A couple of weeks ago I had the great
fortune of scoring an affordable copy of a Holy Grail product I have
been patiently searching for a good long while now: Midkemia Press's
Heart of the Sunken Lands.
Though like many so-called Petalheads
(thanks, Scott) I get my rage on for the Tekumel lifting by Raymond
Feist, the setting's popularizer, I have a great love of the actual
gaming products they put out with all their interesting sandbox
subsystems (the encounters and down-time business in Cities in
particular) and eye for nestling those systems in colorful setting
specific ways.
With Rudy Kraft--co-designer of the gold standard for wilderness sandboxes, Griffin
Mountain—listed as the author of Sunken Lands I figured it had to
be a solid piece of work.
I wasn't disappointed.
The book lays out (with a nifty
four-panel blank players' map) a first-class wilderness sandbox set
in a large, mountain-ringed, jungle-choked depression. The product
has a lot of depth with many pages being devoted to
navigation/exploration of the unique range of terrains; inventive,
non-standard creatures, plants, gems, extractable resources, and
humanoids; an expeditions table (lifted from my favorite section of
their Jonril books) that hardwires in an interesting range of
incentives for player exploration; and a couple mysterious sites.
With my eponymous campaign now shifting
for the moment to the exploration, clearing and possible colonization
of a wilderness region called the Feral Shore (more about that later)
what I found most intriguing were the subsystems for wilderness
exploration (apparently planned for a never-published Midkemia
wilderness supplement). I found them highly inspirational and
instantly set down to custom fit them to the new mini-campaign.
 |
| What the Feral Shore looked like 500 years ago before being wiped out of existence by the Turko-Fey |
The outline of that system (redacted to
not tip off the players over much) I share below.
Feral Shore Exploration and
Movement
What's different from the typical D&D
systems:
- Movement is calculated by the hour instead of by the day.
- Encounter checks are done by the hex rather than by time.
- Encounters cover a wider range of events than the typical wandering monster-like check. Interesting plants, mineral deposits, geographical features, run-in's with sentient beings, strange sites etc are included on tables specific to the terrain of the hex.
- Checks are also made on a Mishap table per hex (includes such things as getting lost, having a horse go lame, equipment break, inclement weather, etc.)
- Speed matters. A party moving at a slower speed will have an increased chance of hitting an encounter but a decreased chance of having a mishap.
Movement Speeds
Exploration 6
average hours/day
Cautious, Encumbered or Party over
50 8 average hours/day.
Normal 10 average hours/day.
Traveling Light or Forced March 12
average hours/day.
Assumption for Normal travel
Foot: STR 8-14 character can hump 25-40 lbs of
gear in pack and pouches, armor of chain/half-plate or less, two
weapons, shield. Weaker character -10 lbs, Stronger character +10 lbs
Mounted: Horse can hump 150-250 lbs
normally (total includes rider and related gear). Mule 200-300 lbs.
Foot: Average Miles per Hour
(includes breaks)
| Terrain | Road/Trail | Overland |
| Grasslands, Fields | 2.5 | 2 |
| Light Woods, Scrub | 2 | 1.5 |
| Grassy Hills or Moor | 2 | 1.5 |
| Scrub or Rocky Hills | 1.5 | 1 |
| Deep Forest | 1.5 | 1 |
| Forested or Steep Hills | 1 | .5 |
| Coastal Wetlands | 1 | .5 |
| Swamp or Heath | 1 | .5 |
| Badlands | 1 | .5 |
| Mountain | .75 | .25 |
Horse/Mule:
| Terrain | Road/Trail | Overland |
| Grasslands, Fields | 5 | 4 |
| Light Woods, Scrub | 4 | 3 |
| Grassy Hills or Moor | 4 | 3 |
| Scrub or Rocky Hills | 3 | 2 |
| Deep Forest | 2.5 | .5 |
| Forested or Steep Hills | 1.5 | .25 |
| Coastal Wetlands | 1.5 | .25 |
| Swamp or Heath | 1.5 | .25 |
| Badlands | 1.5 | .25 |
| Mountain | 1.5 | 0 |
Encounter Chart example
Light Woods: Encounter on roll of 1 on
a d10. +2 if moving at Exploration, +1 at Cautious, -1 at Fast.
Roll d10
| 1-3 | Roll on standard D&D Wilderness Encounter |
| 4 | Human or Sentient Neutral |
| 5-6 | Normal Animal |
| 7 | Plant |
| 8 | Mineral |
| 9 | Site |
| 10 | Weird |
ReplyDeleteYou have to love that cover. I have been generally pleased with all the Midkemia material, though I found some much more useful than others.
Uneven is the best word for their work. Jonril has a few high points (the expeditions hiring hall and related chart; the vying merchant houses; ethnic divisions) and a number of mediocre to downright bad points (some of the worst, utterly mundane fantasy names ever).
DeleteI really like the artwork of Richard Becker in their second generation products (who did some Chaosium Runequest work). Though some of it is wooden I dig the overall S&S aesthetic of his pieces.
Hmm. That gives me some excellent ideas about how to improve my own encounter tables. Some of the non-combat encounter stuff I already use, but other stuff I hadn't thought of, like mineral deposits and geographical features. That is the stuff I'll need to create sub-tables for.
ReplyDeleteJealous. It's the one I didn't have from back in the late 80's when I discovered Carse and Tulan.
ReplyDelete