Mortals are living humans. They make up the core parts of hauntings with objectives always relying on mortals in some way.
Attributes[]
Mortals posess 3 main attributes. Terror, madness and belief. On top of that mortals have conscious and subconscious fears as well as a short bio that is based on Haunting Comittee operatives' findings on the given mortal. Mortals may have multiple fears if haunters give them fears with Phobia.
Behavior[]
Based on their current state, mortals can have different behaviors. When calm they usually go about their day (well... night) doing a routine that is dependent on two things:
- Hard coded actions. These can be as simple as doctors sitting in their offices in the hospital missions or more complex, like in puzzle missions trying to solve the puzzle.
- Their internal moodlet system. Mortals have a surprisingly complex ai system and they will autonomously move to satisfy their needs (if they are thirsty, they go to drink, if they have to go to the toilet they locate the nearest bathroom, etc). Ultimately this system can be basically ignored entirely as it has no effect on the player. The reason it is even known about is that modders have decompiled the game's code and check it.
When rattled mortals wander around the level trying to calm down. Rattled behavior is more akin to randomly moving between points on the level than moving between pre-determined points. When they are terrified mortals run towards a random point and calm down there. Because of their paniced nature in this state, mortals usually run around the level before actually finding their way to this point. Fleeing mortals beeline towards the level exit and once they reached it they are marked as fled and can not be further interacted with during the haunting.
It's important to note that in puzzle missions most mortals are hard coded to complete the puzzle, regardless of their level of scaredness, unless of course, they are marked as fled.
Over time mortals can calm down. During the calming process, mortals who haven't been scared in a while will start losing terror. Once their terror is low enough, they swap to a lower state of scaredness. If they become calm again, they return to their previous routine. The calming process can be sped up with powers like Unearthly Calm, that not only prevent the affected mortals from being scared, but specifically speed up the calming process.
Mortals are key to a successfull haunting, be it scaring everyone away in a haunting or getting them to do something for you. Powers such as Fool's Errand are invaluable to get mortals to do things they wouldn't otherwise or get them to move into areas where normally they wouldn't move. On top of that, attracting powers like Obsession can help with getting mortals to more to out of place fetters to allow your haunters to dish out terror more effectively. Noise powers such as Rattle Chains or Piping are also great at attracting mortals from further away.
Scaring[]
To effectively scare away mortals consider taking haunters with aura reading abilities with you on a haunting. While not neccessary, they can speed things up. Haunters such as Weatherwitch with Aura Reading unlocked is a great way to reveal multiple mortals' fears in a central location. You can also take a haunter with Phobia with you if you are keen on building for a specific fear (for example, you can take Carter and multiple creepy crawly haunters to capitalise on the fact that Carter's Phobia adds creepy crawly fear on mortals). Taking Sandman haunters with you is the easiest way to reveal fears (including subconscious) if you can work around their difficult fetter (for example, with an Ethereal Gift).
As an ending note, while it can be inviting to just take Moonscream, Clatterclaws and Buck on every haunting (because of their objectively overpowered fetter-power combos) it's usually more fun to try and experiment around with unusual haunters. God knows there are more than enough haunters in the game to try out all kinds of strategies.