have 'Armoured' which means any dice you use to soak their Peril that are based on force or combat are treated as a size smaller.

Once you've passed all the Threats, you enjoy some sort of success, probably a 'Modest Success' which means the problem is over for now but it will soon return or be replaced by another one just as bad.

You can make your Success more effective by generating 'edges' which you do by choosing to shrink you largest die before you roll it. Some Virtues and Gear also confer edges when used. Edges might turn a Modest success into a Minor, Major, or Outstanding Success. In the example above, the wolf pack might communicate important information to you before they leave - or even accompany you as an Ally for a while.

Challenges generate 'notches' which counteract edges - one for each Threat Level after the first (which is why I call the first Threat 'TL0' as it generates no notches). There are Humours and Hazards that generate notches too. If you end up with more notches than edges, you enjoy only a Partial Success, a Bare Success, or No Success at all (which forces you to face the Challenge again).

The Challenge System is very different from the turn-by-turn resolution systems of games like D&D. It draws some inspiration from Blades In The Dark's system that bundles all the various possibilities of a problem into a single dice roll based on position and effect, then ticks of segments of a 'clock' to mark progress towards a goal.

Similarly, the Challenge System assigns a Scope value to the Challenge and to the PCs involved in it. A single person has a Scope of 1, two or three people would be Scope 2, four to six would be Scope 3, and so on. If the Challenge has more Scope, then the difference is used to increase the Threat Level or the Peril Die, or both. That TL2 Pd6 wolf pack from earlier might be Scope 2. A lone PC up against that many wolves might find the TL increased to 3 or the Peril Die increased to d8, whichever makes things more dramatic. You can ignore Scope when size and numbers don't amount to an advantage - climbing the tree, for example.

In the same way, if the PCs have more Scope, they can reduce the TL or Peril Die. Four PCs confronting the wolf pack could reduce it to TL1 or Pd4.

I've loaded the Challenge System with enough nuances to account for players who want to be armed combatants, so you can use it for big skirmishes or flamboyant duels (in the Princess Bride style).

Martial characters can take Virtues which let them un-exhaust the dice they get from armour and weapons or earn extra edges with certain weapons or manoeuvres. For example, troll-like Buggebers count as two people for purposes of working out Scope and gain an extra edge when using their claws. 

Unlimited Dice are rare, but these dice don't exhaust until the end of a Challenge, so you can use them over an over again, against each Threat as it arrives. Your Doom Die becomes Unlimited under certain conditions.

The Challenge System is also used for casting ritual spells or performing Glees (magical songs) or winning Riddle contests.

PCs will want to get their lost Resolve back and un-exhaust the various dice they used in Challenges. For this, there are different types of Rest.

A Breather is a short rest. You spend a couple of minutes catching your breath, checking your injuries, restoring your concentration or peace of mind. You restore 1 point of Resolve and un-exhaust all your personal dice and the dice for any light equipment (including light armour and light weapons). Martial characters often un-exhaust other weapons or armour too.

A Respite is a bit more protracted, more like half an hour, which means a chance to repair equipment, treat wounds, have a quick nap, etc. You restore all your lost Resolve and un-exhaust all dice. You can do special activities in a Respite, like cooking up schemes, hunting for herbs, or sharing a nice cup of tea (which lets you re-roll your Resolve, selecting the better result). The only catch is that, during a Respite, the dread Nemesis advances and the forces of the Dark get stronger. Fortunately, many characters have 'Free Respites' they can use to avoid this penalty.

There are also Interludes, lasting several hours, in which mortals get to sleep and everyone can undertake more protracted chores. The Nemesis always advances during an Interlude.

Adventures in Through The Hedgerow have a timer built into them. There's a Nemesis Die that starts quite small (like, a d4) but gets bigger every time you take a Respite and in other circumstances where the Dark gains power. When the Nemesis Die gets to d10 or d12, Challenges involving the Dark become especially difficult. If the Die increases past d12, the PCs have failed in their mission, but might be able to seek a final encounter with the Dark's powerful Emissary (and you'll need good luck to win a Challenge against one of them!). 

