Against the Storm Clans Guide 2026: Pick the Right Race per Biome or Watch Your Settlement Collapse

Every Against the Storm settlement starts with a choice that shapes everything: which three clans will you build around? Each species eats different food, needs different service buildings, and excels in different workplaces. Pair clans whose economies overlap — Beavers and Harpies both benefit from a lumber-and-cloth production chain, for example — and your settlement runs efficiently. Pair three clans with no shared needs and you’re maintaining three separate production chains while none of them hit High Resolve, the threshold that actually generates reputation.

This guide covers all seven playable species in Against the Storm — five in the base game, two through DLC — with exact food requirements, work specializations, Firekeeper bonuses, and a biome-to-clan decision framework. Verified on Against the Storm v1.8 (Nightwatchers Commons Update, July 2025).

Quick Start: What to Know Before Picking Your Clans

• The three species assigned to your settlement are fixed at embark — you cannot swap them mid-run
• Every species has a Proficiency specialization (10% chance of double yield in matching buildings) and most have a Comfort specialization (+5 resolve while working in matching buildings)
• Complex Food satisfaction is the highest-leverage resolve source — prioritize food blueprints over building material blueprints in almost every run
• Species Housing gives +3 resolve on top of basic shelter — build it early for your primary workforce
• The Firekeeper bonus activates for whichever species you assign to your Hearth — pick whoever covers your run’s biggest weakness
• Lizards have the highest Hunger Tolerance (12) of all species; Frogs have the lowest of the flexible species (5) — key for food-unstable runs

How the Clan System Works

Resolve is the number that keeps each villager in your settlement. When it hits zero, they leave. Three layered stats determine how much room for error each species gives you.

Demanding is the resolve threshold a species must reach before they start contributing Reputation points toward your win condition. Lizards are forgiving; Frogs sit at 25, requiring significantly more active management before they pay off. Decadent determines how fast that threshold climbs after each Reputation point — Foxes escalate fastest, meaning late-run Fox management is more demanding than early-run Fox management. Hunger Tolerance determines how many missed meals a species absorbs before collapsing: each Hunger stack removes 4 resolve, so a Lizard with Hunger Tolerance 12 can ride out three days of food shortage, while a Frog at 5 cannot.

Specializations work in two directions. Proficiency means a species has a 10% chance of yielding double output when assigned to a building with their proficiency tag — Beavers at Sawmills, Harpies at Alchemist’s Huts, Frogs at Brickyards. This compounds across larger workforces: ten Beavers at Sawmills average one bonus yield per production cycle. Comfort means +5 individual resolve while working in a matching building type — persistent and passive as long as the assignment holds. Bats are the sole exception: they have Metallurgy proficiency but no comfort specialization, replaced instead by the Dedication passive.

The 5 Base Clans

Beavers — The Industry Backbone

Beavers pair Woodworking proficiency with Engineering comfort. Assign them to Sawmills, Lumber Mills, Workshops, and Mines and they generate double-yield bonuses while maintaining comfortable resolve in Engineering buildings. Their starting ability — +1 Trade offer per Neighboring Town — accelerates early economy without requiring any infrastructure investment.

Firekeeper bonus: +20% fuel burn time. This stabilizes Hearth output for the entire settlement passively, which matters because a cold Hearth reduces global resolve for all species. Beavers in the Hearth is quiet defensive coverage that prevents a low-probability problem from becoming catastrophic.

Food needs: Biscuits and Pickled Goods. Housing requires 8x Planks — expensive, but something Beavers overproduce once their Woodworking proficiency fires consistently. Best trio pairing: Beavers with Harpies, because Beavers’ lumber output directly supports Harpy Clothier and Seamstress buildings, and both species share service overlaps (Coats) that simplify early economy.

Lizards — The Forgiving First Pick

Lizards accept four complex foods — Jerky, Skewers, Pie, and Pickled Goods — the broadest diet of any species. Combined with a Hunger Tolerance of 12, they’re the safest pick when your food supply will be inconsistent. Their starting ability provides 10 Tools immediately, a genuine advantage before the Crude Workstation comes online.

The Firekeeper bonus is uniquely powerful: +1 Global Resolve, the only bonus in the game that benefits every species simultaneously. In a run where two of your clans are struggling below their thresholds, Lizard Firekeeper adds a floor under everyone at once.

The common mistake is ignoring their Fire comfort specialization. A Lizard assigned to a Cookhouse, Smelter, or Grill gains +5 individual resolve continuously. A Lizard assigned to a Herbalist’s Hut earns nothing from comfort. Prioritize fire-adjacent building assignments for Lizards before filling gaps in other production lines.

Harpies — Fastest Path to High Resolve

Harpies reach High Resolve faster than any base species because of two converging factors: they have only two food needs (Jerky and Paste) and every run starts with 50 free Coats. With one service need covered from turn one and only two food chains to manage, Harpies hit High Resolve before other species have stabilized — and High Resolve is where reputation generation accelerates.

