Many aspects of the unknown will shock and frighten the average person. However, continually seeing the horrific or unusual eventually makes the viewer jaded, no matter how bizarre. Therefore, there are certain changes to fear and fear tests.

Upon encountering a particular type of monster or horror for the first time, the agent must roll a Spirit check. Pass or fail, they will not have to do another fear check for that type of monster or horror again, unless something particularly different or gruesome is encountered.

Example: A single zombie, or small group of zombies, are encountered by the party. The group survives the encounter, and basically after that zombies really aren’t that frightening. However, the group comes across a swarm of zombies piling up against the side the building, climbing higher and higher. They would then have to make another fear check.

Example: An oversized mutant humanoid with a chainsaw is encountered. The party makes their fear check and wins the following battle, blasting the mutant to pieces. Some time later, they are escaping the haunted camp with some NPCs, and suddenly a chainsaw is shoved through a wall, ripping one of the NPCs in half and revealing the mutant humanoid. The party would then have to make another fear check.

A Spirit check failure means the character is afraid. The character is considered ‘Shatnered’ at that point, being able to move but unable to act, until a fear test is passed. The player is encouraged to come up with some sort of fearful response for their character (running away, standing in place and gibbering to oneself, maybe trying to hide behind other characters, dropping what they’re carrying, etc). Hysterical actions may be allowed, if they’re funny enough at the time (blazing away with full auto weapons blindly, throwing a grenade without pulling a pin, maybe pushing another person between you and what’s got you scared, slamming a door shut, etc), but should not always be expected to be the norm.

A critical failure on the Spirit check (rolling a 1 on the Spirit dice and the hero dice) means the character is automatically shaken for that round only. They are able to reroll the fear test and accept the actions on each following round.