Riverboat Gambler: Travel and Terrain

Another erg

Another erg

Another erg

Another erg

Traditional Hog travel song, translated from Green Man

 

Send a Gunboat has basic rules for creating rivers. Here is a system for creating the rest of the landscape. These are mundane, plausible natural formations for the areas of the map not adjacent to a river and without any keyed tombs or points of interest full of monsters and treasure.

 

BIG ROCK FORMATIONS

Big rock formations should be placed in advance. They're visible at a distance, not something adventurers are surprised to stumble into. Toss some D12s onto the page after you've placed the rivers and points of interest.

 

1: Mesa: A huge rock that's flat on top. D1,000 feet high.

2: Butte: A huge rock that's domed on top. D1,000 feet high.

3: Hoodoo: A weird looking rock formation with columns and holes. D100 feet high.

4: Shield volcano: A broad, flat dome of volcanic stone. D10,000 feet high.

5: Cinder Cone: A steep cone of loose ejecta left behind by an old volcano. D1,000 feet high.

6: Yardang: Oblong rock formations "pointing" in the same direction due to erosion. D100 feet high. 

7: Escarpment: A near vertical cliff dividing the terrain. D100 feet high.

8: Graben: A vast block of terrain sunk into the earth, creating a valley and cliffs. D100 feet high.

9: Canyon: A fault in the earth has created a large crack in the surface. D1,000 feet deep.

10: Scablands: An ancient flood carved the land into channels and craters. D1,000 feet deep.

11: Volcanic Crater: A vast raised ring of stone around a depression where magma once erupted. Edges D100 feet high, depth as canyon.

12: Impact Crater: A vast ring of stone thrown up by the impact of a rock from space. Edges D100 feet high, depth as canyon.

  

The terrain surrounding a rock formation is made of aluvial fans and other features created when water cascades down the mountain. Heaped closer are malpais from old lava flows or talus piles of fallen rock. Often sand is stacked against one side of a rock formation. This makes it easier for adventurers to climb but also less defensible against undead. Plants may grow at the base or on top.

 

Rock formations are usually multiple types. The different types can be laid down in successive beds and rearranged by later geologic processes, or an intrusion of volcanic rock can be exposed by the erosion of softer surrounding stone. If you want to know the predominant type in a rock formation roll a D12 or choose your favorite. 

 

1: Chalk: White stone, porous and comparatively soft. Erodes fast.

2: Marble: Hard, shiny, erodes slowly.  

3: Basalt: Hard, black volcanic rock. A favorite for evil statues.

4: Chert: Hard but brittle gray stone found in folded beds.

5: Hematite: A rusty red heap of ore, full of iron crystals.

6: Alabaster: Soft white stone, quickly eroded into gypsum powder when exposed.

7: Porphyry: Very hard purple-red stone.

8: Sandstone: Banded rock, often wears away in rounded formations.

9: Limestone: Soft white stone in round formations. Full of fossils.

10: Granite: Speckled, hard, dense volcanic stone. Can be gray or white or red.

11: Shale: Endless wafers of compressed ancient mud. The edges can be broken with the hand.

12: Gneiss: Wavy banded stone made from multiple mineral types.

 

Sand and soil around a mountain are typically eroded from and the same color as the mountain, except where the rock is very hard.

 

 

DESERT 

Deserts are more than just endless seas of sand. Realism doesn't matter but varying terrain makes travel more interesting and has gameplay implications for wilderness encounters and evading the Undead at night.

 

Desert terrain can be rolled as it comes into view. Each terrain type has a ground area it covers and if the players can see further than that, roll up the next feature at the boundary edge. Rangers, Druids and other outdoor exploration types should get knowledge of terrain features at least one roll beyond line of sight. This is their one thing, let them have it. 

 

Roll a D100 to pick a terrain feature.

 

01-20: Sand Sheet: Flat, undulating sand. No plants.

21-40: Sand Dune: Hills of sand formed by wind flow. No plants. 

    Multiply the highest digit of the roll by 10. That's the height of the tallest dunes in feet. 

41-50: Stony Desert: Flat or hilly terrain, thin layer of topsoil with scattered rocks. Scarce plant life.

51-60: Hamada: Fields of gravel and broken stone with very little sand. No plants.

61-65: Malpais: Jagged formations of irregular volcanic rock with minimal sand and soil. Limited plants.

66-70: Alluvial Fan: Triangular sediment deposit formed by rare rainfall. Limited plants.

71-75: Shrubland: Thin soil anchored by hardy desert plants. Cactuses, poverty grasses, poison bushes.