Alchemy proficiency fires at Alchemist’s Huts and Tincturies, producing double yields on oils, pigments, and alchemical goods. Cloth comfort grants +5 resolve at Clothiers and Seamstress workshops. Both specializations support the same economy, keeping Harpy workers concentrated in adjacent buildings rather than distributed across unrelated production lines.

Firekeeper: +5 global carrying capacity. In settlements with long transport distances — dense forest maps or wide glade layouts — workers carrying more per trip compounds into consistent throughput gains over the course of a run. Subtle but reliable.

Foxes — Built for Wide Exploration

Foxes exist to solve one specific problem: Hostility. Their Firekeeper bonus reduces Hostility gained from opening Glades by 6, and their Scout proficiency speeds up Glade Event resolution by 5% per assigned Fox. At Prestige 5 and above, where every new Glade costs impatience and opening territory is both mandatory and dangerous, Foxes buy meaningful room to maneuver. If your strategy requires opening 8 or more Glades in a settlement, Foxes are close to mandatory.

Housing requires Crystalized Dew produced by geysers — and the Fox starting ability reveals the nearest geyser. Find it early, build around it, and Foxes sustain themselves. Ignore it and their housing stalls in mid-game. The Rainwater comfort specialization reinforces this: Foxes gain +5 resolve near water-adjacent buildings, making geyser proximity both an economic and resolve priority.

The trade-off: Foxes have the highest Decadent rating of base species, so their resolve threshold climbs fastest as your Reputation score accumulates. Late-run Fox management requires more active attention than Harpies or Lizards.

Humans — The Impatience Counter

Most experienced players rank Humans last among base species for a direct reason: highest Demanding stat of any base clan, above-average Decadent, and three food types (Porridge, Biscuits, Pie) that each require different ingredients and production lines. Running all three food chains simultaneously consumes blueprint slots that otherwise fund services or infrastructure.

The counterargument is the Firekeeper bonus: -25% Queen’s Impatience rate. This is the most impactful time-extension tool available. On high-difficulty runs where the impatience clock is your primary constraint — or when food crises have cost you production time — Humans in the Hearth directly extends your window to recover. The Farming proficiency also fires in Farm Fields, making Human crop yields the most efficient of all species when fertile soil is available.

Use Humans when impatience is your primary constraint, your biome has fertile soil, or your other two species are low-maintenance enough to absorb the three-food-chain overhead.

Clan Quick-Reference: All 7 Species

* DLC required: Frogs need Keepers of the Stone DLC; Bats need Nightwatchers DLC.

The 2 DLC Clans

Frogs — Infrastructure Specialists (Keepers of the Stone)

Frogs are built around stone and water. Their Masonry proficiency fires at Brickyards and Mason’s Lodges, double-yielding bricks and stone blocks — the core materials for mid-game infrastructure. Their Rainwater comfort specialization grants passive resolve near water-adjacent buildings, overlapping with Foxes mechanically (both want geyser proximity).

Two mechanics define the Frog experience. First, they cannot use regular Shelters — Frog Houses require 4x Bricks each, meaning their masonry output directly enables their own housing. When the Brickyard blueprint appears early, this is a self-reinforcing loop. When it doesn’t, housing is a hard mid-game bottleneck. Second, Frog Houses have four upgrade levels rather than the two most species get — upgrades include Rainwater Storage, Indoor Pool, and a Drafting Table that add meaningful resolve and production bonuses if you reach them.

Firekeeper: newcomers arrive 50% faster. In mid-run population crunches — when workforce is your binding constraint — this is arguably the strongest Firekeeper bonus available. Frog Firekeeper combined with Bat House Repair Stations (which yield Copper Bars per accepted newcomer group) creates an explicit synergy that simultaneously fills your workforce and funds your metals economy.

Frogs have a Demanding stat of 25 and Hunger Tolerance of 5. They are the least forgiving species to mismanage and among the first to leave when a run starts going wrong.

Bats — Ruthless Metalworkers (Nightwatchers)

Bats break the specialization pattern: Metallurgy proficiency for double yields at Smelters and Forges, but no comfort specialization. Instead, they have the Dedication passive — Bats gain +1 Resolve for every 2 members of other species who leave or die. This is intentional design, not a bug. Bats mechanically benefit from other species struggling, making them a calculated pairing with high-maintenance clans like Frogs or late-run Foxes.

Their Firekeeper bonus — Steel Gut, a 15% chance that villagers skip food consumption during a break — applies globally and effectively extends food supply by around 15% across all species. In food-constrained runs, this is more practical than any resolve-based bonus.

Bats start with the lowest initial Resolve (5) of any species but compensate with High Resilience and a fast break interval of 1 minute 40 seconds. Their starting ability — the Manorial Court — allows exiling one member of a chosen species for +4% global productivity per exile. The Bat House upgrade, Repair Station, converts accepted newcomer groups into Copper Bars, directly funding Metallurgy production.

