Faerûn travelling distances

[Turelim]

Hi Guys!

So far I'm running several AL games and in most of them we are still playing Season 2 Adventures (Princes of the Apocalypse).
We started in Encounters Mode and moving now to Expeditions with the characters traveling to Mulmaster from Red Larch.

My question is, how much time will take (or how far) to travel from Red Larch to Mulmaster and which will be the best way to do it in game?

Suggestion from DMs on how to manage this travel are welcome also :D

[Ninja_Prawn]

Holy Björk... Red Larch to Mulmaster?! According to my maps, that's more than 1,500 miles as the crow flies!

So, let's look at routes... Note that all calculations assume no rest/stopovers/delays and half speed through difficult terrain.

http://i68.tinypic.com/f20tba.jpg
If your players want to stick to roads, the shortest route looks like:
Iron Road to Secomber
Delimbiyr Route to Llorkh
The Black Road across the Anauroch Desert to Zhentil Keep
Then, either walk to Elventree and trek through the Darkwoods / Elven Court forest to Mulmaster, or sail directly across the Moonsea from Zhentil KeepTotal Distance: 1,736 miles, of which 182 is through dense forest and 420 is through desert. Estimated Journey Time: 97.5 days, less 17 days if you are comfortable in the desert, and less about 20 if you can get a galley across the Moonsea. Thus the minimum journey time is 61 days. Danger: moderate to high, especially if you're an enemy of the Zhents.

If you want to avoid Zhentarim-held areas, you might have to go a longer route:
Long Road to Waterdeep
Trade Way until you can see the Troll Hills, then take a left to Scornubel
Cut through the Reaching Woods to Hluthvar
Cross the Sunset Mountains via the Winds Walk
Unnamed road through the Marsh of Tun, the Farsea Marshes and The Stonelands to Tilverton
Moonsea Ride to Hillsfar
Trek through the Darkwoods / Elven Court forest to MulmasterTotal Distance: 2,033 miles, of which 182 is through forest and about 100 is a mountain crossing. Estimated journey time: 96.4 days. Danger: fair to moderate.

If you favour sea travel, you might go for:
Long Road to Waterdeep
Sail down the Sword Coast to Baldur's Gate
Travel overland (via Elturel, Berdusk, Iriaebor, Easting, Elversult and Teziir) to Westgate
Sail across the Sea of Fallen Stars, Dragon Reach, River Lis and Moonsea to MulmasterTotal Distance: 2,382 miles, of which 1,350 is on water. Estimated journey time: 59.2 days, assuming all sea travel is by galley under perfect conditions. Danger: variable, depending on weather.

If you can survive the cold, you might look for an unusual path through the High Ice.

If you have magic, Teleport or a Teleportaton Circle look very attractive. An airship would also be good - a non-stop airship flight from Red Larch to Mulmaster would take about 7.8 days (though Red Larch is surely too small to contain an airport... you would have to ride to Waterdeep for that, assuming airships have been invented in your setting).

[Turelim]

Holy Björk... Red Larch to Mulmaster?! According to my maps, that's more than 1,500 miles as the crow flies!

So, let's look at routes...

If your players want to stick to roads, the shortest route looks like:
Iron Road to Secomber
Delimbiyr Route to Llorkh
The Black Road across the Anauroch Desert to Zhentil Keep
Then, either walk to Elventree and trek through the Darkwoods / Elven Court forest to Mulmaster, or sail directly across the Moonsea from Zhentil KeepTotal Distance: 1,736 miles, of which 182 is through dense forest and 420 is through desert. Estimated Journey Time: 97.5 days.

If you want to avoid Zhentarim-held areas, you might have to go a longer route:
Estimated journey time:

If you favour sea travel, you might go for:
Estimated journey time:

If you can survive the cold, you might look for an unusual path through the High Ice.

Holly molly O.o !
I didn't expect so much time for travelling xD
Is time for a powerful wizard to made an appear. Big thanks for the information and the route suggestion.

[Ninja_Prawn]

Holly molly O.o !
I didn't expect so much time for travelling xD
Is time for a powerful wizard to made an appear. Big thanks for the information and the route suggestion.

Apologies for the delayed edits. It takes time to calculate routes by hand.

If you refer to my post above, you'll note that sea travel is much quicker. If you want to have some waterborne adventures, now's the time!

