Travel - Operational Movement
The Tactical Map is the party's stage and battlefield, but the Operational Map is everything in between: the dirt roads and treacherous jungles, the hostile checkpoints of warring states and bleached highways vanishing into a red horizon. In Crimson Blues, the simple act of travelling implies its own dangers, and most importantly, opportunities.
These rules govern how the party moves across the Operational Map, what they encounter along the way, how they sustain themselves, and how the world outside of combat slowly but persistently tries to kill them.
The Journey
A Journey is any significant trip between two locations on the Operational Map. Before it begins, the GM assigns each Journey three characteristics:
- Distance, measured in Watches at Standard Pace:
| Length | Watches |
| Short | 1-2 |
| Medium | 3-5 |
| Long | 6-10 |
| Expedition | 11+ |
- Terrain Type, the dominant environment:
- Road or Urban
- Bush or Forest
- Jungle or Wetland
- Outback or Desert
- Coastal or Maritime
- Mountain or Highland
- Threat Level, how dangerous the area is:
- Friendly: Civilised, patrolled, controlled. Encounters are primarily social.
- Contested: Disputed territory. Conflicting sides have a presence. Checkpoints, patrols, informants.
- Hostile: Enemy-controlled or lawless. Active danger. Patrols seek to engage or apprehend.
- Wild: No faction holds this ground. Nature and stranger things hold sway.
Journey Pace
Before a Journey begins, and again at the start of each Watch if the party wishes to change, the group agrees on a travel pace. This is a collective decision between all players involved.
- Careful Pace
- The party moves slowly and deliberately, reading the terrain and minimising their signature. Progress is halved (x2 Watches required to arrive). The party may begin any Engagement triggered during this Watch as Concealed, provided conditions allow. One party member may make a free Navigation or Survival skill check per Watch. Encounter chance decreases.
- The party moves slowly and deliberately, reading the terrain and minimising their signature. Progress is halved (x2 Watches required to arrive). The party may begin any Engagement triggered during this Watch as Concealed, provided conditions allow. One party member may make a free Navigation or Survival skill check per Watch. Encounter chance decreases.
- Standard Pace
- Normal movement. No special benefits or penalties. Progress as listed.
- Normal movement. No special benefits or penalties. Progress as listed.
- Reckless Pace
- The party pushes hard and moves fast. Progress is doubled (x0.5 Watches required to arrive, rounding up). All party members begin each Engagement triggered this Watch with -1 STA from fatigue. Navigation skill checks suffer a Hard DM. Encounter chance increases.
The Watch
A Watch is the heartbeat of travel; a sustained stretch of movement and attention, roughly four hours in-world, or accounting for the average speed of an infantryman's march, 16km. On foot, a party can sustainably travel for 8 hours per day, with a short resting period in-between. Two Watches of travel constitute a full day's march, or in real distances, 32km. This is by no means a hard limit, performing more than two consecutive Watches of travel will result in the entire party becoming Exhausted until their next Long Rest. After two consecutive Watches of travel, the party should consider making Camp.
At the end of each Watch, the GM rolls 1d6 privately:
| Result | Outcome |
| 1-2 | The watch passes without incident. |
| 3-4 | A Watch Event occurs. |
| 5-6 | A Significant Event occurs. |
- Threat Level Modifiers
- Friendly -1
- Contested +0
- Hostile +1
- Wild +2
- Pace Modifiers
- Careful -1
- Standard +0
- Reckless +1
Results below 1 are always uneventful. Results above 6 are treated as 6.
