Exploration

Red Age > Rules > Exploration

Mounting an Expedition

Expedition Season

• There is plenty of time for one expedition each season in Spring and Summer.
  • If no expedition is mounted in Spring or Summer, each company member gains an extra downtime action that season.
• An expedition can be mounted in Winter, but harsh weather makes it more dangerous, and patrons are reluctant to back such unwise ventures.
  • If an expedition is mounted, it costs 1 downtime action from each company member.
• If urgent, a second expedition might be mounted during a season. It costs 1 downtime action from each member, and it may be hard to secure backing on short notice.

Sites

• Under the Sana System, information (rumors, historical records, divinations, reports from prior expeditions, etc) is collated and used to assign risk, reward, and confidence tiers to sites of interest to scrapping companies.
  • Site ratings and basic information are available to all chartered scrapping companies in Cistern, and there are certain agreements and duties in place to facilitate its collection and verification. Companies may be able to gather further information through their own sources, contacts, hired sages, rumors from friends / survivors in other companies, etc. This may provide more concrete detail on particular threats or prizes, useful equipment to bring, etc.
  • Most sites on the official list tend to have matching risk and reward tiers. Reward-heavy sites have already been plundered, while risk-heavy sites don't attract scrappers.
  • Companies may sometimes privately learn of sites. By law, they and their patron may mount the first expedition, but once completed, they are required to disclose basic information to the authorities.
• Risk is an assessment of the perils of the site and/or the journey to reach it.
  • Any site may contain overwhelmingly lethal dangers, but in lower tiers, it will be more passive, threatening those who push their luck or blunder in unawares, while in higher tiers, it may be more hidden, aggressive, or unheralded.
  • Each risk tier covers about 3 character levels, with overlap between adjacent tiers. (e.g. Green covers 1st to 3rd, Yellow covers 3rd to 5th, etc)
• Reward is an assessment of the valuables that might be recovered from the site.
  • Each tier has an associated quota, which is the minimum amount a company needs to recover from the site to cover the base expense of its expedition. If a site's reward tier estimate is accurate, it can usually be expected to hold between one and four times this quota value, tending toward the mean.
• Confidence is a measure of how certain the risk and reward ratings are; how supported or unsupported they are by collected evidence.
  • High (expected to be within the listed tiers)
  • Moderate (one or both ratings might be off a tier)
  • Low (ratings may be completely inaccurate)

Risk Tiers

• Grey (1x xp, +0)
• Green (1x xp, +2, 1st-3rd)
• Yellow (2x xp, +4, 3rd-5th)
• Amber (3x xp, +6, 5th-7th)
• Red (6x xp, +8, 7th-9th)
• Black (10x xp, +11, 10th+)

Reward Tiers

• Lead (quota: 200 gp)
• Copper (quota: 1,000 gp)
• Silver (quota: 2,000 gp)
• Electrum (quota: 6,000 gp)
• Gold (quota: 12,000 gp)
• Platinum (quota: 32,000 gp)

Companies

• All chartered companies in Cistern have a standing. This is denoted by the color of their charter's seal, aligned with the risk color codes of sites, with foil-embossed seals marking intermediate steps.
  • Standing carries the expectation that the company can generally handle a site of matching risk. Successful expeditions with good hauls help advance a company's standing, while missing quota or suffering major losses to the expedition can harm it.
  • Patrons take standing into consideration when deciding if an expedition is a good investment. Company standing higher than the site risk implies a safe bet, and the patron will offer to take a smaller cut to encourage the company to bother with a more modest venture. Company standing below the site's risk is a gamble, with the patron expecting a bigger cut to offset the chance the expedition becomes a complete loss.
  • The modifier listed with the standing is added to rolls when approaching a patron. Some companies may have reputations or relationships with specific patrons (good or bad) that further modify their rolls.

• Standing
  • Grey (+0)
  • Green (+2)
  • Green-Foil (+3)
  • Yellow (+4)
  • Yellow-Foil (+5)
  • Amber (+6)
  • Amber-Foil (+7)
  • Red (+8)
  • Red-Foil (+9)
  • Black (+11)
  • Black-Foil (+13)

Patrons

• Patrons are wealthy individuals or groups willing to underwrite the costs of scrapping expeditions in return for a share of the hoped-for treasure.
  • Patrons have a cap on the expedition risk tier they can bankroll, though a pair of patrons might be persuaded to partner and fund an expedition one step higher than either could manage alone.
• To see if a patron is willing to back an expedition to a particular site, roll d12 + (company standing modifier) - (destination site risk modifier)
  • Roll with +D for each factor:
    • The proposed expedition is the company's second of the season, or is otherwise late in the season. The patron may have already committed their funds to other projects.
    • The expedition is in Winter. The increased hardship means increased risk of failure.
  • On a 5+, the patron has the available funds and willingness to back you. Otherwise, they don't have cash on hand, aren't persuaded by your pitch, the pack beasts and personnel can't be assembled in time and on budget, etc.
    • Unless special circumstances in play change this, this patron is unavailable to you for the rest of the season. You may try approaching others, with the same destination or an alternative.
    • For multi-patron partnerships, roll for each one separately. If over half agree, the expedition is backed.