Even if you de-centralise violence, PCs will still sometimes lose and there need to be consequences for that. Not every Challenge involves the threat of injury or death, but something needs to happen. Then there's the issue of child protagonists who shouldn't be brutalised by the grievous outcomes that threaten adult combatants.

My solution is to create a selection of 'Defeat Caps' ranging from 'Distraction' (you're a bit weak until you get a Respite), through 'Stricken' (where you burn your Dice until you get prop[er healing) and 'Capture' (where you're out of the story for a while) and ultimately 'Vanquished' (where you're out of the story for the rest of the adventure).

In the example with the wolf pack, the character swinging the burning branch risks being Vanquished or Stricken (as the wolves tear into him); the PC in the tree risks being Captured (if she can't get back down); the character mystically communing with wolf spirits might be Distracted or Weakened.

But even that isn't guaranteed. Players get to argue for a lesser Defeat Cap they find preferable and make a sort of saving throw called a Defeat Check. If ithe PC passes the Check, things work out as they describe it.

PCs who are Waifs (child adventurers) can substitute being Captured for any serious Defeat Cap. Remember in the Lord of the Rings, where Boromir was vanquished, but the innocent Merry and Pippin were captured by the Orcs, only to escape later?

This approach gives players a huge amount of agency. You get to describe the drama of the Challenges you face and select dice that match your description. Even if you are Defeated, the consequences of your defeat match the sort of drama you envisaged, and if you don't like that you still get a chance to substitute those consequences for more congenial ones. 

Does this make Through The Hedgerow a 'fluffy' sort of RPG where nothing truly bad ever happens to anyone? No, characters can be Vanquished easily enough. A lot depends on the tone the Judge wants to established: gritty and dangerous, or romantic and whimsical, or somewhere in between. Even Wind in the Willows has episodes of terror and danger: chapter 3 (The Wild Wood) places Mole in serious peril until Rat rescues him and they find safety at Badger's home.

Moreover, you can absolutely create martial characters: be-clawed Buggebers, tragic Hodkin, warrior-wizard Ouzels, grim Motley murtherers, and holy warrior Heathen Clerks. But even for these characters, combat can involve speeches, emotional appeals, curses, and dramatic flourishes, rather than just relentless pummelling.

The point of these unusual rules that depart from the conventions of fantasy RPGs is that players are liberated from caution and concern over safety. You can confront the evil Witch-Hunters with a thundering denunciation, you can appeal to the honour of a crazed berserker, you can commune with the spirit of a ravenous wolf. Or at least, you can try and you don't need to be held back by the worry about what might happen if you fail.

Through The Hedgerow is a RPG inspired by fairy tales, albeit odd ones. Four of the types of Player Characters are Fays. They are eldritch beings of the Otherworld who find themselves travelling the highways and bridle-paths of the Old Shires, carousing in roadside inns, hiding in ruined monasteries, or ruling their estate from ivy-crusted manors. 

How do you roleplay a Fay being? What are their motives and goals? Since they have their origin in fairy tales, here is the first of four tales to introduce the Fay Gentries of the Old Shires.

Once upon a time, but not so far away, there was a King named Alfred, who had lost his Kingdom.

The Kingdom was Wessex, which in those days was part of the Old Shires, and King Alfred had fought many battles to defend the Old Shires against their enemies. One by one, his friends and family died or deserted him, until eventually King Alfred could fight no more. Alone and humiliated, he fled to the fens of Athelney to hide himself.

With night falling, King Alfred arrived at the house of the Fenwitch. He knocked on the door and the Fenwitch spoke from within:

"Who's there?"

​Alfred replied: "It is Alfred, your King, armoured and armed to defend this land, and I need shelter to hide from my foes."

"My little house is too low for so high a guest as a king," said the Fenwitch, "so you must set aside your crown if you would enter in."

This Alfred did, though it daunted him to set aside his crown.