Firekeeper Bonuses by Species

Choose your Hearth assignment based on your run’s primary constraint, not by default:

Clan Combinations That Work

The strongest base-game trio identified by community efficiency analysis is Humans + Harpies + Foxes: every complex food blueprint in the game has at least one consumer in this trio, meaning no blueprint draw is ever a dead pick. Harpies consume Jerky and Paste, Humans consume Porridge, Biscuits, and Pie, Foxes consume Porridge, Skewers, and Pickled Goods. Complete food flexibility across the run is worth more than any individual specialization bonus.

Food efficiency math also shapes optimal pairings. Community analysis rates Porridge and Jerky as the most resource-efficient complex foods, converting raw ingredients at roughly 2.4x per input. The Jerky-to-Skewer chain — making Jerky and then converting it into Skewers — achieves a 2.6x ratio, the highest in the game. Trios containing Lizards (Jerky, Skewers) and Harpies (Jerky, Paste) benefit from this chain most directly; Biscuits and Pies sit at a much lower 1.4x and should be deprioritized when food is scarce.

For DLC players, Frogs and Bats have explicit mechanical synergy. Frog Firekeeper accelerates newcomer arrival by 50%; Bat House Repair Stations convert each accepted newcomer group into Copper Bars. Running both species together simultaneously fills workforce gaps and funds the Smelter/Forge economy — lean into the Brickyard/Metallurgy infrastructure cluster and both species reinforce each other throughout the run.

Against the Storm’s blueprint-drafting system rewards the same adaptability skills as other roguelike strategy games. If you enjoy the card-selection loop here, the best deck builder games guide covers other titles built around similar draft mechanics. For players who enjoy the colony and resource chain management specifically, the Timberborn beginner’s guide covers comparable species-based city building — and Timberborn’s Beavers are similarly central to early wood economy.

Biome-to-Clan Decision Framework

Biome determines which raw resources flow most freely and which food chains are easiest to establish in the first 20 minutes. Matching clan picks to biome output reduces early-game friction significantly:

• Marshlands — fertile soil is scarce, foraging is abundant. Lizards (four food types, high Hunger Tolerance) and Harpies (Jerky from hunted meat) outperform Humans here. Human Farming proficiency has nowhere to fire when fields are hard to establish.
• Coral Forest — heavy Rainwater mechanics. Foxes’ Rainwater comfort and Frog Masonry/Rainwater comfort both activate consistently. At least one Rainwater-specialised species makes this biome significantly more manageable.
• Scarlet Orchard — corrupted Glades generate high Hostility. Fox Firekeeper (-6 Hostility per Glade) is at maximum value here — the difference between a controlled run and an impatience spiral.
• Ancient Wasteland — tools and resources are scarce early. Lizard starting Tools (10) and Beaver starting trade bonus (+1 offer per Neighboring Town) are both amplified when the base economy is lean.
• General rule — if the biome pushes one resource type (lots of wood, lots of stone, lots of insects), pick at least one clan whose proficiency fires on that resource. You’re already oversupplied with it; doubling output costs nothing extra.

Which Clan Suits Your Playstyle?

Against the Storm rewards adaptation over optimization. That said, matching starting clans to your instincts accelerates the learning curve. For players who enjoy the drafting and roguelike progression, the Slay the Spire 2 guide covers another deck-based roguelike where card selection similarly defines run identity.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does it matter which species I assign to the Hearth?

More than most players initially realise. The Firekeeper bonus is active the entire run and each one targets a different constraint. Humans at -25% impatience is the biggest time buffer in the game. Foxes at -6 Hostility per Glade is transformative at high Prestige. At low difficulty the choice is forgiving; at Prestige 5 and above, your Firekeeper assignment often determines whether the run succeeds or fails.

Can DLC species mix with base game species?

Yes — the embark screen treats all seven species identically if you own the relevant DLC. The key constraint for Frogs is that they cannot use base game Shelters and require Frog Houses built from Bricks. Any trio containing Frogs needs an early Brickyard blueprint or a stone-trading route established before population pressure hits.

Is there a single best three-species combination?

Humans + Harpies + Foxes is the community consensus for base game efficiency because no food blueprint is ever a dead draw. In practice, the strongest trio is the one matching your current biome’s resource output and your run’s blueprint offers. A Foxes-heavy trio optimised for the Scarlet Orchard performs poorly in the Marshlands. The game is explicitly designed to punish one fixed answer — the embark screen changes which three species are available precisely for this reason.

What happens if a species’ food needs go unmet?

Villagers without Complex Food eat raw food instead, receiving no resolve bonus from eating. Unmet Service needs reduce individual resolve over time. The failure cascade is: food shortage → resolve below break threshold → villagers leave → fewer workers → slower food production → deeper shortage. Lizards’ Hunger Tolerance 12 gives the longest window to break this cycle before it becomes self-reinforcing; Frogs at 5 enter the cascade fastest.

Sources

• Against the Storm — All Species Needs and Requirements — KeenGamer
• The Best Playable Species in Against the Storm — TheGamer
• Grace of the Harpies Update — Eremite Games (official)
• Keepers of the Stone DLC and Fishing Update 1.4 — Eremite Games (official)
• Nightwatchers Commons Update 1.8 — Eremite Games (official)