The 5 Minute Route Roulette

Just because the party starts with an obvious path to follow doesn't mean they don't have options. Stathmore is a large locale and the woods are vast, meaning the dead don't follow a single path from Stathmore, through the woods, and into Westwend. This has resulted in multiple different, branching paths that will ultimately lead your players to the same location. After a day (at maximum) spent traversing Westwend's wilderness, your players will have options: 

• An uphill route with a narrow, difficult-to-see path that promises to be the most physically challenging, yet also the safest. 
• An indirect and winding route that avoids the worst of the uphill climbs, but promises to be the slowest and wettest.
• A direct, easily-traversed route with the sort of wide, highly-trafficked path that begets danger. 

What else these paths contain is up to you. 

 

Provide your players with a brief description of the terrain and how long it will take to travel each path (3 – 5 days is recommended). From there, ask each player to pick an ability their character is proficient in. Your party is then free to ask any questions to suss out further details about these routes. They can ask any question they so desire so long as it is related to their specific character's chosen ability and can be answered with a simple "yes" or "no." The party has a total of five minutes to do so before they must decide on which route to take. 

 

Travel Jobs

Travel jobs are roles player characters can take during travel. Each player can choose only one job per day or journey (your choice), and no two players can possess the same job at once. Any rolls associated with a specific job are rolled only by the player with that job. Some travel jobs that work well with this adventure are as follows: 

• Vanguard: Scouts ahead to look for any sigh of an ambush, monsters, particularly aggressive wildlife, and/or dangerous terrain.
• Navigator: Keeps course making sure the party doesn't get lost.
• Hunter/Gatherer: Responsible for obtaining food via foraging, hunting, and trapping.
• Quartermaster: Manages and maintains all supplies for the journey.
• Scholar: Researches the area the party is traveling through.

This list is not exhaustive.

 

The Survival Meter

This mechanic is simple: at the start of the first day spent traveling, the party should begin with a Survival Meter of 6 (you may wish to increase or decrease this number if you choose to run a longer or shorter, respectively, travel encounter). The party should be aware that this number exists, but they should not know what specific number it is.

 

Each time a player character fails a roll associated with their travel job, takes a significant amount of damage, or anything else you deem to be particularly threatening to the party's survival, lower the survival meter by 1.

 

If the survival meter is halved, deliberately or randomly select an encounter to play. If the player characters handle the situation well, raise the survival meter by 1. If they handle it poorly, the survival meter remains static and all player characters take a level of exhaustion.

 

When the survival meter resets—daily, every other day, at the end of the journey, whenever the party short/long rests—is up to your discretion.

 

Major vs Minor Encounters

The Disquietus adventure module contains a variety of different, example encounters for use throughout travel and at your discretion. Major encounters are high-impact encounters. They have the potential to affect the survival meter as much as significantly and as quick as immediately. Minor encounters are, as the name would suggest, much smaller. They can only affect the survival meter indirectly or if ignored.

 

If you're using travel jobs, combat encounters are a good opportunity to incorporate the Quartermaster's role. The party's supplies, including the tents and bedrolls, could get damaged or stolen during ensuing battles!