F. Exploration Moves

The Lowland Wastes are vast, strange, and wondrous. Your sworn vows will take you through uncharted wood, across perilous lands, into the depths of foreboding ruins, and to many other perilous sites.

Will you survive these expeditions? What will they cost you? What wonders and horrors will you face? Use the exploration moves to find out.

This is Chalksworn’s travel move. When you set off or push on toward a destination, make this move.

First, give your journey a rank. Decide how far - and how hazardous - it is based on the established fiction. If you’re unsure, Ask the Oracle. Most of your journeys should be troublesome or dangerous. Formidable or extreme journeys might require weeks within your narrative, with appropriate stops, side quests, and adventures along the way. An epic journey is one of months, or even years. It is the journey of a lifetime.

If the journey is mundane - a relatively short distance through safe territory, - don’t make this move. Just narrate the trip and jump to what happens or what you do when you arrive.

Along for the Ride?

If you are part of a caravan or party of NPCs, and aren’t an active participant in the planning or execution of the journey, you won’t make this move or track progress. Instead, the journey will be resolved in the fiction.

Allies and Journeys

If you are traveling with allies, one of you makes the Undertake a Journey roll for each segment, and you share a progress track. The responsibility for leading the journey can switch from segment to segment as you like.

Your fellow travelers can assist by making the Aid Your Ally move. Perhaps they are scouting ahead or sustaining you with a lively song. They can also Resupply to represent foraging or hunting for supplies en-route. Everyone should offer narrative color for what they do and see on the journey, even if they are not making moves.

Only the character making the move takes the momentum bonus on a strong hit. But, because your supply track is shared, each of you mark -1 supply when the acting character makes that choice on a strong hit or when they suffer a weak hit.

Waypoints

If you score a strong or weak hit on this move, you reach a waypoint. A waypoint is a feature of the landscape, a settlement, or a point-of-interest. Depending on the information you have or whether you have traveled this area before, a specific waypoint may be known to you. If it isn’t, envision what you find. If you need inspiration, Ask the Oracle or use a location from Land of Cicadas.

Depending on the pace of your story and your current situation, you may choose to focus on this waypoint. An extraordinary location or discovery might offer an opportunity to Explore a Waypoint. A settlement can offer roleplay opportunities or provide a chance to recuperate and provision via the Sojourn move. In the wilds, you might make moves such as Make Camp, Resupply, or Secure an Advantage. Or, you can play out a scene not involving moves as you interact with your allies or the world. Mix it up. Some waypoints will pass as a cinematic montage (doubtlessly depicted in a soaring helicopter shot as you trudge over jagged hills). Other waypoints offer opportunities to zoom in, enriching your story and your world.

When you roll a match, take the opportunity to introduce something unexpected. This could be an encounter, a surprising or dramatic feature of the landscape, or a turn of events in your current quest.

Marking Progress

When you score a hit and reach a waypoint, you mark progress per the rank of the journey. For example, on a dangerous journey you mark 2 progress (filling two boxes on your progress track) for each waypoint. When you feel you have accumulated enough progress and are ready to make a final push towards your destination, make the Reach Your Destination move.

On a Miss...

You do not mark progress on a miss. Instead, you encounter a new danger. You might face hazards through the weather, the terrain, encounters with creatures or people, attacks from your enemies, strange discoveries, or supernatural events. Decide what happens based on your current circumstances and surroundings, roll on the Pay the Price table, or Ask the Oracle for inspiration. Depending on your desired narrative pace, you can then play out the event to see what happens, or summarize and apply the consequences immediately.

For example, you roll a miss and decide you encounter a broad, wild river which must be crossed to continue on your journey. If you want to focus on how you deal with the situation, play to see what happens by making moves. You might Secure an Advantage by exploring upriver for a ford and then Face Danger to cross. Or, if you want to quickly push the story forward, you could fast-forward to a perilous outcome such as losing some provisions during the crossing (suffer -supply). Mix things up, especially on long journeys.

Travel Time

Travel time can largely be abstracted. The time between waypoints might be hours or days, depending on the terrain and the distance. If it’s important, make a judgment call based on what you know of your journey, or Ask the Oracle.

Mounts and Transport

Packsquabs, crabmules, and other transport (such rovers or thopters) influence the fiction of your journey - the logistics of travel and how long it takes. They do not provide specific mechanical benefit unless you have an asset which gives you a bonus (such as a Squab companion), or by considering how long or perilous a journey might be and raising or lowering the rank of the journey (Flying by thopter for 10 miles is typically easier thank walking the same distance).