Watch Events
Not every event demands a fight. A strange encounter handled through cleverness, diplomacy, or stealth is often more satisfying than a firefight, and almost always safer. If the GM's private 1d6 lands on a Watch Event, roll 1d20:
| Result | Event |
| 1-2 | Signs of Passing: Foot tracks, tyre marks, a freshly disturbed campsite, spent brass. Someone was here recently. The GM determines who and how long ago. |
| 3-4 | Natural Obstacle: A flooded creek, a collapsed bridge, a boulder field blocking the road, a washout. Progress this Watch is halved unless the party finds a way through. |
| 5-6 | Interesting Find: An abandoned vehicle, a forgotten supply cache, a crashed light aircraft, the ruins of a campsite with something left behind. Worth investigating. |
| 7-8 | Wildlife Sighting: A creature of the local fauna crosses the party's path. May be merely scenic. May not be. |
| 9-10 | Poor Weather: Heavy rain, dense fog, a dust storm, punishing midday heat. All PER and Navigation skill checks suffer a Hard DM for this Watch. |
| 11-12 | Distant Activity: Smoke on the horizon, gunfire in the distance, an aircraft passing low overhead, a radio signal cutting through static. The world is moving around the party. |
| 13-14 | Checkpoint or Patrol: The faction present depends on the threat level and local political situation. It may be negotiated past, avoided, or fought. |
| 15-16 | Civilian Encounter: A lost farmer, a family in a battered ute, a wandering stockman, a child on the road alone. Something human and complicated. |
| 17-18 | Technical Issues: If travelling by vehicle, it suffers a minor mechanical breakdown. Basic spare parts, a half decent mechanic and duct tape should fix it. On foot, a party member suffers a minor physical injury; a twisted ankle or a bad fall, suffering from -1 STA. |
| 19 | Hostile Contact: An ambush, an armed roadblock, a territorial predator or a hostile patrol has spotted the party. Calculate Initiative and prepare to fight. |
| 20 | Too Quiet: Roll on the Frontier Events table. |
The Watch Event tables are guides rather than scripts. This also applies to Significant Events and Frontier Events. The GM should feel free to replace or modify any result that does not fit the current situation, to tone down the danger if the party seems helpless, or to escalate a Watch Event into a Significant Event if the narrative demands it. The tables exist to surprise the GM as much as the players.
Significant Events
Significant Events are larger and always memorable. They may unfold over more than one Watch. If the GM's private 1d6 lands on a Significant Event, roll 1d20:
| Result | Event |
| 1-3 | Valuable Loot: The party stumbles upon something genuinely valuable: abandoned military equipment, a stashed weapons cache, a downed cargo aircraft, an unattended vehicle with keys in the ignition. |
| 4-6 | Environmental Hazard: A serious natural danger requiring immediate decisions: a bushfire sweeping across the terrain ahead, flash flooding cutting off the route, a sudden tropical storm, a minor tremor that collapses a section of road. |
| 7-9 | Faction Event: Something involving a known faction in the area: a firefight the party witnesses between two sides, a convoy that could be intercepted, a faction representative who urgently needs something only the party can provide. |
| 10-12 | Character Moment: The GM presents a personal vignette opportunity for one party member: a local who reminds them of home, a discovery tied to their backstory, a moral choice with no clean answer. |
| 13-15 | Hostile Force: A prepared and motivated force stands between the party and their destination. This is not a mere skirmish. It requires planning, stealth, diplomacy, or significant violence to resolve. |
| 16-18 | Strange Discovery: Something rare has been found. An ancient ruin swallowed by the scrub, a classified installation that should not exist, an abandoned settlement with a dark and recent history, a recently used ritual site, corpses with strange wounds. |
| 19-20 | Too Quiet: Roll on the Frontier Events table. |
Frontier Events
This table is to be used when the dice land on "Too Quiet" in the other tables, and whenever the GM senses the world leaning into something older and stranger. Oceanyka is not like other places. The continent has been dreaming for fifty thousand years, and some of that dream has seeped through.