76-80: Thorn Forest: Shrubland with clustered cacti.

    Odd: Thick growing cholla (invasive species from the Sanctuary)

    Even: Towering saguaro

81-85: Playa: Wide, shallow, dry lake with a bed of hard clay or salt.

86-90: Arroyo: Shallow dry creekbed formed by irregular waterflow.

91-95: Wadi: Deeper dry riverbed formed by irregular waterflow. 

96: Glass dunes. Sheets of sand fused by a great heat, or flows of shiny volcanic obsidian.

97: Fulgurite field. Rock formations of fused glass created by focused heat.

98: Crater field. Sand and rock warped into rings by meteor impacts.

99: Petrified forest. Water once flowed here, fossil trees are all that remain. 

100: Oasis.

  

1D6 sand colors

 

1: Brown

2: Yellow 

3: Orange 

4: White 

5: Red 

6: Black 

 

WEATHER

Roll once for the day's weather. If you roll a 97 or higher, roll a D24 to see what time of day the storm arrives.

 

01-50: Cloudless and windless

51-90: Cloudless and windy.

91-96: Overcast. No damage from heat if traveling by day. Undead still destroyed.

97: Sand storm. Visible on horizon one phase before hitting. Reduces line of sight to a few feet, halves movement speed.

98: Sand storm thick enough to completely block out the sun. Visible on the horizon two phases before hitting. Undead emerge.

99: Sand storm strong enough to shave flesh off bone. Visible on horizon two phases before hitting.

100: Rainstorm leading to flash flood. Visible on horizon two phases before hitting.

 

Dust storms only last a phase but dust hanging in the air reduces visibility for a day after.

 

SHELTER 

FROM THE WEATHER 

By day, resting in the shade avoids heat damage. Without shade travelers take damage as normal. Reflective tents or burrowing underground avoids the damage.

 

To escape damage from a skinning sandstorm the party must take cover. A burrow beneath the sand is sufficient if the entrance does not face the oncoming wind. A sturdy desert tent can keep the sand out if erected before the storm hits but risks being buried and collapsing atop the occupants.

 

FROM THE UNDEAD 

The safest place to stay at night is on a rock formation large enough to see from a distance (placed per the above rules). Failing that, adventurers must comb the desert for suitable terrain features. Directions from local tribes or experienced dunemen can lead the party to preidentified resting places.

 

On bare sand or soil the undead emerge directly beneath travelers' feet at night. Bare minimum, adventurers need to find solid ground. On firm footing the next priority is a defensible position. A high place, a cave or tomb that can be sealed off until morning when the undead retreat beneath the soil or dissolve. 

 

A phase of searching yields a 15% chance of one of the following in sand and 30% chance in any other terrain. Again a bonus should be given to Rangers as they don't have much else going for them.

 

1: A small but steep rock outcrop that mindless undead have trouble climbing.

2: A shallow domed rock outcrop that the undead can walk right up. 

3: A complex rock outcrop with boulders and fractured terrain. 

4: A large, flat stone. No protection except from burrowing night creatures.

5: A smear of hard baked glass. No protection except from burrowing night creatures.

6: A natural cave, too narrow to lie down in.

7: A natural cave, too short to stand up in.

8: A natural cave, large enough to camp in. 

9: An ancient and ruined building of mud brick or stone.

10: An empty one room tomb.

 

THE MAKING OF

I wasn't initially planning on running Riverboat Gambler as a hex adventure because the map generation rules from Send A Gunboat didn't use hexes. You could overlay hexes across the map and it would probably work fine, and I may do just that. Seven sessions of Mythic Bastionland have impressed on me that treating hexes as a natural unit of space measurement and travel is awesome. I kind of did this with the Marriage of the Giantess Morwenna but that stopped being a hex crawl about halfway through, as the players spent most of their time shuttling between known locations to fuck with enemy factions and build up their own.

 

I'm thinking two or three phases of twilight at sunup, same at sundown, then a bunch in the morning and at night that you only have to simulate if the players are traveling or sleeping in an unsafe location. As long as we're talking about Mythic Bastionland, limiting how much the players can travel in a day without risk does a lot to make the map feel larger without horribly bogging the game down. Plus clever players (or higher ones with access to potions and magic items) can come up with ways to travel at noon and midnight when every sane person is hiding.

 

Heights of rock features and ground cover of terrain types I still have to think about. Hundreds of feet is a lot but is small compared to real life mesas and mountains in the American Southwest, which is one half of the basis for the Plain's topology (the other being the Valley of the Kings and associated desert). Real dunes can swallow entire countries and I haven't decided how big I want the playable area to be.