Hexcrawls in Cairn
The standard method for wilderness exploration in Cairn is the pointcrawl, typically converting from whatever module or setting you’re currently playing. The following is an adaptation of those procedures for use with Hexcrawls.
Wilderness Travel
Travel is measured in Watches. A day is divided into three Watches: morning, afternoon, and night. Most parties spend the final Watch resting and making camp.
Weather
Each day, the Warden should roll on the weather table for the appropriate season.
If the “Extreme” weather result is rolled twice in a row, the weather turns to “Catastrophic”. A squall becomes a hurricane, a storm floods the valley, etc.
Weather Type
| d6 | Spring | Summer | Fall | Winter |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nice | Nice | Fair | Fair |
| 2 | Fair | Nice | Fair | Unpleasant |
| 3 | Fair | Fair | Unpleasant | Inclement |
| 4 | Unpleasant | Unpleasant | Inclement | Inclement |
| 5 | Inclement | Inclement | Inclement | Extreme |
| 6 | Extreme | Extreme | Extreme | Extreme |
Travel Duration
When entering a hex, determine both its path and terrain Difficulty. Use the higher of the two Difficulties rather than adding them together. Then apply any weather, nighttime, or situational modifiers.
Travel is measured in Watches. Each Travel action spends one Watch, though different terrain allows different amounts of progress during that time.
For travel via waterways, refer to the surrounding terrain Difficulty. For routes crossing multiple terrain types, use the dominant terrain or apply the most significant obstacle along the route.
The weather, terrain, darkness, injured party members, and other obstacles can slow travel or even make it impossible. In some cases, the party may need to add Fatigue or expend resources in order to sustain their pace. Mounts, guides, and maps can increase the party’s travel speed or negate certain penalties.
Especially vast or hostile hexes may require additional progress to cross.
Difficulty
| Difficulty | Travel per Watch | Lost? | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| Easy | Cross 2 hexes | None | Open terrain, roads, clear landmarks |
| Tough | Cross 1 hex | 2-in-6 | Forests, hills, rough trails |
| Perilous | Cross 1/2 hex | 3-in-6 | Trackless swamps, mountains, dense jungle |
Roads, guides, waterways, good visibility, or clear landmarks may reduce Difficulty. Dense terrain, poor weather, darkness, exhaustion, or hazardous conditions may increase it.
For Perilous travel, mark partial progress after the first Watch. The party reaches the next hex after a second Watch of travel.
Weather Difficulty
| Weather | Effect |
|---|---|
| Nice | No penalty |
| Fair | No penalty |
| Unpleasant | Add 1 Fatigue or reduce travel progress during the current Watch |
| Inclement | Add 1 Fatigue or reduce travel progress during the current Watch. Increase travel Difficulty by one step |
| Extreme | Add 1 Fatigue and reduce travel progress during the current Watch. Increase travel Difficulty by one step |
| Catastrophic | Travel is usually impossible |
Wilderness Elements
Night
- The party can choose to travel during the night and rest during the day.
- Traveling at night is always more dangerous. The Warden should roll twice on the Wilderness Events table.
- Some terrain and weather may be easier to traverse at night (desert, for example). The Warden should balance these challenges along with any other.
Sleep
- The last Watch of the day is typically reserved for the Make Camp action.
- Characters typically need to sleep each day. Interrupted sleep may prevent recovery.
- If the party skips the Make Camp action, they each add a Fatigue to their inventory and are deprived. Additionally, traveling while sleep-deprived increases travel Difficulty by one step.
Light
- Torches and other radial sources of light illuminate 40ft ahead of the party, but beyond that only provide a dim outline of objects.
- Characters without a light source may suffer from panic until their situation is remedied.
- Environmental conditions (sudden gusts of wind, dust, water, etc.) can easily blow out a torch.
Light Sources
- A torch can be lit 3 times before degrading.
- A lantern can be relit indefinitely but requires a separate oil can (6 uses).
Wilderness Actions
Travel
- The party journeys toward another hex. Obvious landmarks, terrain, and nearby features are revealed according to their distance and visibility. This action is typically taken by the entire party as one.
- Each Travel action spends one Watch. The current travel Difficulty determines how much progress the party makes during that time.
- When traveling through Tough or Perilous terrain, the party rolls 1d6 to determine if they become lost. This risk can increase or decrease depending on the current travel Difficulty, maps, party skills, and guides.
- If lost, the party may need to spend additional Watches recovering their way. Otherwise, the party reaches the next hex along their route.
Getting Lost
When the party travels through Tough or Perilous terrain, roll according to the current travel Difficulty. If the party becomes lost, they may enter the wrong hex, be forced to backtrack, find themselves where they do not wish to be, etc.
If the party becomes lost while moving through a hex, the Warden rolls 1d6 to determine which neighboring hex the party enters:
| d6 | Direction |
|---|---|
| 1 | N |
| 2 | NE |
| 3 | SE |
| 4 | S |
| 5 | SW |
| 6 | NW |
These directions assume a flat-top hex design.
Explore
- One or more party members search a large area, scouting ahead, searching for hidden features, or treading carefully.
- A Location (shelter, village, cave, etc.) or Feature (geyser, underground river, beached ship, etc.) is discovered.
- The Travel action is still required to leave the current area, even if it has been completely explored.
Supply
- One or more party members may hunt, fish, or forage for food, collecting 1d4 Rations (3 uses each). The chance of a greater bounty increases with each additional participant (e.g. 1d4 becomes 1d6, up to a maximum of 1d12).