| Roll | Event |
| 1-3 | Old Country: Evidence of ancient Oceanykan culture: carvings in stone, earthworks invisible until you are standing in them, ceremonial grounds, the bones of something not in any zoological catalogue. A character with high WIS or the relevant General Skills may learn something of genuine value. |
| 4-6 | Feral Phenomenon: Local fauna or flora is behaving unusually: animals migrating in the wrong season and the wrong direction, plants growing in formations no botanist would credit, an area of bush in total, absolute silence. Something nearby is wrong. |
| 7-9 | Strange Trace: Something left an impression, and quite recently. Geometric patterns scorched into the earth. A stretch of ground that feels wrong underfoot in a way none of the party can articulate. A colour in the sky that has no business being there. The GM may tie this to a larger mystery or leave it as texture. |
| 10-12 | Psionic Resonance: Any Sorcerer or Psychic in the party feels a pulse through their Psionic Engine, while the others get a sudden headache. Something nearby is drawing psionic energy. All casters gain +1 RADIANCE until they leave the area. The source, if investigated, may be worth finding. |
| 13-15 | Anomalous Field: A localised region where certain rules do not apply: compasses spin, radio signals produce voices in no known language, temperature drops twenty degrees in clear daylight, time seems to move at a different rate. Navigation checks in this area suffer a Very Hard DM. Leaving may be harder than entering. |
| 16-17 | Ghost Sighting: An immaterial entity has made itself manifest: a spirit tied to the land, a Pseudogod in miniature, or something older than the names given to things. It is not automatically hostile. It may be curious, territorial, mournful, or simply incomprehensible. Approaching it requires WIS and/or CHA. Attacking it requires something more. |
| 18-19 | Cryptid Contact: An unnatural Cryptid 🐲 creature stalks the party. It is hunting. Calculate Initiative, and consider carefully whether fighting is survivable or necessary. |
| 20 | Eldritch Contact: An entity from beyond the Anthropospheric Layer of the Dreamspace has found a way through as an Eldritch Creature 👾. It is not friendly. Calculate Initiative, and consider carefully whether fighting is survivable or necessary. |
Navigation
Getting lost in Oceanyka is easy. In the northern wetlands, landmarks vanish into identical green canopies. In the Outback, the horizon is a liar, and never quite gets any closer. In the urban sprawl of the Cestlep Slums, the streets have been renamed six times since the last map was printed, and a new apartment block is where the corner store was last year.
At the start of each Watch, the party's designated navigator makes a Hard DM WIS or INT skill check (their choice: WIS for reading the terrain by instinct, INT for reading a map and compass) modified by the Navigation General Skill. If no map is available, only WIS applies.
| Result | Consequence |
| The navigator finds a significant shortcut, greatly shortening the route. Reduce two Watches to the Journey duration. | |
| The navigator finds a shortcut, significantly shortening the route. Reduce one Watch to the Journey duration. | |
| Success | The party stays on course. |
| Failure | The party loses time. Add one Watch to the Journey duration. |
| The party is briefly lost. Add two Watches to the Journey duration and roll an additional Watch Event immediately. | |
| The party is seriously lost. The GM determines the consequences, though they should be significant. |
Logistics
The party must keep track of their SUPPLY, an abstraction of food, water, and general provisions for the whole group. GMs have two options to track SUPPLY: either tracking each individual Consumable 🏺 with their described SUPPLY value, or abstracting all food and water into a numerical SUPPLY value. The latter option works better with pen and paper campaigns.
| Level | Description | Effect |
| Well-Supplied | Plenty of everything. | All party members gain a temporary +1 DET buff. |
| Adequate | Just enough for the trip. | None. |
| Low | Running short. Morale suffers. | All party members suffer from a temporary -1 STA debuff and a temporary -1 DET debuff. |
| Critical | Severely depleted. Morale plummets. | All party members suffer from a temporary -2 STA debuff and a temporary -2 DET debuff, as well as Hungry, Thirsty or both. |
| Exhausted | Nothing remains. | All party members suffer from a temporary -3 STA debuff and a temporary -3 DET debuff, as well as Starving, Parched or both. |
Each Watch of travel costs 1 SUPPLY per party member from the party's collective stores, including NPC members of the party such as important characters, mercenaries or other NPCs. Particularly gruelling terrain (Jungle, Desert, etc.) costs 2 SUPPLY per Watch per member at the GM's discretion.
