Exploration

Travel

Between desperate moments in combat and quiet weeks of safety at your haven, much of your time will be spent exploring the world and discovering its secrets. You will wind your way through jagged mountain ranges, cross desolate wastes, and sail along windswept coasts. You will venture into deep caverns, ruined castles, and long-undisturbed tombs in search of treasure and magic to aid you.

This chapter contains rules for the two of the frames: exploration and journey. These two procedures are how the players navigate the world.

Exploration Frame

... is used when the party is exploring a perilious adventure site, engaged in the true working of their venture. You must be careful but swift since you race against the fading light of your torch and the dungeon's mounting awareness of your presence.

Journey Frame

... is used while the company is traveling from one place to another over the course of one or more days. You will divide your time between advancing on your journey, engaging in camp, and resting. As you travel, you meet other wayfarers, encounter threats, or stumble across new places to explore.

Expedition Roles

When the party leaves their haven and goes on an adventure, they should choose their expedition roles: leader, mapper, and chronicler. These roles don't have any real mechanical impact, but help the sessions run smoothly.

Leader

The role of leader can be handed off to whoever is most invested in the next leg of the journey, and anyone who wants a turn should be given a chance.

Usually, when someone accepts the role of leader, they remain the leader for the entire expedition, until the party makes it back to the haven. If necessary, the leader can hand off the position at the start of a session, but there should usually be a leader during the exploration and journey frames, since it comes with a few responsibilities:

Call actions. The leader declares exploration and travel actions on behalf of the party. Everyone can and should ask questions, discuss options and strategize, but the leader declares what action the party takes next. This only applies to the collective actions taken during the exploration and journey frames of the game, not individual camp activities or actions taken during combat. If there is no leader, the party decides together what action to do each time
When the party makes a group check and earns sparks, the leader chooses them. If there is no leader, the character with the highest result on their check chooses instead.

Mapper

The mapper is responsible for mapping the world and dungeons during travel and exploration. This important role should be taken by someone who wants to do it, if possible. Their map doesn't need to be a work of art- it can be simple shorthand or a flow chart of boxes and lines, as long as it is clear enough that you could hand it off to a new mapper and they'd be able to read it, mostly.

Chronicler

The chronicler's job is to track what the party does throughout the play session. This can be no more than a brief bullet list describing each important action they take, or a more detailed account listing the names of those they interact with and places they visit. A well-chronicled

campaign allows the party to quickly bring a player up to speed if they miss a night or two, and having a chronicle on hand is useful for the when the Judge needs to sort out the events of the last session