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, porters, 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, locksmiths, artisans, 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.

Expedition Harm

• Harm can come from many sources: monster attacks, disease, ration shortages, brutal weather, lost baggage, etc.
• Most of this harm takes the form of Expedition Fatigue, representing hard going, short rations, illness, sleep lost to extra watches or labor, etc.
  • All members of the party carry this fatigue, which adds to their total along with other forms. It can't be relieved through normal rest.
  • The individual types / sources and quantities of this fatigue should be tracked, as suitable action can be taken to relieve it in the field.
    • E.g. Fatigue due to ration shortages can be relieved by obtaining fresh food (trading with locals, butchering a large beast, finding an abundant gathering spot, etc). Fatigue from a shortage of guards could be temporarily negated by arranging for a particularly secure basecamp, though it would return once the group starts traveling again. Damaged boats or carts could be repaired with time, skill, and suitable supplies.
• Other forms of harm besides fatigue include loss of party gear (from their 80 slots) or specialists, time wasted by becoming lost or backtracking, etc.

Navigation

• The overland map contains numerous regions, linked by routes.
  • Specific locations, such as settlements, dungeons, landmarks, etc can be found within regions and along routes.
  • Routes and regions can have features, local threats, resources, etc, and may be more or less explored. This can affect the chances and types of risks and discoveries while traveling there.
  • Regions have a size rating, which is the maximum number of days it takes to travel to sites within them. Routes have a length value, which is the number of days to travel between the regions it connects.
  • It's possible to go off the listed routes, but it represents much harder terrain, with more hazards, slower going, greater chance of losing one's way, or finding completely impassable terrain.

• For each factor that affects an expedition's travel speed, +1 day is added to the travel time for every 6 days traveled (e.g. with 2 factors, a normally 6-day trip would take 8 days).
  • Every 6 days comes with a new chance of encounters and mishaps.
  • Delay Factors:
    • X: where X is the highest individual Exhaustion level in the expedition
    • 1 each: obscuration (fog, rain), exhausting conditions (heat, high wind), degraded terrain (mud, ice), carts/wagons, sick or injured members

Extended Rests in the Field

• Lingering in the wilds invites danger, but sometimes the need to rest and recover is vital enough to chance it.
  • The expedition requires a suitable basecamp, something more comfortable and secure than an ordinary campsite in the open, such as secured ruins or caves, sheltered canyons or hilltops, a constructed fort, etc. Ideally, one can be found with nearby sources of water, food, firewood, and other necessities, and without irritants, hazards, or scarcity.
• With a basecamp, 6 uninterrupted days can be taken for an Extended Rest. In addition to the usual roll for mishaps and encounters, this invites an extra Disaster roll.
  • A particularly good basecamp can grant +A on the roll, while an insecure or troublesome one can impose +D.
  • If a Disaster occurs, it will almost always interrupt the Extended Rest.

Returning to Town

• When stopping in civilization, there is always a danger that enough personnel will decide against going back out that the expedition is effectively ended.
  • If the decision is made in a smaller settlement (Dioman's Cove, Kala Lashte, etc), the expedition will remain intact, but collectively insist on heading directly homeward. In Cistern, it will simply disband.
• If the company wants to try to hold things together, a continuation roll is made.
  • d6 - Expedition Exhaustion level - 1 per prior stop in civilization - 2 per Disaster suffered - 1 per Extended Rest spent in town + 2 if this is a minor settlement
  • On a 3+, the expedition can keep going, with enough time to resupply basic provisions and perhaps buy some common gear. Otherwise, (3-roll total) x 10 Expedition Fatigue are gained, representing absent people, low supplies, exhausted animals, worn out gear, etc.

Events and Encounters

• Every 6 days, the expedition has a chance to face an encounter and/or an event (occasionally more than one of either or both).
• Encounters are with people, monsters, etc engaged in various activities.
  • They may be stumbled upon unexpectedly or spotted from far; some may be friendly or easy to bypass through negotiation or stealth, but others will be hostile (or hungry).
• Events can be mishaps of various severities (illness, spoiled rations, getting lost), discoveries (wild game, good camp sites, small ruins), or simply color.
  • The party can try to avert or mitigate a mishap by exploiting the details of the situation, using skills, magic items, or spells, expending resources, cutting loses, overcoming risks, etc.
    • E.g. having previously found an abundance of food and water could protect against subsequent ration spoilage. A party-member with Wildcraft, or a local guide, could make a skill check to avoid getting lost. Having a Levitate spell on hand could save supplies that would otherwise be lost down a ravine. Slaughtering and burning diseased pack beasts might spare the expedition from plague at a cost in carrying capacity.
  • There isn't always a ready means of mitigation on hand; it's up to the players to see if they can devise something, or else simply take the toll and push on.

