Blog (A5E) Crossing the Titan’s Garden

The exploration pillar is a large part of Level Up; Advanced 5th Edition. One aspect of this third of the game are our new journey rules. In this article, we’re going to walk you through a journey.

Crossing the Titan’s Garden — Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition (A5E)

The exploration pillar is a large part of Level Up; Advanced 5th Edition. One aspect of this third of the game are our new journey rules. In this article, we’re going to walk you through a journey.

www.levelup5e.com

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An earlier version of this article referred to the Region as ‘Deep Jungle’. The name of this Region ended as Tangled Forest in the core rulebook, and this article has been updated to match it.

 

[Caliburn101]

While a jungle is often in tropical climes in our world, the Region defined here covers all non-magical heavy forests.

We very much wait with anticipation the wide variety of more specific Regions that we hope the community creates (for sale or not)! I'm excited to see your Tropical Rainforest Region, and I'm sure I will use it!

Jungle is always sub-tropical or tropical requiring high temperatures and lots of water, but are more open than rainforests which create more shade with a thicker canopy. The two are frequently confused with each other. However, if the description here is changed to non-magical heavy forest the dinosaur and lizardman encounters seem less fitting and Jungle is in any case not the term used in the Boggard template. As the word Jungle has a specific meaning, better to be consistent with it in the rulebook I would say and change it to 'Dense Forested Region' with temperature and precipitation based variations made clear next to accurate names and appropriate changes in encountered critters that reflect their statblocks. Saying that 'Jungle' means something unique in your rules 'because magic' without making that uniquely game-specific change of the literal meaning of the word clear to the reader will merely lead to confusion in anyone with any grounding in GCSE level geography or more, or in people who just watch David Attenborough whenever he is on TV.

If you decide to change the meaning of clearly defined words in the language the book is written in you need to make it clear you did, and hopefully why you did. I don't see any 'why' here - I just see an honest mistake.

 

[Faolyn]

How 1970s of you!

Dictionary definition of jungle is "an area of land overgrown with dense forest and tangled vegetation, typically in the tropics."

 

[Candour Pendragon]

Jungle is always sub-tropical or tropical requiring high temperatures and lots of water, but are more open than rainforests which create more shade with a thicker canopy. The two are frequently confused with each other. However, if the description here is changed to non-magical heavy forest the dinosaur and lizardman encounters seem less fitting and Jungle is in any case not the term used in the Boggard template. As the word Jungle has a specific meaning, better to be consistent with it in the rulebook I would say and change it to 'Dense Forested Region' with temperature and precipitation based variations made clear next to accurate names and appropriate changes in encountered critters that reflect their statblocks. Saying that 'Jungle' means something unique in your rules 'because magic' without making that uniquely game-specific change of the literal meaning of the word clear to the reader will merely lead to confusion in anyone with any grounding in GCSE level geography or more, or in people who just watch David Attenborough whenever he is on TV.

If you decide to change the meaning of clearly defined words in the language the book is written in you need to make it clear you did, and hopefully why you did. I don't see any 'why' here - I just see an honest mistake.

Absolutely agree, please consider this post, Morrus! I was very confused at seeing "snow" in a jungle, also, and would appreciate precision of language.

 

[Caliburn101]

Dictionary definition of jungle is "an area of land overgrown with dense forest and tangled vegetation, typically in the tropics."

Try finding a jungle outside of a hot and wet area of the world and then revisit this definition...

 

[Waller]

Absolutely agree, please consider this post, Morrus! I was very confused at seeing "snow" in a jungle, also, and would appreciate precision of language.

To clarify, you're OK with dragons, fey, and cursed temples, but snow is just too far?

It's a fantasy world. There are far weirder things than jungles with snow.

Anyway, there are rainforests in Norway. Temperate rainforests exist in the real world, let alone a fantasy one. There's even one in Siberia!

Temperate rainforest - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

"In temperate rainforests, two types of precipitation can occur: rain and snow. Temperatures range from 32°F to 68°F, which is much colder than tropical areas. "

Temperate rainforest - Different Climates

There are rainforests in different climates, and that it could snow in a rainforest. In the U.S. there are temperate rainforests. More info...

www.edtechlens.com

 

[Caliburn101]

To clarify, you're OK with dragons, fey, and cursed temples, but snow is just too far?

It's a fantasy world. There are far weirder things than jungles with snow.

Anyway, there are rainforests in Norway. Temperate rainforests exist in the real world, let alone a fantasy one. There's even one in Siberia!

Temperate rainforest - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

"In temperate rainforests, two types of precipitation can occur: rain and snow. Temperatures range from 32°F to 68°F, which is much colder than tropical areas. "

Temperate rainforest - Different Climates

There are rainforests in different climates, and that it could snow in a rainforest. In the U.S. there are temperate rainforests. More info...

www.edtechlens.com

That didn't take long did it... someone makes a term of reference mistake in a fantasy book and someone just has to bring up the 'it's magic and elves so you shouldn't have a problem with it' routine - one of the oldest logical fallacies dusted off and rolled out in such discussions.

Unfortunately you can use it to justify any change in meaning, no matter how confusing or ridiculous - like calling a longsword a sausage 'because magic and elves'...

As for the rainforest point - we were talking about Jungle... which is often confused with Rainforest as I have already explained.

The entry does not after all say Dense Rainforest does it?

It is entirely axiomatic that there will be non-real fantasy elements in a fantasy world - but that does not excuse using terms for which meaning is already well established in the English language and changing them (without explanation no less) with the excuse that a fantasy world can be anything you want it to be.

This is also a logical fallacy.

If you make up a Jungle in which is snows, then you need to call it an Ice Jungle, or a Snow Jungle or a Frozen Jungle so people know it is purely fantasy, and then you need to explain why it is cold and still a Jungle, and then you need to populate it with cold-loving creatures or creatures which have adapted from normal Jungle creatures as appropriate. That way it becomes a fantasy exception for a reason, and the reader is not therefore confused, and the exploration pillar doesn't seem self-contradictory in it's breakdown of each type of environment, normal or purely fantasy.

Anything else is confusing and counterintuitive and people will correct the error themselves, one which has been deliberately kept in the book for no logical reason.

 

[Morrus]

OK, folks, you really need to calm down. This isn't worth getting into a fight over.

 

[BookTenTiger]

This is really neat! I've been curious about how the journey rules would play out, so it was great reading a real example.

I play with a lot of newer players, so I'm not sure the complexity of LU classes and magic will be desired at my table, but this is the kind of stuff I could easily plug in from my side of the screen.

 

[Morrus]

(BTW, to save you guys arguing any more, we've decided to go with Tangled Forest).

 

[Stalker0]

Great article! Journeys are one of the big selling points to me.

the one thing that sticks out from the article to
Me (and from my play tests of journeys) is prayer.

The roles suggest this is the main thing your doing in a day. The ranger going hunting for the day, makes complete sense. The rogue scouting all day ahead of the group, sure. The wizard making a detailed map, of course. The cleric…sitting on their horse with eyes closed praying for 8 hours? It just doesn’t work to me (I can get a full bounty of spells with 1 hour of prayer, but it takes all day to get a minor boon?), and the bonus it gives seems minor unless you get a crit success.

at that point I’d rather the cleric just “help” one of the others and give them advantage on the end of task check.