Mapmaking
There are two basic, interrelated components that make up the overworld: nodes, which represent the places the Heroes will be traveling to, and paths. For every location that is a significant distance away from any other location in the overworld such that players will have to expend travel resources in order to get there, a new node should be placed. A good rule of thumb is that if players would have to use the travel round rules to get to a new place, then a new node should be made to represent it.
Paths
When a new node is placed on the map, at least one path should be drawn connecting it to another node. A path serves as a representation of how to get from one node to the next. There are two primary elements that are necessary to define when making a new path: the means by which the players will traverse the path, and how long it will take to travel the entire path from node to node. The basic unit of time for this is the travel round. Each travel round represents one day of travel, while anything less than a day is instead represented by a partial travel round. Each distinct path has a length, which is the number of days it will take to traverse it under ideal conditions, and a number between 0 and 10 called the navigation difficulty that represents how perilous it is to traverse it. Each level of navigation difficulty reduces the probability that the players will be able to successfully get where they are going by 10%. The navigation difficulties for a given type of path are shown in the table below.
| Navigation Difficulty | Description |
|---|---|
| 0-2 | Roads with clear guideposts and boundaries. |
| 3-5 | Countryside trails that are well-traveled but not recognizable by people who aren’t local. |
| 6-8 | Forested paths and/or walking trails that are either overgrown or not well-marked. |
| 9 | Completely overgrown and/or unmapped countryside. |
| 10 | Terrain that is hostile or impassable via conventional means—a volcano, a sheer cliff, an icy mountain, etc. |
The Danger Rating
While traveling, players may encounter warriors or NPCs on the road. In addition to the navigation difficulty, each path is also assigned a danger rating, which is a number between 0 and 5 that determines how likely it is that they will encounter warriors during their journey, with 0 meaning that it won’t happen and 5 meaning that it has a 50% chance of happening. The danger ratings corresponding to different danger levels are shown below.
| Danger Rating | Description |
|---|---|
| 0 | Safe areas under heavy guard or that are idylically peaceful. |
| 1 | Well-traveled roads that see the occasional bandit. |
| 2 | Country or backwater areas where security is lighter. |
| 3 | Wild areas where human beings do not often linger. |
| 4 | Hostile areas where dangerous creatures gather, such as fetid swamps or jungles. |
| 5 | Enemy territory, such as in the wake of an army or in the middle of a dungeon. |
Exploration 🜹
When players either visit a new node, discover an interesting landmark, or discover a hidden or otherwise hard-to-reach area, they will earn 1 Exploration 🜹 for doing so. If they manage to reach a node that is secret or otherwise difficult to find, they will earn 5 🜹 instead.
Varying Paths
Multiple paths with varying climates, navigation difficulties, and danger ratings can be strung together by denoting the number of travel rounds the party will spend in each segment of the path. For example, a mountain path that starts at the bottom and goes all the way to the snowy peak will be demarcated based on how many travel rounds it will take for the players to reach the climatic transition zone. When the party passes from one zone of the path to another, the GM will indicate this via narration.