One party member may spend a Watch performing foraging instead of travelling. The rest of the party may continue at Careful Pace, and by the end of the Watch, they'll catch up. Foraging is based on a WIS skill check modified by the Survival General Skill.
| Result | Outcome |
3d6 SUPPLY | |
2d6 SUPPLY | |
| Success | 1d6 SUPPLY |
| Failure | Watch spent, nothing gained. |
| Something goes wrong. The GM decides what. |
Making Camp
The party makes Camp whenever they stop to rest for a sustained period. This can happen at the end of any Watch, at a secure location discovered during travel, or at a designated rest point.
To choose a campsite, one party member makes a Hard DM PER or WIS skill check modified by the Survival General Skill.
- On a success, the campsite is well-positioned. Engagements triggered during rest give the party advance notice, and no enemy can begin Concealed.
- On a failure, the campsite is exposed or poorly chosen and grants no such advantage.
Then, they must choose whether to sleep a full night's rest or just close the eyes for a few hours.
- Full Rest (2 Rest Watches):
- All party members recover full STA.
- All party members recover 50% HPS and 30% CHPS.
- Every Psychic reduces NEURAL HEAT to 0.
- Medical items and treatment may provide additional recovery during this period.
- Short Rest (1 Rest Watch):
- All party members recover half STA (round up).
- All party members recover 20% HPS and 10% CHPS.
- Every Psychic reduces NEURAL HEAT to 50% of its current value.
It is recommended that least one party member should remain alert during each Rest Watch. This is called Sentry Duty and is to be decided between the players before resting. The human body can last a significant amount of time without sleeping, but its recovery will suffer. Those on Sentry Duty do not benefit from rest. Rotating duty across the night ensures everyone gets at least a Short Rest. A party that sets no Sentry Duty and suffers an Event during rest begins the resulting Engagement without accounting for initiative, they all go last in order of their DET creature attribute.
The GM must also roll for Events during resting Watches, and though many of its results can be ignored to continue sleeping, hostile encounters can never be ignored.
Vehicular Travel
Vehicles accelerate travel considerably, but bring their own complications.
- Speed: A vehicle's speed category determines how it modifies Journey length.
| Speed | |||||
| Journey Duration | Normal travel time | x0.5 Watches | x0.3 Watches | x0.3 Watches | x0.3 Watches |
Note that the maximum duration modifier for ground vehicles is x0.3 Watches. Doesn't matter if a supercar can reach 200 km/h on a perfectly straight, first-world highway when it's sloughing through dirt roads and badly maintained asphalt roads with plenty of potholes.
Travel within the Operational Map in both an Aerial Vehicle 🛩️ and a Naval Vehicle 🚢 is fundamentally different since the vehicle can, or must, stay on the move. In the first case, at least one player character must pilot the aircraft, while in the second, it is likely that at least one NPC from the crew knows how to captain a ship. Pretty much any Aerial Vehicle 🛩️ should be able to get to its intended location within 1 Watch, since the slowest aircraft Utility Helicopter 🚁, can approach speeds of at least 200 km/h.
- Fuel: Tracked separately from SUPPLY as FUEL. Each vehicle has a FUEL rating expressed in Watches of travel it can sustain before refuelling is required. Fuel is plentiful in urban and road environments, sparse in the bush, and potentially unavailable deep in the Outback. Running dry mid-Journey forces the party to continue on foot or find a solution.
