Quests & Journeys

A hero answers his calling, be it the travails of his duchy or an ocean-traversing escapade. Journeying to distant lands and faraway places is a part of every adventure. So, too, is the quest for extraordinary capabilities. This short chapter discusses these subjects.

Questing for the Impossible

Modern role playing games contain a surfeit of rules defining spells, rituals, feats, and other mechanics for all manner of supernatural accomplishments. Raising the dead, improving an ability score, gaining weapon skill, receiving a divine boon are acts of dice-rolling and nothing more. The DCC RPG argues against this approach, and instead makes one simple request of both player and judge: follow the examples set by mythology and fiction and resolve such acts with a quest!

Here is a list of extraordinary acts in which the characters may wish to indulge and a suggested quest to accomplish them. Each of these is, of course, an adventure in itself. The judge should most certainly allow for extraordinary accomplishments in the DCC RPG—provided the players earn them. This game is not about mechanical solutions to requests; it’s about adventure!

Realize that there are powers beyond the ken of player characters. An NPC sorcerer can know a spell or ritual that solves a difficult problem for the characters—but that spell need not be learned by the characters. There is no reason to explain the rules of magic; recall that there aren’t any true “rules” of magic. Magic is magical. Perhaps the PC wizard cannot learn that spell for obscure and abstruse reasons. Lead your characters on quests toward allies with powers beyond their own rather than toward mechanical solutions. For characters who do wish for extraordinary abilities, here are quests that could discover such possibilities:

Blessing: Do a favor for a god, and the god will do you a favor, too.

Breathe underwater: Locate the merman king and give him a perfect pearl.

Find safe passage through a terrible place: Bargain with Lady Luck: a week of safe passage now for a week of dangers later…but she picks the week of dangers.

Heal a terrible poison or disease, or blindness or deafness: Recover the long-lost vessel of liquid that heals any malady, or act with good faith toward a wounded creature of kindness.

Raise the dead: Journey to the lands of the dead and recover the lost soul, possibly by dancing, gaming, or jousting with Death himself. (Note: a DCC module deals with this exact subject. Look for DCC #74: Blades against Death as an example of how to perform such a quest.)

Remove a curse: Aside from specific methods as noted in Appendix C, consider a trip to the cave of the Oldest Crone, patron of witches, where the black stone representing that curse must be destroyed.

Speak with the dead: Obtain the tongue of a still-living witch who gives it willingly, then place it in the mouth of the corpse.

Slay an immortal: Find the hall of souls, where a candle is lit for every living being, somewhere on a divine plane of existence, and snuff the candle that represents that immortal’s soul.

Summon creatures from beyond: Find the creature’s representation in the vast collection of statues kept by Gorgon, the medusa god, then carry that statue back to the mortal realms and turn it to flesh.

Tame a dragon mount: Simply steal a dragon’s egg and raise it from birth. Or, to tame an adult dragon, find the eggshell from which it hatched, which most dragons secure in a secret location.

Total party kill: Don’t end the game! Transport all the player characters to Hell—where they can give in to Death’s demands or try to fight their way out!

Unparalleled power: To achieve unparalleled power, make a pact with a deity of enormous power and promise it that which it cannot otherwise obtain.

Weapon proficiency: Find a true master of the indicated weapon and adventure with him, earning a potential bonus of +1 to +3 on attacks with that weapon given sufficient time. Of course the master may have demands of his own, and will expect much of his apprentice.

Wield a legendary magic weapon: Recover the magic weapon from its last known location.

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Journeys in a Small World

This manuscript will repeatedly stress the limits of knowledge in a medieval world. You, good sir, who read this manuscript, have access to an extraordinary amount of information. There is the internet and cell phones, there is television and radio, there are printed books, and there are libraries and universities and experts in your world. In a medieval setting, none of this exists. Pens and paper are expensive, there are no printing presses, and it takes a scribe almost a year to manufacture a single book. Most people are illiterate; there is no mechanized transportation, no long-range communication, and no photography. Information is communicated at the speed of verbal conversation, without photograph or illustration, and that information moves only so fast as a traveler’s feet or his horse and wagon. The traveler is the primary source of information in this world. With travel comes knowledge; without travel there is no information.

Most everyday peasants in a medieval setting never travel more than a few miles from their places of birth. Their lives are circumscribed by local terrain boundaries: a river to the east, the hills to the north, the village one town over to the south. In a game that accurately attempts to capture the medieval adventuring experience—or, phrased differently, in a game that retains the spirit of Appendix N—you do not need a vast space for adventuring. An area of land only 100 miles square should provide years of adventure, for it is a space larger than most living men will ever explore.

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Travel in a Medieval Setting

Low-level heroes, bereft of wealth, travel on foot or as passengers in farmers’ carts and caravans. As they advance in name and station, they may acquire donkeys, ponies, or even great steeds to carry them. Here are a couple important points to remember.