"My little door is too narrow for so broad a guest as an armoured warrior," the Fenwitch continued. "Take off your mail byrnie and set it aside if you would enter in."

This Alfred did, though it misgave him greatly to set aside his mail byrnie.

"My little bones are too fragile," the Fenwife said, "to endure the presence of a guest armed with a sword. Lay your weapon down if you would enter in."

Alfred debated with himself concerning this, for his sword Goldenhilt was an heirloom of his grandfather, who slew Beornwulf of Mercia. Runes were upon its hilt and jewels upon its pommel. Nevertheless, he laid it down.

Entering the house, Alfred beheld a cauldron in which a meat broth was cooking, and an oven in which seed cakes were baking. 

"What would you have, O King?" demanded the Fenwitch. "My broth is sustenance for a warrior, but my seed cakes are dainties for a land at peace. Choose."

Alfred gazed upon the chunks of meet that bobbed within the broth. They were most appetising to him and the smell of it set his mouth watering.

Nevertheless, he answered in this wise:

"I have been a King of war and met only with misfortune. I will sample the dainties of peace, though it seems your cakes are still awhile to bake."

The Fenwitch seemed pleased with this answer and instructed him thus:

"Tonight must I go to visit with my sister in Cernyw. Abide you here, until my cakes are ready. But beware, for this night shall a monster visit this hall, the troll named Buggeber that hungers for mortal flesh. He does not wait on invitation. Do not let him sup from my cauldron, for if he does, he shall grind your bones to make bread for his broth."

Alfred cried, "How shall I oppose such a fiend, having set aside my crown, my mail, and my sword?"

But the Fenwitch made no reply, for she was gone, and Alfred was alone in the darkening hall.

The long watches of the night passed slowly for the unhappy king. How he hungered to sup from the broth, but he remembered his choice to break his fast upon the dainties of peace. He prayed to the All-Ruler, but in this haunted place his prayers were mute.

Then, at the darkest hour of the night, the Buggeber entered in.

Old he was, that Buggeber, born in the ancient darkness, they say: one of the children of Cain, who carry the sign of the Murderer upon them to trouble a sinful world. Like steel were his long claws, like the pelt of a bear were his matted hairs, upon his neck there was no head, save only a maw of many teeth that gnashed and drooled. 

"Step aside, mortal man," the creature roared, "for I hunger. I hunger for blood, I hunger for flesh, I hunger for bones, bones, bones!"

The Buggeber reached for the cauldron, his long tongue lolling down his chest.

Up spoke Alfred, and these were his words.

"I have a sweetmeat for you daintier than a witch's broth. A tall warrior, whose golden hair sways in the summer wind. Struck down, he is, by a sharp blade. Into the ground, his bones are laid. Then behold, he rises again."

"Where is this wondrous warrior?" muttered the Buggeber. "For I see only you here, with no armour nor sword. Bring this warrior before me and I shall rend him with my claws."

Then Alfred said, "It will avail you nothing, for he will rise again wherever his bones are laid. But look, I have captured him and crushed him and placed him in a small cell. Will you sate your hunger upon him now?"

"Right willingly!" roared the Buggeber. "Bring me the warrior's body!"

Whereupon Alfred took up a pair of iron tongs and withdrew from the oven the skillet bearing the seedcake.

"But what is this?" howled the Buggeber. "This is not a warrior's flesh, but a cake of flour."

Alfred answered him this: "The wheat is a warrior who sways in the summer wind. The seeds are his bones that rise again in spring. This cake is his body. Will you share with me now the dainties of peace?"

Then Alfred and the Buggeber broke their fast together upon seed cake.

In the morning, the Fenwitch returned to find her cauldron undisturbed and the fierce Buggeber now as meek as a newly baptised infant. She carved for him a face from a turnip in her garden.

The Fenwitch counselled Alfred, "You have sojourned here a night, but a season has turned in the affairs of mankind. Behold, your kinsmen and vassals come seeking you. An army assembles: the men of Somerset, the men of Wiltshire, the men of Hampshire. Leave now, Alfred, you have a kingdom to rule."

