Shadowdark - Journeying on Non-Hexcrawl Maps

Journeying to your Dungeons and Dangerous Destinations can be as fun as Dungeon Crawling itself, but many Gamemasters see Travel more as an annoyance than a Roleplaying opportunity because they don’t have the time or inclination to break out the hex paper and colored pens, and then whip up a bunch of interesting  landmarks, ruins and place names – just too much to do already!

This optional Map Movement Journey system lets you use any map without having to recreate it in a hexcrawl format. These rules abstract the Shadowdark Hexcrawl rules (SD, page 132) and can be used with any OSR game. Use any type of world map you already have, or just let the Journey System create the travel experience for your players.

This Journey system is organized into the following sections

• How to use Hexless Maps
• Dividing your Map into Areas – Settled Lands and WIlderlands
• How Dangerous is each Area?
• How Far must I Journey?
• The Journey itself – Wayfinding and Encounters
• Getting there and XP for the Journey
• New Encounter tables