Travel
Travel is how you cross Valdaria between the places the story has put in front of you. Short moves inside a scene resolve as you describe them, while a long journey opens a travel request that shows the distance, the time it will take, and what you are likely to meet along the way.
Where you can go
You travel to places the game holds as real, which means somewhere you have found, somewhere an NPC has named to you, or somewhere the story has otherwise put on your map. Asking to go somewhere the world does not hold gets you a plain answer rather than a journey.
Far off places that live only in stories and rumors are marked beyond reach. NPCs still speak of them, and no one will offer to lead you there, so attempting the trip shows a notice that the place is not part of the explorable world yet.
Places you create during play, such as a forge you build or a camp you make, become real destinations you can name in chat and return to.
Routes
A long journey offers a choice of route.
| Route | What it trades |
|---|---|
| Direct | The fastest way there, and the one most likely to put something in your path |
| Cautious | A longer road that avoids most of what would meet you on the direct one |
The travel request shows your chance of an encounter on each route before you commit, and you can also note how you mean to travel, which the Narrator takes into account. Confirming a long move lands you exactly where the confirmation showed.
Encounters on the road
Something met on the road is offered rather than forced. You can engage it or skip it, and skipping some encounters asks for a roll, so a bad roll can pull you into the meeting anyway. What you meet follows the ground you are crossing and the level of the danger around it.
What the journey costs
Travel passes game time, which moves merchant restocks and rest cooldowns along with it, and it builds fatigue, as described on Rest. Being heavily encumbered slows your pace rather than stopping you, and the travel confirmation shows the slower time, as described on Encumbrance.
You cannot fast travel while in combat, though you can still move to a nearby character within striking distance. A faction that has turned against you makes travelling through its territory unsafe, as described on Factions.