Disasters

• There is a modest chance that an expedition will face a disaster some time during its foray (and an even smaller chance of more than one).
  • Each extended rest in the field calls for an additional disaster roll. The quality of the basecamp (fortifications, nearby food/water, local allies, nearby threats or hazards, poor shelter, etc) can modify this roll.
• Disasters take the form of huge or deadly encounters or dire mishaps.
• Unless mitigated, a disaster will cost the party 1/3rd of the net treasure recovered (this doesn't affect XP gained), or -1 company standing if they can't or won't pay up. Regardless of choice, there is also a chance of a further narrative difficulty or complication.
  • This cost can include treasure lost in transit, hazard or next-of-kin payment for hirelings, paying for lost pack beasts or gear (usually such things can be reused or sold to recover some of the cost), etc.
  • Disasters can be mitigated like mishaps, if the party can think of a means, reducing or sometimes even removing the cost.

Expedition Combat

TBD how to handle encounters through guards guard defense die (can shrink due to casualties)

Expedition Combat

• The Encounter
  • Monster Threat: base +0. Greater numbers or deadliness can increase this.
    • Some monsters are so dangerous only the party can face them.
  • Expedition Defense: base +4. Fortification or good tactics can increase this; an exposed position, ambush, etc can reduce it.
  • Tactics: Before the check is rolled, the party decides how it will participate.
    • Fight Alongside: the standard approach. The party aids their guards, trying to conserve HP and Mana, but with a small chance of injury (roll d8 for hits). No modifier.
    • Lead From The Front: the party fully exerts themselves. Take +1 defense, but party-members face a greater risk (roll 1d10 for hits).
    • Guard The Rear: the party leaves most of the fighting to the guards. Take -1 defense, but party-members face no risk (roll 1d6+1 for hits).
    • Encamped: the party is off delving when the camp is attacked. They can't assist (-1 defense), but the camp's fortifications, lookouts, etc usually make up for this (usually +1 defense), and party-members are not at risk (roll 1d6+1 for hits).
    • Expose Supplies: this can be selected in addition to any of the other options (the guards may elect to do it when encamped and in poor shape). The party leaves some of its supplies, pack animals, carts, etc unprotected and focuses on their own survival. Roll hits normally, but certain values change from hits against guards to hits against supplies, as raiders or hungry animals take the easy gain rather than risking their own lives.

• Battle Check
  • Roll: battle total (1d6 + (Defense - expedition Exhaustion) - Threat) vs obstacle dice (2d10)
    • Each obstacle die the battle total exceeds (not merely equals), improve outcome a step (bad -> mixed -> good).
    • For a good or bad outcome, roll 1d6. If it matches the battle d6, the outcome improves / worsens to a terrible or excellent outcome.
  • Outcomes
    • Terrible: the expedition suffers 3 hits before the attackers withdraw. The expedition may have had to retreat, hide, sacrifice tribute, etc.
    • Bad: the expedition suffers 2 hits before the attackers withdraw. It was a costly struggle.
    • Mixed: the expedition suffers 1 hit before the attackers withdraw.
    • Good: the expedition is untouched and the attackers don't test them or are run off handily.
    • Excellent: the expedition is untouched and wins a boon.
      • Possible Boons: morale boost gives +1 to next defense, capture a prisoner, impress a local faction, obtain some loot/supplies/desirable location, etc

• Hits
  • A party-member can usually choose negate a hit against someone/thing else by taking 2 hits themselves.
  • 1-5) Guard (if you Exposed Supplies, treat 4-5 as Supplies instead)
    • Roll to determine the severity (d6): (1-3) injuries, -1 defense until an Extended Rest (i.e. 1-3), (4-5) deaths or serious injuries, -1 defense, (6) minor injuries, -1 to next defense or extended rest.
  • 6) Support: gain 10 Expedition Fatigue (porters, cooks, scouts, etc are killed/taken) or lose a party specialist.
  • 7) Supplies: gain 10 Expedition Fatigue, and there is a 2-in-6 chance a piece of party gear is also destroyed / lost / stolen.
  • 8+) Party-member: a random PC takes (level) damage.

can cast a max Pow spell to negate 2 hits can cast a max Pow-1 spell to negate 1 hit

- base defense is +4 (15% fail / 39% partial / 45% success) - if the PCs lead from the front (9% fail / 31% partial / 59% success) - if the PCs lead from the rear (23% fail / 43% partial / 33% success) - establish campsite security once the dungeon is located (roll to see what they find; they can spend more time hunting, or use fiction / spells, etc). Normally it's worth +1, - guards: one 3 HD sergeant, one 2 HD corporal, five 1 HD guards

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