Approximate time to read: 2 minutes.
The events of The Promised Land deal with a perilous journey through the Titans; as an introductory adventure, it handles the passage through The Mountain Pass with just enough detail to cover key events. The peaks of the Titans tower above the lands to north and south, bounded by rugged and forested foothills. Rough pathways traverse the gulleys and valleys between the peaks. Travelers do not favor any particular track as none ever seems safer than any other, the mountains imposing, the weather savage, and the environment utterly untamed.
A wintry breeze follows you and your companions through the Titans, the mountain range separating the dead Alberetor in the south from Ambria up north.
Some question whether anyone has ever forged a true path through the peaks. If they have, the roads have been ruined or reclaimed; as if the Titans themselves fought hard against these paths like some furious beast wrestling off the binding chains domestication.
From the south, the terrain before the mountains gives a taste of what lies ahead, with brisk winds carrying snow with them or chill rain even in the height of Summer. Those with any practice in lore suspect the weather owes as much to lingering magic as to the vagueries of the seasons.
(South of the Titans) the landscape is still forested, often so densely that the [travelers] cannot see more than trees and the wobbling wagons on the road ahead. The journey goes slowly upwards, winding between wooded hills and shallow canyons. At times the wagons reach a crest from where towering mountains can be seen further north.
The Hex Map
Ongoing, The Iron Pact will feature articles on the locations, experiences, conditions and encounters in The Mountain Pass.
Some of the articles created in this series, so far, include:
- Travel through the Titans – looking at the basics of speed, progress and general encounters in the region
- On The Road – four detailed encounters that can be used in the Mountain Pass as part of The Promised Land adventure or any similar caravan journey
- Rough Travel in Symbaroum – more general, but relevant, article on the preparation and dangers of traversing the lands of Ambria and beyond
To facilitate these ongoing pieces and give a sense of place and purpose, I have created a hex map version of the map included in the Core book. I may yet tinker with the colours of the numbers to make them clearer – but I think you can get the gist of the system used for coordinates. Where an article writes specifically about a site or a static situation, I will use these coordinates to pinpoint. If an encounter table only applies to certain areas, I may use a notation to indicate a range. These hex notations also appear as part of the Twitter #hextitans encounter series, as a means to pinpoint certain locations.
In the meantime, you can use the map as a tool when running The Promised Land from the free adventure pack – or use the hex map to set out your own explorations in these rugged and unforgiving terrain.
Access to the Mountain Pass hex map.
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