First, travel is dangerous. When a man goes beyond the reach of his lord’s cavalry and sheriff, he is on his own. Even in “civilized” lands, brigands accost wayfarers. The knights of neighboring duchies may harass mercenaries. And of course there are monsters.

Second, travel is rarely direct. Especially at lower levels when characters are paying passengers on caravans, there is business to conduct other than the PCs’. The caravan makes stops wherever it can sell or acquire goods. There may be other passengers with destinations involving religious pilgrimages, visiting relatives, or special errands. There are places to avoid: dangerous aboriginal tribes, barons charging egregious taxes, and regions superstitiously labeled as “haunted.”

Third, travel is not easy. A city may have a few cobblestone streets, and a great kingdom may have a paved King’s Road. Otherwise, travelers mostly follow muddy roads, tracked lanes, footpaths, and dry stream beds. A day’s travel may end several hours shy of nightfall, “wasting” good travel time simply because the next inn is too far to reach before dark.

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Overland Speed

With those caveats in mind, here are approximate traveling speeds for different modes of transportation. These assume normal traveling conditions: good weather, passable roads, and no delays. The speeds may be reduced by half or more due to bad weather, difficult terrain, brigands (or other encounters), caravan stops, excessive encumbrance, and other such things. Speed may be increased by up to a third with a forced march (typically for military purposes), but a forced march may cause 1 hp of damage over the course of a day (DC 10 Fort save to avoid). Horses and other steeds may also be forced at the same risk, or a fresh steed can be alternated regularly to increase speed. Exceptional steeds may travel at greater speeds.

Transportation	Hourly Speed	Daily Distance*
Walking	3 mph	24 miles
Mule or donkey	3 mph	24 miles
Horse or pony	4 mph	32 miles
Warhorse	5 mph	40 miles
Farmer’s cart**	2 mph	16 miles
Passenger wagon***	3 mph	24 miles
Merchant’s caravan	3 mph	24 miles
Raft or barge	1/2 mph	5 miles
Rowboat	1.5 mph	15 miles
Sailing ship	2 mph	48 miles
Warship (sailed and rowed)	2.5 mph	60 miles
Longship (sailed and rowed)	3 mph	72 miles
Galley	4 mph	96 miles

* Assumes 8 hours of traveling time for overland methods. Waterborne travel can continue longer for man-powered methods (e.g., barges and rowboats) and go overnight for sailing vessels, which is built into the daily distance.

** Two-wheeled cart with mule designed for hauling vegetables.

*** Covered wagon designed for carrying paying passengers. Available only between major destinations (e.g., large cities or trading ports).

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Security While Traveling

Camping is dangerous. Creatures roam the night, as do brigands and savages. A party that does not keep watch will be set upon by predators. Parties that do keep watch should be constantly reminded of the benefits of doing so: glittering red eyes circle the fire’s light, never coming into full view, while mysterious flapping noises and gusts of sudden wind signal flying beasts lurking at the edges of safety.

Travelers plan their routes based on safe locations to stay at night. Inns and farm houses that take in travelers can charge for their services, even if all they offer is a solid roof, a bed of lice-ridden hay, and boiled turnips for dinner. Those few noblemen wealthy enough to build secure castles find their protection in high demand. Travelers may be invited to stay in a castle, but the transaction is not always ensured. Do the travelers march under coats-of-arms unfriendly to the castle’s allies? Are they willing to pay homage to the local lord? Is there an old grudge, never forgotten, between the lord’s grandfather and a distant uncle of one of the characters? And will the heroes contribute a few gold pieces—or a debt of honor—toward the upkeep of the stone walls?

The castle is an important part of any medieval fantasy game, and it should remain always mysterious and be never taken for granted. Even if only a way station for the night, there should be stories: the walled-off tower where a princess once hanged herself; the collapsed east wing, never rebuilt after a strange fire took many lives; the bricked over fireplace in the great hall, said to contain the bones of a jester that japed too sharply about the lord’s homely wife; the shadowed staircase to the cellar, from which strange hoots erupt on moonless nights.

So, too, should the lord of each castle be a character in his own way. Give the lord personality and appearance. Let him pass on important news to carry to the next town or issue unusual demands. Give the lord peculiar hobbies and pastimes or odd pursuits and inquiries. Travel is a chance to see and meet new and interesting people in a world where most inhabitants rarely stray more than a few miles from their birthplace.

Let it be recalled that travelers are rare and brave in a medieval setting. They bring tidings both good and bad and are the primary medium of long-distance communication. As is stressed elsewhere in this manuscript, there are no mundane sources of rapid information exchange; the common man, without magic, relies on travelers for news. At each place the adventurers stop, they will be expected to share the news and will gain new information to carry forth. The judge is encouraged to supply them with rumors at each stop, ranging from the quotidian affairs of peasant gossip (who married whom, who is sick, who had a child, and so on) to the stories of politics, religion, and even magic (which monsters have been sighted, which armies are on the move, which priests have switched parishes). Information can be a form of payment for the traveler to his host.