[Safety Sword]

Long undiscovered Teleportation Circles can be your friend as a DM.

Plus, if you're on an adventure and you discover a teleportation circle to somewhere you want to go, you have to wonder who else knows about or has already used that circle... or whose lounge room you're going to end up in when you use it! :smallamused:

So many adventures just through taking a short cut :smallbiggrin:

[snacksmoto]

Long undiscovered Teleportation Circles can be your friend as a DM.

Plus, if you're on an adventure and you discover a teleportation circle to somewhere you want to go, you have to wonder who else knows about or has already used that circle... or whose lounge room you're going to end up in when you use it! :smallamused:

So many adventures just through taking a short cut :smallbiggrin:

The adventurers have finally powered up the Teleportation Circle and step inside. A bright flash of light temporarily blinds them and they feel a sudden wrenching sensation, although in no direction that they can determine. A sudden change of air pressure squeezes on their eardrums when they appear after what feels like an indeterminate amount of time. As the spots in their eyes from the light fade they begin to see what is around them. This is not the destination they chose.

Behind them, a person with a quiet but gravelly voice, "Greetings. We have been expecting you..."

Brown-trousers time.

[Safety Sword]

The adventurers have finally powered up the Teleportation Circle and step inside. A bright flash of light temporarily blinds them and they feel a sudden wrenching sensation, although in no direction that they can determine. A sudden change of air pressure squeezes on their eardrums when they appear after what feels like an indeterminate amount of time. As the spots in their eyes from the light fade they begin to see what is around them. This is not the destination they chose.

Behind them, a person with a quiet but gravelly voice, "Greetings. We have been expecting you..."

Brown-trousers time.

That's pretty close to the reason why my players now like to research the destination of Teleportation Circles. Except in the case that they don't care because they're chasing someone who just used one.

[Tanarii]

You can just the game ahead 3 months (or two for sea travel), and deduct the costs from their gold. Land route would be cheaper but longer. Maybe throw in a mini-dungeon (aka series of 4-6 encounters of appropriate difficulty in one 'adventuring day') on route to reflect the dangers of travel. That's how one of the Neverwinter Nights expansions handled things IIRC.

@PMNinja_Prawn that is amazing! Fantastic job on the route plans and accompanying map.

[Ninja_Prawn]

@PMNinja_Prawn that is amazing! Fantastic job on the route plans and accompanying map.

Thank you!

The kind of travel we're talking about here could easily be made into an adventure in its own right, if the OP wanted to. I'm actually doing something very similar at the moment (it's a journey from The Shilmista to Cormanthor and they're avoiding roads and waterways, but the situation is similar).

I had originally planned to skip time forwards because the 'main plot' was happening in Cormanthor, but my players insisted that they wanted to play the travel as a kind of 'wildeness exploration' adventure. Therefore, I've rejigged the plot so that they can encounter scraps and hints of it along the way, and set fixed times that certain things will happen so that if they waste time during the journey, the main antagonists' plans will be further along.

Of course, the first town they tried to rest in was experiencing a crisis that has kept them there for four days so far... I like that their dedication to embodying the goodly heroes they claim to be is going to come back and bite them later!

[Tanarii]

Absolutely. The key to overland travel for most games is to either skip it and summarize (time, gold cost, narration of events), or to run it as a story-based adventure, cutting from important scene to important scene along the way.

The only time you'd want to do a day-to-day random-encounter rolling slog travel is if you're playing a old-school sandbox / combat-as-war campaign with a DM-as-neutral-judge. I'm lining up one of those, so situations exactly like this are on my mind recently. With an eye to how to make it less slog-like. ;)

[steppedonad4]

Since this is adventurer's league, the travel times are not measured. They are simply assumed to be there, however they got there is irrelevant.

[Ninja_Prawn]

Since this is adventurer's league, the travel times are not measured. They are simply assumed to be there, however they got there is irrelevant.

But... but... so much could happen in three months! Shipwrecks! Sky pirates! Desert survival minigames! This is not making me want to play AL.

[steppedonad4]

This is not making me want to play AL.

Oh no. There are restrictions required to facilitate organised play in a public environment. Whatever is a person to do? Oh woe is you.

[Doggedly]

Question on this admittedly old post... Where did you find such a great map of all that much of Faerun? I can only find the Sword Coast area.

[Roland St. Jude]

Sheriff: Please don't revive old threads.