Managing Resources

You can intersperse Resupply or Make Camp moves during your journey to manage your health, spirit and supply, or to create new scenes as diversions. Don’t be concerned with using the Make Camp move as an automatic capstone to a day of travel. You can be assumed to rest and camp as appropriate without making the move, and you can roleplay out those scenes or gloss over them as you like. When you want the mechanical benefit of the Make Camp move, or you’re interested in playing the move out through the fiction, then do it.

When you encounter a promising waypoint in the midst of a journey—and choose to explore that location in depth, make this move to see what you find. This move is best used sparingly for remarkable or unusual locations, rather than as a matter of course. If you are exploring a location that you pulled from the Land of Cicadas, you can ignore this move entirely and just explore the location as you would narratively, making other moves when necessary.

If you roll a strong hit and choose to find an opportunity, take a moment to bring what you find to life. What is it? How can it help you? The opportunity should make sense in the context of the location and the purpose of your exploration. It might also enable additional moves, such as finding a secure spot to Make Camp, or discovering fruit-bearing trees you can use to Resupply.

If you instead choose to gain progress on a strong hit, envision how you earn this advantage. Is it a shortcut, helpful vantage points, insight into the nature of the region, or some other discovery that speeds you along your way?

On a weak hit, you encounter something curious or helpful, but also face an immediate peril or learn something that foreshadows future danger. Envision what you encounter and what you do next. Trying to learn more or leverage this opportunity may force you into deeper peril.

On a miss, your exploration has gone wrong or uncovered an unexpected hazard. You gain no benefit and must Pay the Price.

Discoveries and Chaos

If you roll a match as you Explore a Waypoint, you can choose to encounter something wondrous or dreadful. Either way, this is a perfect opportunity to put in something "slippery" in your journey. On a strong hit with a match, Make a Discovery. On a miss with a match, Confront Chaos. Those moves offer prompts for the nature of what you uncover and allow you to mark rewards on your discoveries legacy track.

This is a choice, not a mandate. Even on a match, you can choose to resolve the Explore a Waypoint move using the default outcomes.

You may make this move only when you Explore a Waypoint and roll a strong hit with a match. This represents uncovering something extraordinary, the nature of which you’ll define by choosing or rolling on the table. This is a dramatic, rare event, worthy of focus in your story. Take a moment to envision the result or talk it through with others at your table. The discovery should deepen your understanding of the setting, introduce revelations that may contradict accepted truths, or reveal a rare and valuable treasure.

Once you’ve established the nature of the discovery and interacted with it in the fiction, you and your allies may mark two ticks on your discoveries legacy track.

You may make this move only when you Explore a Waypoint and roll a miss with a match. You have stumbled across a dire discovery or inadvertently unleashed something horrific, the nature of which may have campaign-shaking ramifications.

Choose a number of aspects (one, two, or three), and pick or roll that number of times on the table. Then, envision how this threat manifests. The good news? Even chaos offers knowledge; you and your allies may mark one tick on your discoveries legacy track for each aspect you encounter.

When you have made progress on your journey progress track and are ready to complete your expedition, make this move. Since this is a progress move, you tally the number of filled boxes on your progress track. This is your progress score. Only add fully filled boxes (those with four ticks). Then, roll your challenge dice, compare to your progress score, and resolve a strong hit, weak hit, or miss as normal. You may not burn momentum on this roll, and you are not affected by negative momentum.

When you score a strong hit, you arrive at your destination and are well-positioned for success. This should be reflected in the mechanical benefit offered by the move, but also in how you envision your arrival. If this has been a long, arduous journey, make this moment feel rewarding.

On a weak hit, something complicates your arrival or your next steps. Things are not what you expected, or a new danger reveals itself. Perhaps the village is occupied by a raiding party, or the mystic whose council you sought is initially hostile to you. Envision what you find and play to see what happens.

On a miss, something has gone horribly wrong. You realize you are off-course, you had bad information about your destination, or you face a turn of events undermining your purpose here. Depending on the circumstances, this might mean your journey ends in failure, or that you must push on while clearing all but one of your filled progress and raising the journey’s rank.

If you are traveling with allies, one of you makes this move. Each of you benefit (or suffer) from the narrative outcome of the roll. Only the character making the move gets the mechanical benefit of a strong hit.