Travel

Location, Location, Location

Creation is huge. One inch on the map of Creation equals 800 miles. To put this in perspective, the period at the end of this sentence is roughly equivalent to four times the size of New York City. An area the size of your fingernail is over 30,000 square miles, about the size of South Carolina or Belgium. One square inch is approximately the total landmass of Alaska or Colombia. The Blessed Isle covers roughly oneand- a-half times as much land as the United States or China and is about equal in size to modern Russia.

The locations and regions described in the books are numerous, but they offer many options for places to set your game. Read through them to find areas that leap out at you. Make a list if you want, noting locations that sound cool. If you know the kinds of characters your players want to play, find places you think would offer opportunities for the characters to thrive. Narrow down your list until you have an area that provides the most opportunities for characters to develop their own stories.

Travel

Traveling through Creation can take a lot of time, so use this to your advantage. It is rarely possible to move as the crow flies due to natural boundaries. If traveling by foot or with a cart, stopping only for supplies and following the lay of the land, characters could easily take three months to move an inch on the map. That's one full season of travel for you to play with, coming up with people or towns the characters encounter along the way. With horses, characters can cover the same distance in roughly half the time, but the travelers must take care of their mounts.

River travel can be faster but is limited by the river’s direction, the speed of the river's flow and whether the boat travels with or against the current. A boat naturally flows downstream at the speed of the current, but to steer, it must somehow be propelled. Travel upstream is always slower, as boats must fight the current. Rivercraft can be sailed if the river is wide enough, but they are most commonly pulled by dray animals on a tow path close to the riverbanks. Boats can be rowed for extra speed, but only smaller vessels use this as their primary method of propulsion.

An average vessel can travel an inch on the map in six weeks if headed downstream, or three months upstream. Faster currents reduce downstream travel times while increasing upstream travel times. Likewise, slower currents reduce upstream travel times while increasing downstream travel times. Generally, the wider the river is, the slower the current flows. Flooding, typically seasonal, often increases the current. River travel over longer distances is usually limited by daylight hours, as navigating sandbars and the twists and turns of the river can be very dangerous in the dark without perfect familiarity with the river. Boats can take shelter nightly in a marina or drop anchor along riverbanks.

Ocean and sea travel is the fastest mundane method of travel in Creation. Assuming average winds and travel as the crow flies, a typical ship sailing over "open water" of an ocean or sea can travel one inch on the map in about a week. Hard rowing can as much as double the speed, but it is not sustainable over periods longer than a few days without risk of injury to the rowers. A combination of sailing and light rowing is more common, allowing a ship to travel an inch in five days. Sailors on open-water vessels generally work in shifts, allowing 24 hours of travel per day. Coastal travel is somewhat slower, with a vessel working its way along a coastline and putting in to ports or anchoring offshore throughout the course of its journey. Coastal travel combines the risks of night travel along rivers with the speed of open water travel. Ships traveling a coast generally do so with a mix of rowing and sailing. They can travel an inch on the map in between two and three weeks, depending upon the complexity of the coastline.

Average Travel Times

The following assumes a moderate pace of travel over open terrain, with no stops but for re-supply or minor repairs. Use this chart as a thumbnail for travel over great distances, with the numbers indicating how far you can go within that period of time. All numbers are in miles.

To calculate the estimated travel time between two fixed points, first determine the distance between them and the method of travel to be used. Look to the travel type's row. Find the column with the highest number that can be subtracted from the distance and leave you with a positive result. Subtract as many times as necessary, with each subtraction one more of that column type. If the remainder is less than the column's number, you can move one column to the left and repeat the process. Total the travel time for your estimate.

Multiple methods of travel is easy to determine. Split land, river and ocean travel separately for the relevant distances. If necessary, split these further into the types of travel used in each leg. Add the total time together to determine the length of travel.

Example: Dave's character Golden-Eyed Vengeance takes a riverboat to Nexus, which is 1,500 miles downstream from his river village. He uses the “downstream” row and finds 600 miles in the "monthly" column is the largest possible number. He subtracts this twice, leaving him with two months traveled and 300 miles to go. This is roughly half a month's travel, so it will take Golden-Eyed Vengeance two-and-a-half months to reach Nexus from his village by boat.

Travel Type	Hourly	Daily	Weekly	Monthly
Land Travel
Foot/cart	3	15	75	250
Drawn carriage	4	20	100	350
Horse	6	30	150	500
Horse relay, simple	10	50	300	1,000
Horse relay, elaborate	15	100	600	2,000
River Travel
Upstream, unassisted	2	25	100	300
Upstream, assisted	3	30	120	360
Downstream	4	50	200	600
Ocean Travel
Coastal travel	6	100	400	1,200
Sailing	6	125	800	2,400
Light rowing	8	175	1,000	3,000
Hard rowing	12	250*	1,200**	4,800**
Supernatural Travel
Tireless rowing	15	360	2,500	8,800
Horseback, tireless	25	600	4,200	15,000
* Mortal rowers safely maintain pace for (Stamina) days, resting 2x that amount
** Assumes one day hard rowing per two days rest, with sailing in the interim