As a general rule, the following vehicle types can carry the following Watches of travel in their fuel tanks:
| Vehicle Type | Heavy Tank 💥, Light Motor Boat ⚡ | Armoured Transport 🛻, Fire Support Vehicle 💥, Utility Helicopter 🚁, Attack Helicopter 🚁 | Fighter ⚡, Attacker 💥, Strike Fighter ⚡, Light Utility Aircraft 🔧, Heavy Motor Boat ⚡ | Microfission Cell Vehicles | |||
FUEL Reserves | 10 Watches | 15 Watches | 20 Watches | 30 Watches | 35 Watches | 50 Watches | Infinite |
Note that this is not a hard limit since, as any motorised soldier can attest, FUEL can be stored separately in bidons and barrels for long-range patrols and lengthy journeys, at the player's request and with the GM's permission. Any vehicle should be able to carry, at most, double of its fuel tank capacity in exterior containers, including aircraft, thanks to the wonderful invention of exterior fuel tanks.
A party should also take into account of the return trip when judging whether a vehicle has enough FUEL to make a trip. This is especially important for an Aerial Vehicle 🛩️ that tends to crash into the ground and kill everyone inside when it runs out of fuel mid-air. The FUEL reserves table is not referring to operating range, but rather, ferry range.
Finally, vehicles that aren't in this list (such as the Bomber 💥, Heavy Utility Aircraft 🔧, and all warships from the Escort ⚡ class and above) have enough operating range to put aside the Watch system. The distinction between Light Utility Aircraft 🔧 and Light Motor Boat ⚡ against the Heavy Utility Aircraft 🔧 and the Heavy Motor Boat ⚡ comes from the fact the first category includes both motorised rubber dinghies and the Osa-class Missile Boat, while the second category includes both the Cessna 172 and the Boeing C-130. These designs have fundamentally different limitations in terms of operating range.
- Noise and Visibility: A vehicle travelling at Standard or Reckless Pace cannot be Concealed and generates enough noise and signature to automatically modify Event rolls. The GM may rule that certain events (checkpoints, hostile patrols) are triggered automatically by vehicle travel in Hostile or Contested areas.
- Reliability: Vehicles require maintenance and repair every so often. After any Long or Expedition Journey, or following extended travel through Jungle, Wetland, or Mountain terrain, the GM may force a Technical Issue Watch Event. Repairing a vehicle in the field requires a DEX or INT skill check (whichever the GM deems appropriate), tools, and potentially spare parts, none of which are guaranteed in the deepest ends of the bush. Prepare accordingly.
- Abandonment: Vehicles can be left behind when the situation demands it. Whether they are still there upon the party's return depends on the threat level of the area and how long they were left unattended.
Terrain Profiles
Each terrain type has specific characteristics affecting navigation, supply, and encounters.
- Road or Urban
- Navigation receives a Very Easy DM. Getting lost is possible, but certainly harder. Hazards are primarily social: checkpoints, surveillance, informants, faction patrols. The party is visible and embedded in the fabric of the world. Violence here has consequences beyond the immediate Engagement: witnesses, reprisals, reputation, gossip, law enforcement, etc. The city is simultaneously the safest and the most complicated place to be.
- Navigation receives a Very Easy DM. Getting lost is possible, but certainly harder. Hazards are primarily social: checkpoints, surveillance, informants, faction patrols. The party is visible and embedded in the fabric of the world. Violence here has consequences beyond the immediate Engagement: witnesses, reprisals, reputation, gossip, law enforcement, etc. The city is simultaneously the safest and the most complicated place to be.
- Bush or Forest
- Navigation is unaffected. The terrain is manageable but demands attention. Hazards include wildlife, the disorienting sameness of the scrub, hidden camps, and the occasional unmarked landmines in contested areas. The party feels the isolation but has room to breathe and manoeuvre.
- Navigation is unaffected. The terrain is manageable but demands attention. Hazards include wildlife, the disorienting sameness of the scrub, hidden camps, and the occasional unmarked landmines in contested areas. The party feels the isolation but has room to breathe and manoeuvre.
