Fantastic Frontiers - Open Skies & Dark Below

20 Jun, 2025

Fantastic Frontiers - Open Skies & Dark Below is the third and final part of a series concerning highly lethal fantasy roleplaying inspired by the fur-trade and the French & Indian War. This is the final installment in the system rules. Please, look forward to adventure materials: Setting details, relics, beasts and more!

OPEN SKIES

TRAVEL

Traveling yields interesting discoveries. If there is something immediately obvious in a hex, it should be discovered immediately. Otherwise it may be discovered by chance or tracking.

A day is divided into four Watches.

A man can travel 10km per Watch. 
A man can travel two Watches each day. 
A third Watch is spent finding and establishing camp with the final Watch
being spent resting. 

Weather

Below is a generic weather table which should be adapted to the season and location.

If Weather is 1-3 for one day, subtract 1 from next weather roll. Similarly, if the Weather is 4-6 then add one to the roll.
If the Weather is 1-3 for subsequent days, subtract two from the next weather roll. Likewise, if it is 4-6 then add two to the roll.

Getting Lost

Navigation succeeds on normal, open terrain on a 4-in-6. On high ground or with a good landmark, it succeeds on a 5-in-6. In difficult terrain, such as a forest, a swamp or a desert, success is on a 3-in-6. Any moron can follow a road or a river, so in this case it is impossible to get lost.

When Lost, travel moves in a random direction unknown to the player group.

Encounters

Check for encounters every other Watch. 1-in-6 chance.
Check surprise for each side: 2-in-6 chance.
For each surprised side, add +1 to the distance roll.

Save for Dodging & Daring to escape.
Using a surprise round to flee adds +1 to the escape roll.
Being injured/encumbered deducts -2 from the escape roll.

Lairs

Upon discovering a Lair, check the “Lair:” chance for the Beast in question. This is to determine if the Beast is in its Lair or if it has a Patrol out. If it is Patrolling the area, roll a d6. On a 1, the Lair is encountered while some or all of the Beasts have left to Patrol. On a 2-4, the Patrolling group is encountered in the field, away from the Lair. On a 5-6 they have left some sort of spoor to be used for Tracking back to the Lair.

CAMP

When setting up camp, the first order of business is to check for a nighttime encounter which occurs on a 1-in-6 chance.

An encounter is never Surprised if there are fires lit.
An encounter notices the campers on a 1-in-6 chance, modified by the number
of tents set up. If the campers are bivouacked and must sleep without tents,
they each count as a single “tent” for the purpose of detection.

HUNGER

Rations are consumed each night. A Beast can be harvested for its meat at the expense of its yield; In other words, a Beast is either harvested for its Meat or its Pelt/materials and not both. Meat cannot be consumed raw. When a man has not eaten for a week, he must make a Save for Constitutional Fortitude to survive each day.

Water must be consumed at least every three days. A canteen has 6 RD and each day's travel away from fresh water results in a usage check. After three days without water, a Man must make a Save for That Which Spells Doom to survive each day.

DARK BELOW

TIME

A turn beneath the surface is 10 minutes in length.
An encounter occurs on a 1-in-6. Noise attracts attention.
Major actions take a turn: Searching for traps, inspecting relics, bypassing stuck doors, clearing obstacles.

LIGHT

There is no light in the dark below. A torch burns for an hour, a lantern burns for 4 hours. Torchlight and lanterns reach 10m.
The denizens of the dark have by and large adapted and can see without trouble.

TRAVERSAL

Men moving carefully cover 80m/turn. Cowards and fools may throw caution to the wind and travel three times as quickly, though they will trigger any traps and fall prey to any ambushes along the way.

ENCOUNTERS

Refer to Open Skies. If any foes are aware of the party already, forgo their surprise check. Divide distance by half.

ATMOS

Some dark places intersect with the realm of tortured spirits beneath the earth. In such cases, check the state of the atmos, and how it reacts to the presence of Men. Each time this place is visited and for every threshold crossed, it should be rerolled.