I'm gearing up to play a Pathfinder 2 campaign with my group, and we're looking at a kind of
'viking story' set long after an apocalyptic calamity. Imagine a small town, where the players have to go
out every season to raid faraway dungeons, bringing back resources to get their hometown through the
winter.
We thought it’d be nice to have some mechanical backing to the resource-gathering, but we didn’t want
to spend multiple sessions per winter in a drawn-out, macro-scale minigame. So I designed a fairly
lightweight system that still offers the two things I liked about the idea of having to keep your town
arrive: risk and change.
This campaign will probably span 10 years, give or take. That’s cool because both the town and the
player characters themselves will change as they get older. They’ll come back after adventuring and
see what happened while they were away. Then they spend their loot, and see how that influences the
town during winter. There’s some risk, though! Do they go to that other dungeon, even though they
should kinda be heading back? Do they risk being back too late? Do they spend their resources evenly,
or do they focus on one resource at the risk of other areas suffering?
It’ll make more sense if I show you the handout that I gave my players.
There is never enough food. Your town is one of the few holdouts that still remains in this world after
it was marred by the Seven Wounds, and survival is an endless battle. During spring and summer,
drought and disease cause more than half the crop to fail. During winter, severe frost and hunger leave
the townsfolk clinging to life by their ragged fingernails. Storms and monsters batter the walls
year-round. Why did your ancestors not depart with the rest?
Relief comes in autumn, born on ships of metal travel both the ocean and the air. The Iron Merchants
bear food, medicine, and fuel for your fires, but they demand a steep price for any of their goods.
The only coin they’ll accept is white iron, the square currency of the Old World.
Every spring you depart, heroes of the town. You set out to plunder the cities and spires of the
empires of old, hoping to bring back enough white iron to pay the merchants next autumn.
The currency will be useless compared to gold and silver on your journeys, for spending it outside
your hometown is anathema. Once you return, however, it will mean the difference between life
and death.
 |
| A white iron coin, front and back. |
EXPENSES
Whenever you return home for the winter, spend your acquired white iron between the expenses listed
below.
- Food: Feed the townsfolk.
- Warmth: Warm their homes.
- Medicine: Heal the sick.
- Experience: Level up.
- Stash: Store iron for the next year. If the stash is not used to keep people
alive in the next winter, it clears, and the town prospers.
Resources
Food, warmth, and medicine need to be supplemented with supplies bought from the Iron Merchants.
Each winter, the GM rolls 1d6 drain dice to see how much iron worth of resources is drained from each
type. A drain die is a d100. If the resource hits 0 from the drain, there wasn’t enough. If it doesn’t,
the town gets through the winter and slowly uses up the resource during the rest of the year.
Experience
The party can keep some of the iron they’ve gained, and spend it in their hometown as they see fit.
Each party member describes how they use the iron they keep, and puts the amount into Experience.
If the party puts 1000 iron into experience, every player levels up, and the experience pool empties.
A player can only level up once per year.
Stash
You can put some money away to supplement the funds you have during the next winter. When you
return home and spend your iron, you can withdraw iron from last year’s stash to spend on this year’s
expenses. If any money remains in last year’s stash afterwards, that stash is emptied, and is invested
into the town’s Prosperity.
SEASONS AND TRAVEL
There are four seasons: spring, summer, autumn, and winter. Each season consists of 12 weeks. It
takes one week to travel a hex on horseback, and two weeks to travel on foot. You can decide to travel
at double speed, but this will leave you fatigued until you have spent a week travelling at normal speed
or not travelling at all.
During autumn, it is time to return home - this is when the Iron Merchants arrive, and you must bring
your winnings to town before they pass you by or face a terrible winter. The GM makes a secret roll
of 2d6 to determine in which week of autumn the merchants arrive. The likelihoods listed below shows
that the merchants tend to pass your village somewhere close to the middle of the season, but are
fairly unpredictable.
THE PHASES OF HIBERNATION
As soon as you arrive home, the story proceeds in the following phases.
1. Prediction (2 days)
Each player character can assess the available stores and the patterns in the weather to try and assess
how much of a given resource (food, warmth, or medicine) will be consumed during the winter. No two
players can attempt to assess the same resource. Make a Survival check, or a check using an
appropriate Lore skill.
Success: You learn the amount of d100 that will be rolled to determine the drain on that
specific resource.
Failure: You are unable to determine how severely the winter will drain that specific resource.
2. Arrival of the Iron Merchants (1 day)
Decide how much iron should be spent on each cost: food, warmth, medicine, experience, and stash.
You must spend all your iron.
3. Drain (0 days)
The GM rolls 1d6 100-sided dice to determine the amount of iron worth of supplies that is drained from
each resource. If any of the resources are drained to 0 iron, there was not enough to last the winter.
If 1 resource was drained to 0, the town’s population declines. Three NPCs bonded to
the players are selected at random, and the selected NPCs become Weakened until
the end of next winter. If they were already Weakened, they die.
If 2 resources were drained to 0, the town’s population declines severely. Four NPCs
bonded to the players are selected at random, and the selected NPCs become
Weakened until the end of next winter. If they were already Weakened, they die.
If 3 resources were drained to 0, the entire town is devastated. Death and disease rule
everywhere. Four NPCs bonded to the players are selected at random, and the
selected NPCs become permanently Weakened. If they were already Weakened,
they die. In addition, one different randomly selected NPC bonded to the players
dies instantly.
4. Downtime (??? days)
Any days that remain until the first day of spring can be spent to perform downtime activities.
5. The Thawing (0 days)
The players leave the town with the arrival of spring. They decide their destination, and set out on their
journey.
BONDED NPCS
Each player describes 3 NPCs that are their character’s closest loved ones. Write a short paragraph
outlining at least who they are, how you know them, and what they want. Bonded NPCs stay in your
hometown, reflecting its well-being. They suffer when the town starves, and thrive when it prospers.
See Prosperity and Well-Being below to find out how that works exactly.
PROSPERITY
When the town enjoys a long period of plenty from the amounts of iron you’re bringing back, the
other townspeople will build it into a more vibrant place. New structures appear, education flourishes,
and more inhabitants are able to pursue their passions. Any iron from last year’s Stash that wasn’t
used is put into the town’s Prosperity statistic. When Prosperity reaches 1000, each player picks two
bonded NPCs and increases their Well-Being by 1.
WELL-BEING
Each bonded NPC has a Well-Being level that increases when the town prospers, and decreases
whenever they become Weakened.
Level 0: Tragic. The character has lost too much, and is constantly ill or otherwise suffering. They
have become morose, and have no faith in the future.
Level 1: Surviving. The character is alive, though hunger and disease frequently threaten their health.
They are currently working whatever job they can get in order to scrape by.
Level 2: Hopeful. The character hasn't been hungry in a while. They're working an apprenticeship,
or otherwise acquiring new skills.
Level 3: Happy. The character hasn't been sick in a while, and has almost forgotten how it feels to
suffer from cold or hunger. They've started working a fulfilling job of their choice, or began a project
that has their passion.
Level 4: Thriving. The character is happy, healthy, and loved. They're working towards achieving a
number of their long-term goals.
Level 5: Excelling. The character has achieved a degree of happiness and fulfilment that few ever
reach. They've achieved a number of life-goals, and are looking forward to the future.
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