- Relevant experience or equipment may also increase the bounty collected.
- The party may encounter homes and small villages, spending gold and a full Watch to resupply.
Make Camp
- The party stops to set up camp in the wilds. Each party member (and their mounts) consumes a Ration.
- A lookout rotation is set so that the party can sleep unmolested. A smaller party may need to risk sleeping unguarded or switch off sleeping over multiple days.
- Party members that were able to rest remove all Fatigue from their inventory.
Wilderness Events
At the end of each Watch spent traveling, roll on the Wilderness Events table.
Wilderness Exploration Cycle
- The Warden describes the current hex or region on the map and how the path, weather, terrain, or party status might affect travel speed. The party plots or adjusts a course toward their destination.
- Each party member chooses a single Wilderness Action. The Warden narrates the results and then rolls on the Wilderness Events table. The party responds to the results.
- The players and the Warden record any loss of resources and new conditions (i.e. torch use, deprivation, etc.), and the cycle repeats.
Wilderness Events
| d6 | Result | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Encounter | Roll on an encounter table for that terrain type or location. Don’t forget to roll for NPC reactions if applicable. |
| 2 | Sign | The party discovers a clue, spoor, or indication of a nearby encounter, locality, hidden feature, or information about a nearby area. |
| 3 | Environment | A shift in weather or terrain. |
| 4 | Loss | The party is faced with a choice that costs them a resource (rations, tools, etc.), time, or effort. |
| 5 | Exhaustion | The party encounters a barrier, forcing effort, care, or delays. This might mean spending extra time or adding Fatigue to the PCs’ inventory to represent their difficulties. |
| 6 | Discovery | The party finds food, treasure, or other useful resources. The Warden can instead choose to reveal the primary feature of the area. |
Conversions
Hexcrawl modules use wildly different assumptions about distance and movement. One map might use 1-mile hexes, while another assumes 6-mile hexes crossed over the course of a day. Because of this, there is no universal conversion method.
Whenever possible, try to preserve the original module’s intended scale and pacing.
For example, in Hideous Daylight by Brad Kerr, the hexes are small and densely packed. A party moving carefully can cross a hex in roughly 20 minutes, meaning the entire map can be traversed in about an hour. In cases like this, it is usually better to keep the original movement assumptions and simply trigger Wilderness procedures whenever the party enters a new hex or completes a meaningful stretch of travel.
Larger hexcrawls often assume that a party can cross several hexes during a full day of travel under ideal conditions. Under these procedures, that pace is treated as Easy travel.
In Hot Springs Island by Jacob Hurst and Gabriel Hernandez, time is tracked using 4-hour Watches, with six Watches making up a full day. Traveling from one point of interest in a hex to a point of interest in a neighboring hex takes one Watch, as does exploring a hex to uncover additional locations. Each 2-mile hex contains multiple points of interest, emphasizing dense exploration and discovery over precise travel measurement.
In cases like this, it is often better to evaluate the Difficulty of a particular journey rather than assigning a fixed Difficulty to each hex. Following a known jungle trail between nearby landmarks might count as Tough travel, while exploring unfamiliar jungle or searching for hidden locations could count as Perilous travel requiring additional Watches.
Then evaluate each hex, route, or journey based on its terrain, visibility, hazards, and navigational difficulty.
A hex containing roads, open plains, or clear landmarks might count as Easy, allowing the party to cross multiple hexes during a single Watch. A dense forest with no trails might count as Perilous, requiring additional Watches to fully traverse before modifiers from weather, exhaustion, or getting lost are applied.
In denser exploration-focused hexcrawls, it may be more useful to evaluate the Difficulty of a particular journey rather than assigning a fixed Difficulty to every hex.
Examples of Play
Through the Swampland
The party follows an overgrown trail into the marshlands of Black Fen. Swarms of insects choke the air, footing is uncertain, and visibility is poor.
The weather in the morning appears Fair but for heavy clouds above. The party’s route is a trail (Tough) through thick swamplands (Perilous). The route counts as Perilous travel.
- Wilderness Action 1: Travel. The party makes partial progress through the swamp and does not get lost.
- Wilderness Event 1: Environment. The weather becomes Unpleasant. The party chooses to add Fatigue rather than reduce their travel progress.
- Wilderness Action 2: Travel. The party finally crosses the swamp hex and does not get lost.
- Wilderness Event 2: Discovery. The PCs find an ancient corpse tangled in a reed bed. The body wears rusted armor, but the gold rings on one hand remain untouched.
- Wilderness Action 3: Make Camp. During the final Watch the party makes camp under a large weeping willow and consumes a Ration.
- Wilderness Event 3: Sign. Strange lights appear on the horizon, drifting slowly through the swamp. Fortunately they remain behind the party, back the way they came.
Along the Old Seige Road
The party leaves the trading post at Glynmere shortly after lunch, following the ancient seige road toward Fort Ember. Several sections of the stone road have collapsed into the surrounding countryside, but the route remains the safest path to their destination, at least during the day.
The wintry weather is chilly and overcast, but still Fair. The party’s route follows a road (Easy) through the plains (Easy). The route counts as Easy travel.
- Wilderness Action 1: Travel. Despite its age the road makes for an easy journey. The party crosses two hexes and does not get lost.
- Wilderness Event 1: Encounter. The party stops for an early dinner beneath the ruins of a great machine of war. A short while later a small caravan of traders rounds the bend. Although wary at first, the merchants soon press their wares upon their newfound friends before moving off.
- The party arrive at Fort Ember just as the sun is setting.