Underwriting & Quota

• Treasure Division
  • The patron is due a quota, recompense for the initial outlay on the expedition, based on the expected reward tier of the site (see above).
    • Failing to meet quota, either from a poor yield or a disaster striking the expedition, can result in a company losing standing, unless the company makes up the difference from its own coffers.
    • Quota is based on the presumed reward tier for the site. If a site turns out to be underwhelming (such as for a low Confidence site), falling short can damage a company's standing considerably, but the company might gain a huge haul because of a low quota and an unexpectedly rich site.
  • Once quota has been met, the company and patron split the next (3x quota) according to a percentage established when the expedition is mounted.
    • Company Percentage = 50% + (5% x (Standing modifier - Risk modifier))
    • The patron may demand a lower company percentage if they feel there is a greater risk of the expedition failing (mounted in winter, current events increase risk, etc), usually around -10%.
    • If at least 3x quota is recovered from a site (of risk equal company standing), company standing may increase.
  • Treasure above (4x quota) goes entirely to the party.
• Treasure Rights
  • Patrons have right of first purchase of valuable artifacts recovered by the expedition, with rights then passing to company members, and remaining artifacts liquidated through the patron's contacts and the market.
    • The company might wish to purchased certain objects, either as trophies, or to use their own talents or contacts to upsell them for a greater price. This doesn't affect treasure XP value or the value owed to the patron.
    • "Civic" magic items and infrastructure are considered part of the treasure, with first right going to the patron.
  • By long-standing tradition, all "adventuring" items (magic weapons, potions, spell vessels, etc) are considered to be outside quota or percentage, belonging entirely to the company, unless otherwise agreed at the outset. If they don't wish to keep them, the company may offer to sell such items to the patron, on the open market, give them as gifts, etc (this does not award treasure XP).
• The PCs gain xp for all treasure recovered, regardless of expenses, disaster loses, etc, multiplied by the site's risk factor (true risk, in case of low Confidence sites).

In the Field

Expedition Capacity

• Expeditions have a considerable number of pack animals, carts, carts, etc (as the terrain dictates) to carry supplies and plunder, and sufficient teamsters, camp guards, scouts, cooks, and other support personnel. These are arranged and paid for by the expedition's patron.
  • In addition its own camping supplies, the expedition has adequate food, water, fuel (torches and oil), and ammo (arrows, bolts, bullets) to operate more-or-less indefinitely in the field. Any time the party returns to camp, they can reprovision their packs as much as needed.
  • The party has 80 slots worth of space on the pack animals for their own gear (toolkits, 10' poles, alchemic reagents, spare weapons, etc).
  • The party can bring up to 5 of its own specialists (healers, sages, companions, etc), which it pays for and whose gear goes in the party’s 80 slots.
  • The expedition can carry home any reasonable amount of treasure.
    • If there are particularly hard-to-move-quantities, the party can try to figure out how to handle it with spells, clever ideas, etc, or the expedition becomes Heavily Encumbered, hauling a huge pile of stuff with rollers, sleds, etc. It moves at half speed, thus facing twice as many mishaps and encounters, and potentially being more vulnerable when something happens.

There is enough food, water, pack animals, camping gear, and personnel (guards, teamsters, scouts, hunters, cook, etc) for the trip. There’s not a specific amount of food, just that the longer you stay out, the more mishaps and encounters will gnaw on your hp.

Finding food / water in the field could protect your from the next food mishap, etc.

base expedition - covers consumables (food, water) - camping supplies - guards and support personnel (cooks, porters, teamsters, scouts, a healer, etc) - supplies (arrows, healing kits, etc; enough to also cover the PCs adventuring)

Events, Encounters, and Disasters 1-in-3 disaster per

personnel disaster pointcrawl navigation events and encounters "damage" to the expedition basecamps and extended rests in the field

"loss of supplies" - everyone carries 1 level of exhaustion for each time this happens, due to short rations and other hardships. if additional supplies can be found, a big hunt is made, etc the exhaustion level is cleared after a Long Rest. - if transport (beasts, teamsters, boats) are lost, this may translate into loss of supplies, as things have to be left behind to fit in the reduced capacity

• "expedition damage" to guards, etc also handled as fatigue, or the party can face the danger themselves and risk hp and mana to prevent it

Returning to Town

• You can come back, with intent to go back out (no time to do serious resupply).
• Make a Continuation Roll: d6 - Expedition Exhaustion Level - 1 for each prior return to town - 2 per Disaster suffered.
• If you roll 3+, you can go back out. Otherwise, enough personnel have bailed, supplies are low, animals exhausted, gear in need of mending, etc that you'd have to organize a whole new expedition.

risk multiplier on treasure xp, also post-expedition carouse from a triumph surviving a site with risk > your standing is aways a triumph otherwise you need to at least make quota and not have any disasters to qualify

- separate hires: specialists (sages, thieves, local guide, alchemists, etc) - separate purchase: toolkits - even more pack animals than usual what about torches/oil, rope, etc for dungoneering? can you add these things to the UR rating to finance them?

Disasters

disaster (d12) 1-7) no effect 8) resource drain (fatigue, hp, mana) 9-12) disaster and roll again (only for further disasters) discovery (d12) 1-7) no discovery 8) ??? minor discovery? inverse resource drain? 9-12) discovery! and roll again (only for further discoveries) road the road taken can affect the roll unexplored, mysterious vs known, mundane could affect discovery dangerous vs safe could affect disaster danger and mystery will often be linked

Disaster Mitigation Plans, feats, spells, resources expended, hard choices, fictional positioning

Each time the expedition suffers a disaster w/o mitigation, it chooses 1 lose 50% of whatever profits it manages to make after it gets back (after quota and underwriting percentage, as usual) suffer -1 standing In either case, there is also a 2-in-6 chance of a further narrative difficulty or complication. More than 2 deaths (at which point all profit is lost or you’ve taken -2 standing) doesn’t affect money / standing further, but it guarantees a narrative complication.

each extended rest in the field calls for a fresh disaster roll how good a base camp (fortifications, food/water, local allies, etc) you're able to establish affects the disaster roll. a poor site could be worse than 2-in-6, an excellent one could be low or none.