Template: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.