- Jungle or Wetland
- Navigation receives a Hard DM. The northern rainforests and the eastern bogs of Oceanyka are ancient and beautiful, for sure, but extremely treacherous, while visibility beyond a few metres is nearly impossible. Hazards include tropical Disease 🦠 (the GM may impose END skill checks after extended exposure), biting insects, flash flooding, deep mud that can swallow wheeled vehicles whole, and fauna that treats humans as prey. SUPPLY depletes at double the standard rate from the suffocating heat or the exhausting drain of marching on mud. All weapons receive +1 UNREL as per the Reliability & Maintenance Rules.
- Navigation receives a Hard DM. The northern rainforests and the eastern bogs of Oceanyka are ancient and beautiful, for sure, but extremely treacherous, while visibility beyond a few metres is nearly impossible. Hazards include tropical Disease 🦠 (the GM may impose END skill checks after extended exposure), biting insects, flash flooding, deep mud that can swallow wheeled vehicles whole, and fauna that treats humans as prey. SUPPLY depletes at double the standard rate from the suffocating heat or the exhausting drain of marching on mud. All weapons receive +1 UNREL as per the Reliability & Maintenance Rules.
- Outback or Desert
- Navigation receives a Hard DM. Very red, enormous, and strangely silent, except for the occasional sandstorm. The heart of Oceanyka, which has effortlessly swallowed countless armies and expeditions, leaving no trace. During daylight, Reckless Pace forces an END skill check on every party member per Watch; failure inflicts Hyperthermic, and the status effect does not go away until nighttime. SUPPLY depletes at double the standard rate from the heat and thirst. All weapons receive +1 UNREL as per the Reliability & Maintenance Rules. Sandstorms impose a Very Hard DM on navigation skill checks and reduce the PER of all creatures by -2.
- Navigation receives a Hard DM. Very red, enormous, and strangely silent, except for the occasional sandstorm. The heart of Oceanyka, which has effortlessly swallowed countless armies and expeditions, leaving no trace. During daylight, Reckless Pace forces an END skill check on every party member per Watch; failure inflicts Hyperthermic, and the status effect does not go away until nighttime. SUPPLY depletes at double the standard rate from the heat and thirst. All weapons receive +1 UNREL as per the Reliability & Maintenance Rules. Sandstorms impose a Very Hard DM on navigation skill checks and reduce the PER of all creatures by -2.
- Coastal or Maritime
- Navigation receives an Easy DM if following the coastline. The sea route is often faster than going overland, but it is not always safer. Away from ports, the sea is lawless and treacherous. Hazards include tidal changes that strand vehicles and cut off routes, sea predators such as the Oceanykan Giant Squid, and storms that can make landing or departure points inaccessible. Sailing in monsoon season is not recommended with anything less than a warship.
- Navigation receives an Easy DM if following the coastline. The sea route is often faster than going overland, but it is not always safer. Away from ports, the sea is lawless and treacherous. Hazards include tidal changes that strand vehicles and cut off routes, sea predators such as the Oceanykan Giant Squid, and storms that can make landing or departure points inaccessible. Sailing in monsoon season is not recommended with anything less than a warship.
- Mountain or Highland
- Navigation receives a Hard DM. The terrain here is three-dimensional and actively misleading. Vehicles struggle badly and fuel resupply is nearly impossible. High ground is excellent for observation and notoriously good for ambush. It has historically been the refuge of those who do not wish to be found by anyone. If operating in extremely high-altitude mountains, such as the Tasmanian Highlands or Mount Kosciuszko and the Snowy Mountains, Reckless Pace forces an END skill check on every party member per Watch; failure inflicts Hypothermic, and the status effect does not go away until the party makes camp. Additionally, within these extreme heights, SUPPLY depletes at double the standard rate from the uphill effort, all weapons receive +1 UNREL as per the Reliability & Maintenance Rules. Snowstorms impose a Very Hard DM on navigation skill checks and reduce the PER of all creatures by -2.