New ED3 GM question: critter selection

[Natarm]

First, hi everyone! First time posting (though I've been lurking for the last few days, looking up things).

I'm gearing up to run my first game of Earthdawn, gleefully going through and laying the groundwork for what will hopefully be a long running inaugural campaign for everyone, when it occurs to me I had better go through and finalize my choices for what critters/monsters/NPC's I'll be using.

Now, I like to think I'm not exactly a novice at this sort of thing (I've run plenty of other systems before, including Shadowrun), but I find myself worrying that my difficulty balance might be off. Since this is a party of fresh, First Circle charactes, I realize that I can't get too crazy (No Jehuthra's....yet!), but I was wondering what tips I might glean from others as to making sure I give my party a good challenge without killing them all mercilessly.

Any tips or advice would be exceedingly welcome!

[Avantio]

Generally if you look through the bestiary in the GM guide, all critters/enemies have legend award listed - choose anything with a First Circle Legend award and you should be fine. the ones with a Group legend award are a bit tougher. Or you can initiate an inn fight (or a tournament) with piecies of furniture in place of weapons (or wooden replicas in case of a tournament - to make it non-leathal for everyone) and mix a different set of participants - from drunken villagers to a locall orc/troll bully with high brawling skills. This way you will have a good example of how your group deals with enemies of different power levels.

[Natarm]

Thanks for the advice, Avantio!

I'm thinking the first adventure is going to be sort of "insect" themed; some giant termites, brain milipedes, giant/trapdoor spiders, culminating with a showdown against a few rating 1 Invae (possibly led by a rating 2, if I feel brave). I figure it'll allow me some leeway to put out some feelers for how they do against lower level threats with a potentially wide variety of tools. I've also got something of a backup plan if anything goes horrifically wrong, in the form of a certain personality I'd like to tie into the overarching plot of my game.

[The_Gun_Nut]

OOooo...invae. I need to do stuff with them in my game.

My players will definately NOT thank you, but I will! (Thanks!)