I am currently reading through "Jade Regent" and am contemplating running it as my first Adventure Path. However, what I can't quite get around my head are the logistics required to travel across the High Ice.
First of all, how can a wagon train travel across the ice at all? Do they convert all the wagons into sleds? As far as I can determine, the text doesn't say.
Furthermore, the High Ice sounds more like Antarctica than the Arctic of Earth. So what kinds of beasts of burden that can pull the wagons during these conditions? Ordinary horses might not last long.
And what about fuel for the fires and other supplies that are needed during the trip and cannot be replaced for the duration? (How long did the trip take in your campaigns, anyway?)
While the route might make sense in the summer, attempting the whole trip during the polar winter sounds absolutely insane for a caravan, and I am worried that the players will think so, too. So how can I make this sound less insane?
Have you read the Hungry Storm thread? There was discussion of sleds, as well as horses versus dogs versus musk ox.
As for doing it in winter - well, if you hang around one place too long, your enemies will find you, so you 'have no choice'. Plus you probably have magic powers to protect you from cold. (Suishen, etc.)
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I am currently reading through "Jade Regent" and am contemplating running it as my first Adventure Path. However, what I can't quite get around my head are the logistics required to travel across the High Ice.
I spent a while in my campaign calculating logistics in order to determine the amount of food the caravan would have to haul. I had to add four wagons carried only grain for the animals to the caravan.
First of all, how can a wagon train travel across the ice at all? Do they convert all the wagons into sleds? As far as I can determine, the text doesn't say.
One employee of my caravan was a wainwright would could convert the wheeled wagons to sleds and back again. Two thirds of the journey is on land rather than ice, so wheels are necessary, too.
Furthermore, the High Ice sounds more like Antarctica than the Arctic of Earth. So what kinds of beasts of burden that can pull the wagons during these conditions? Ordinary horses might not last long.
At one point, I needed a map of the Alabastrine Mountains, since the party traveled through them rather than around them. I copied a National Geographic map of mountains in Antartica.
For my caravan Ulf Gormundr decided on aurochs as the draft animals because they resisted cold better than horses. The samurai in the party used Horseshoes of the Winterlands to protect his horse.
And what about fuel for the fires and other supplies that are needed during the trip and cannot be replaced for the duration? (How long did the trip take in your campaigns, anyway?)
On the High Ice the caravan used magic: campfire beads for fire and a sashimon of comfort for protection from cold.
Traveling northward through the Rimethirst Mountains and the boreal forest south of the high ice took one month, traveling the high ice took one month, and traveling southward through the Tien Xian boreal forest and the Wall of the World mountains took three weeks.
While the route might make sense in the summer, attempting the whole trip during the polar winter sounds absolutely insane for a caravan, and I am worried that the players will think so, too. So how can I make this sound less insane?
I told my players that it was summer. If the module said otherwise, I missed it.
The aurochs pulling the wagons ate grain hauled on the wagons once grass for grazing was no longer available. However, to feed the people, the martial characters went out hunting daily. The random encounter table gave winter wolves as a possible encounter, so I developed an ecology of cold-immune grasses growing in the Alabastrine Mountains and smaller rocky outcropping, cold-immune mountain goats eating the grasses, and cold-immune predators eating the goats. Golarion has a lot of creatures immune or resistant to cold, so they can inhabit the high ice of the Crown of the World. The ice is not lifeless.
Undead mounts
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Undead mounts
clockwork mounts are better