Survival in Dyrhal

The road takes from you in ways that do not show until you need what it took.

The town ends at its gate. Beyond it a lord’s men walk the roads every other day at best, and the land past the patrolled roads is occupied, by things that keep no borders and answer to no lord. Out there the day is counted: the miles, the light, the food in the pack, and what the walking takes out of the people doing it.

What the Road Takes

I knew I was in trouble when I stopped caring about the road. Not frightened, not angry — empty. Three days of hard marching will do that. You think it is tiredness, and it is, but it is the kind sleep does not fix in one night.

On the third day the sergeant called a halt at a ford and I kept walking. I did not decide to. Somebody caught my belt, and I remember being angry at him, mildly, the way you are angry at a dog.

I slept and woke tired. I slept again and woke less tired. By the fourth day I was something like myself. The man who caught my belt was the one who had kept us walking in the first place. He has a name and I will not set it down, because he is a good sergeant on any other road, and because on that one he had stopped caring too, and had nobody behind him to catch his. We have not spoken of it. He halts the column earlier now, while there is still light to spare, and nobody asks why.

— Gregor Agripole, man-at-arms, Barony of Ophrados

A day in Dyrhal holds twelve Segments of two hours, and at the start of each the party chooses what it is for. There are only four answers. Travel moves you. Action changes the situation. Rest pays down the afternoon. Sleep pays down the tenday.

And the road is not empty. Something out there has usually noticed you before you notice it: wolves holding to the vale, men who want what is in the cart, something out of a barrow that should have stayed in it. Most of what kills on the road is ordinary, hungry men with a spear, a beast that commits too far, and it finds you tired.

You can always push. You can always take one more march, one more search, one more night on the move. There is no roll to stop you and the system will not argue. It will simply remember what it cost. Two Segments of hard going are free; the third is paid for in Lingering Fatigue, and every one after it costs more than the last, and it comes off only in sleep.

How it works ◇ Travel & Exploration, at a glance