Journey: Exploration Example

I'm going to try to do this, so... bear with me.

Introduction

The party has found a piece of a treasure map, consisting of sketchy details of a land no one has ever set eyes on. On the back of the faded parchment, written in a shaky hand in an older dialect, are instructions: "Travel to the Monument of Tsera at the base of the Windy Mountains. From there, follow the Eye of Manos for three days, and come across Dun Thragoth. Follow the old aldjin road west, and come to the Mine of Cathuriges. Deep within, find the secret door that leads to Falgonat, the lost tomb of an ancient aldjin king. Within, you will find the Statue of Dormin, and treasures beyond your wildest dreams."

Jon looks at each of the traveling company in turn. "It's going to be a long trip."

Exploration is the task of getting from where you are to where you want to be, whether that's a new city, a hidden tomb holding treasure, or an ancient monastery. Sometimes, you have an idea of where you want to go: you know the city you want to go to is out west, on a well-traveled road; sometimes, you have no idea: the ancient monastery could be anywhere, but you need to find it.

The exploration rules cover all these scenarios and everything in-between. More than that, they also focus on what happens when you find that hidden tomb, giving you guidelines for how to handle exploration on smaller scales, such as buildings and abandoned fortresses.

We'll walk through the above example of exploration play. We will assume that all other roles - warrior, lorist, artisan, and mediator - are being ignored.

Part 1: Plotting the Journey

For starters, the LM needs to lay out exactly where the party is going. Since the party has a number of landmarks to work with, we'll start there.

In order, their landmarks are:

• Monument of Tsera
  • Follow the Eye of Manos for three days
• Dun Thragoth
  • Follow the old aldjin road
• Mine of Cathuriges
  • Delve into the depths of the mine
• Falgonat
  • Explore Falgonat

While the party has an end goal in mind - exploring Falgonat, to find the Statue of Dormin - they could easily stop at any of these locations along the way, and explore them. In addition, there could be any number of other things to discover along the way, such as newer constructions since the map was made. The group could encounter all sorts of hazards, be they natural predators, bandits, or monstrosities.