You must defeat banes or suffer their consequences. Most scenarios assign specific story banes along with random monsters and barriers. The following are common features of banes.

Type: Banes, including story banes, are either monsters or barriers. Story banes have one of these types listed underneath the story bane type.

Check to Defeat: This describes the requirement for defeating the bane (see the Encountering a Card section for more details).

Powers: These effects apply when you encounter or interact with the bane. If a bane says an effect happens if or when you do a particular thing, it applies to any character who does that thing. If it limits the things you can do, that limit applies to any character who wants to do those things; however, if the limitation is the result of an action such as playing a card or attempting a check, it applies only to the character who took that action.

The following are general descriptions of each type of bane:

Story Bane: Scenarios assign specific story banes as dangers, villains, and henchmen. Dangers are monsters or barriers that are typically set aside at the beginning of the scenario to be summoned and encountered during play. Defeating and cornering a villain is the goal of many scenarios. Defeating henchmen usually helps your progress through a scenario, and defeating a closing henchman allows you to attempt to close your location (see the Closing Your Location section for more details). Defeating a non-closing henchman does not allow you attempt to close your location.

Monster: Monsters commonly require combat checks to defeat. You usually suffer damage if you fail a check to defeat a monster (see the Suffer Damage, If Necessary section for more details).

Barrier: Barriers typically require non-combat checks to defeat. Any penalty for failing to defeat a barrier is described by the barrier itself.