King Alfred departed from Athelney and lo! his army waited for him in the Somerset Levels. And it is said that the Buggeber went alongside him, who was now the most loyal of all the King's knights.

Roleplaying a fairytale monster is cool, even more so if the monster is a hairy troll with claws and a carved turnip for a head.

Not everyone will flee in terror when you approach. The Glamour is a magic that stops mortals from recognising Fays. Most humans see you as big and imposing, perhaps rather savage-looking and hairy, but they only see the monster if they look shrewdly, or with the eyes of Innocence, or if they brandish Cold Iron at you.

Buggebers start off as Martial characters who can acquit themselves in a fight - especially with their size and claws. They are also Arcane characters with an affinity for Dark Sorcery, so they can use some of the more destructive spells without penalty.

Roleplaying a Buggeber revolves around your Appetites, which are the things you yearn to eat. Each character has their own selection of appetites, which are all quite abstract: for example, a wild beast, something that's been dead for a long time, something that's been specially prepared. Given the game's themes of riddles and illusions, you can match these descriptions in odd and imaginative ways. Something with the insignia of a wild beast might satisfy you - or something that share the same name as one.

Like other Hedgerow PCs, a Buggeber will have a Doom: this is a tragic or bittersweet destiny. 'Mastered By The Beast' means you will destroy yourself recklessly while 'Defying the Heavens' means you renounce the Light. Acting in a way that aligns with your ultimate Doom is empowering for your character: every time you do this your Doom Die gets bigger until eventually it increases past d12 size and your Doom is upon you.

For Buggebers, the Doom is usually related to their status as demons of the Dark who have been co-opted by the Light. You are one of the 'good guys' now, but perhaps not willingly.

You need to decide, how did your character end up serving the Light? Was she 'converted' by a powerful figure from history or folklore like Merlyn or King Alfred, Robin Hood, Shakespeare, Oliver Cromwell, William Wordsworth, or Winston Churchill? Did you 'defect' from the Dark after failing in a mission - or because you were troubled by the first stirrings of conscience? 

Related to this is your second question: what's your character arc going to be? In Through The Hedgerow, every PC is growing in power until their Doom comes calling for them. AS a Buggeber, you might be experiencing a redemption arc, where you discover friendship, love, or atonement - or an antihero arc, where you betray your comrades at the end and go back to serving the Dark. When your Doom arrives, you and the Judge must collaborate to decide what happens - so get thinking about it ahead of time.

Suppose you went down that lane, leaving behind the noise of the traffic, the hum and clatter of modernity, and wrestled instead with the stinging nettles and the bobbing flies. Suppose you found grass under your feet and birdsong overhead. Imagine yourself recognising them by name: the old wren and whitethroat, the songthrush, the fierce yellowhammer.

Imagine finding, at the end of that lane, overshadowed by the branches of hazel and sad yews, an upright stone, tilted, worn with age and furry with moss.
​
And overhead, the song of the wren bubbles like a fountain from the treetops. Joy pierces your heart.

Some of Peter Johnston's stunning art for Through The Hedgerow

This means the game contains a lot of befriending, questioning, offering help, trying to fix the life-problems of ordinary people (or at least, people who are ordinary enough for their period – the life problems of a Viking chieftain can be pretty hair raising by modern standards). You might create a character who can wrestle trolls, but you might find yourself trying to reconcile a dejected husband and his angry wife.
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Of course, you’ll get to wrestle trolls too.

This gives a Through The Hedgerow scenario a distinctive pattern. Receive your ‘conundrum’ (as the mission is called). Investigate the NPCs in the local community to work out who you can help and what they can teach you. Then identify your mission target and claim victory.
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Except of course, the Dark is sending its emissaries abroad to beat you to it. The clock is very much ticking and revealing your Otherworldly nature to hapless mortals only advances the timer and invites the Dark to intervene, probably harming innocents.