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

COMING SOON! -- Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition! Level up your 5E game! This standalone advanced 5E tabletop RPG adds depth and diversity to the game you love! Don't forget to click to get notified when the Kickstarter launches!

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.

 

[BookTenTiger]

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.

We here in modern society are used to sending our prayers through a quick text or a video on TikTok. Just a decade ago, I had to send my prayers in an email. And before that, snail prayers often took a week or more to get to my god... Now extrapolate that back to a medieval setting without a nationalized system of prayer delivery, and you're lucky if eight hours of praying gets to your god at all!

 

[CharlesWallace]

OK, wow, you win. I've been seeing your level up 5e articles and notifications and stuff, mostly just ignoring them. But when this one talked about exploration (my favorite part of RPGs), I had to take a look. Holy cow- this is exactly what I wanted for 5E. You win. You will get my monies! Also, thank you for doing such a great example to sell me on the thing. Really, really cool!

 

[EthanSental]

This does make overland or sea travel more interesting than what we’ve been using since 3.0. I don’t remember off the top of my head how we did it in our 2e game.

so far, there’s nothing in A5E that I don’t like, really well done!

 

[tetrasodium]

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

Fun fact: Here in tropical florida

Spoiler: sawgrass can draw blood

It is not a small plant

 

[Candour Pendragon]

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

RAINFORESTS yes, JUNGLES no. There is a difference.
And please, people, stop with this fallacy of "it's fantasy so it doesn't need to be logical." It still needs internal logic to preserve verisimilitude and enable us to take the whole thing seriously as an invented place with actual rules.
If you want to redefine what a jungle is in your world, sure - make it a steampunk maze overgrown with wires instead of vines. Make it whatever you want, but actually explain what you've changed and why. Just using a word for something it doesn't mean only generates confusion and imprecision.

 

[Zaukrie]

This is great. I hope I can pull off a PDF of terrains quickly...... Even if I can't, this is great.

 

[Faolyn]

This is great. I hope I can pull off a PDF of terrains quickly...... Even if I can't, this is great.

Yeah, I have six Ravenloftian terrains as well, although I have no idea what I'm going to do with them ATM. Well, other than use them in my own Ravenloft games.

 

[Zaukrie]

Yeah, I have six Ravenloftian terrains as well, although I have no idea what I'm going to do with them ATM. Well, other than use them in my own Ravenloft games.

I am thinking similar.....terrains that are not "normal" worlds...and lots of examples of normal ones.
I guess I can add that to the large queue of KS and other PDFs I'm working on.....

 

[Faolyn]

I am thinking similar.....terrains that are not "normal" worlds...and lots of examples of normal ones.
I guess I can add that to the large queue of KS and other PDFs I'm working on.....

There's definitely room for planar and Feywild/Shadowfell terrains, and for semi- or fully-magical terrains. Plus world-specific terrains as well (like the Mournlands would be its own terrain in Eberron).

What I'd like to know is if there's something other than sheer size that differentiates terrains and exploration hazards. Unrelenting Swamp is a terrain; Acid Field is a hazard. Would "Fire Swamp" (a la The Princess Bride) be a terrain or a hazard? Or could it be either, depending on how large it is?

So anyway, what anyone who wants to publish a terrain should do is include at least four encounter tables and four boons & discovery tables, one for each tier. Which may include new creature statblocks and hazards. For each terrain. The six terrains I came up with, when fully fleshed out, may actually be enough.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

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.

In common usage, jungle is a much looser term. They’re fine. The game doesn’t need to cater to people with degrees in geography, when deciding how to use the word jungle.