Adventuring in Carcosa

Brendan would call this a method of play. The rules that follow are based heavily on his Hazard system, and add some structure to the loose rules presented in the OD&D booklets.

The Hazard die is a d6 that makes this all go.

Rest and Recuperation (Haven Turns)

The start of each session—or the time between sessions—will usually begin in a settlement. While in a settlement players may run through the following activities, in sequence.

1. Tabulate XP gained and level up if appropriate.
2. Pay any upkeep costs.
3. Re-roll HP—note this action can only be taken once per session.
4. Determine retainer loyalty.
5. Buy or sell items, repair damaged gear, or recruit hirelings.
6. Review rumours and news.

A haven turn is assumed to be one week of in game time, though this time may vary if a shorter or longer duration would make more sense.

Upkeep costs include paying for accommodations, food and pay owed to retainers and henchmen.

Wilderness Travel and Adventure

There are 4 wilderness actions: move, camp, hunt & forage for food, and explore. Characters may take two actions during the day, and one at night.

The DM’s map of Carcosa is divided up into 10 mile hexes. There are no short simple trips through the wilderness. The world of Carcosa lacks proper roads, with much of the planet a rocky badland. Moving allows players to travel from hex to the next. (Some hexes, like those covered in mountains or filled with swamps, may require characters use more than one move action to get through.)

Characters generally rest at night by Camping. Skipping a camp action puts the characters at a -2 for all rolls during the following day.

Hunting and Foraging for Food can be done to attempt to find food (rations) in the wild.

Exploring will reveal a random unknown location within the hex. The players may instead attempt to find a specific location they know is somewhere in the hex. If the location is well hidden, doing so requires the character with the highest wisdom score roll under their wisdom.

After each action roll the Hazard die and resolve any hazards:

1. Encounter
2. Encounter
3. Wilderness Travel Complication
4. Lost (ignore if camping)
5. -
6. -

If Lost the player characters end up in a random hex adjacent to where they started. If players are traveling to a location they are familiar with this roll might not make sense. In that case, roll a d6 again. If it comes up 4 again the party is indeed lost. They somehow messed up a simple trip.

Traveling at night is more dangerous: a roll of 5 on the hazard dice is also an encounter.

Each region will have its own encounter and wilderness complication tables.

At the start of each day roll for weather and the colour of the sky. For most of Carcosa we will use the following table:

Some travel complications may also effect the weather.

Down in the Dungeon

1. Encounter
2. Dungeon Complication
3. Fatigue (unless the next turn is spent resting, everyone takes 1 damage)
4. Light source exhaustion (all light sources go out)
5. Misc player character resource expires (spell duration, etc)
6. -