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The Great Wheel

Your characters live on the skin of the earth—what is known as the Known Realms or Middle-Earth. In the caves and dungeons underground is the underdeep, known also as the Under-Earth or underdark. In the spaces above and beyond mortal comprehension is the Overworld, a region of distant dimensions and other planes of existence. All of these places together comprise the Great Wheel, a simplistic representation of the many places and planes of existence.

Since the earliest days of fantasy role playing, there have been systems to organize the many planes. This work does not need to re-create the wheel, so to speak, and thus does not present yet another organization of the planes, aside from the general metaphor of the Great Wheel. The author encourages the judge to reference one of the many previously- published sources of planar structure to populate his game world. However, the author does offer these pieces of advice:

• In the interest of creating an experience grounded in the wonder that is Appendix N, the judge is encouraged to begin extraplanar encounters at low levels. This does not mean unconquerable opponents immune to every weapon possessed by the characters. It could mean a cave that has more space within than without and corresponds to a planar junction; or a strange creature that can be banished in a manner accomplished by the low-level characters, even if their steel weapons will not wound it; or a magical gate or doorway that leads to a dangerous, magical realm, which is only later discovered to be on a different plane. An extraplanar plane is simply a magical place, and let those magical places become part of the adventure early.

• Avoid an overly structured approach to the planes. Further, to the extent that there is structure, avoid giving the characters (and players) too much knowledge of that structure. Just as the geography of Earth was not truly understood for many centuries after the medieval era—with entire continents being misunderstood and misplaced on maps!—there is no reason to think that the geography of the planes is fully understood by mortals. Let there be confusing links between places, difficult transitions, and unclear passages. Understanding the structure of the planes should be a lifetime’s accomplishment for the characters.

• The planes can include time as a destination—both the past and future. Time travel is a strong theme in the books of Appendix N. This doesn’t mean the characters necessarily have to travel in time, but they may encounter time travelers from the future (see page 429) or perhaps be visited by great wizards from the past.

• The planes can include other dimensions as a destination. Bizarre four-dimensional places, weird conglomerations of angles, strange geographies—all these can be planes, as well as “places of shadow or fire.” Again, reference Appendix N for inspiration.

• Finally, the solar system can be part of planar travel. To an unschooled peasant, travel to another region is extraordinary, much less travel to another planet. Let the moons, planets, asteroids, and suns be “extraplanar” in your world. Travel to other planets can even be magical in nature, just as travel to the plane of fire—the concept of “space travel” need not exist.

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Retainers, Hirelings, and Followers

Adventurers of wealth and renown recruit hirelings and henchmen to explore with them. Danger and excitement do not motivate all men, and thus these retainers must be promised a fee or a share of treasures recovered. An adventuring party may hire on retainers using these rules.

Note, however, that not all retainers may wish to travel. Many want only to earn a few coppers to feed their families. Do not assume that adventurers can keep the same hired hands from one locale to another.

Recruiting: For every 100 residents of a town or village, 1 man—not necessarily able-bodied—is willing to risk his life as an adventurer’s helper. Areas of famine or hardship, where there are no other opportunities, may produce more prospective retainers; bustling centers of trade, with many competing chances at wealth, may produce fewer.

Equipping: Retainers come equipped with simple hide or leather armor, caps, and an axe, club, or spear. Some 20% have their own longswords and possibly armor but expect extra payment for being so equipped. All other equipment must be supplied by the characters.

Payment: Simple military duty in mundane circumstances, such as a man-at-arms in an army, commands payment of food and lodging plus 1-4 copper pieces per week. If the retainers bring good equipment, they’ll charge another 1-4 cp per week.

A retainer expected to face supernatural horrors, un-dead spirits, or ferocious monsters demands at least 1 silver piece per day and up to 1 gold piece per day if facing extraordinary challenges.

Retainers higher than level 0 are rare, but if recruited they will ask for double the above wages. Upon seeing the treasures recovered, retainers may also ask for a share thereof.

Morale: As covered in the combat section, a retainer must check morale in his first encounter. It is quite possible that he will run away upon realizing what he’s up against. Unlike with normal monsters, the retainer is affected by loyalty to his employer. A retainer’s morale check is modified by his Will save and also by his employer’s Personality modifier.

At the end of each adventure, a retainer must make another morale check. The judge applies a modifier from -4 to +4, reflecting the retainer’s wounds, his treatment at the hands of the characters, his payment and share of treasure, and the party’s general success. A retainer who fails this morale check is spooked by the life of an adventurer, and chooses to return to the toil of village life.

Statistics: Retainers are level 0 characters. They have average ability scores, 3 hit points, and +0 saving throws.