While playing Legends of Nor’Ova, you will be doing more than just exploring the world. One of the activities you will take part in is exploring and interacting in civilized areas. Civilized areas are basically any areas that having other people living in them. These areas are typically your villages, towns, or cities. These communities will make the majority of your civilized areas, however there are also palaces, castles, forts, farms, remote inns and shops, and the like.

Exploring Communities

It is not always important to map out a town or any other community, especially if you do not plan to use the community for anything more than staying at an inn and giving characters a place to do some shopping. Most of the time, detailed description is sufficient. However should you desire to map out your communities, here are some basic things you need to know.

• Community maps are area maps. Area maps are like world maps in that they are drawn on square grid graph paper. However area maps are used to illustrate small, local areas. Each square on an area map represents six feet.

• When traveling on an area map you would use your area movement. The area movement shows how far your character can move in a one hour time frame.

• It is up to the GM on how he wants to keep track of time spent in a community. He may decide to simply dictate how much time the players have spent there. He may decide to simply measure out how many hours worth of movement actions a player has made as a method of keeping track of time. Or he may decide to follow the exploration rules in the Exploring Dungeons and Ruins segment of this section.

• When exploring communities, your characters will have the opportunity to interact with the locals, all of which will be played as NPC’s (non player characters) by the GM. It will be up to the GM to determine if and when your characters encounter a local, and just who this local is and how this local will interact with your character.

• When shopping for equipment, your GM may decide to play the shop tender as an NPC, or may simply hand you the equipment section of this book. There is no real interaction needed for shopping, and equipment is considered ready and usable as soon as it is purchased. However using roleplay here could prove both humorous and a good plot device.

• Staying in inns is another activity you may wish to do when in a community. The GM will determine how much it costs to stay at an inn, or if the innkeeper will even allow your characters to stay at the inn. Should you rest at the inn for a full cycle, your character’s Vitality, Soul, and Endurance will be fully restored.

• Taverns are another common feature in communities. Whether you call a tavern by a different name or not is up to your GM. The tavern is usually used as a point of interest for the players where they can go and listen to rumors and find quests. Exactly how the tavern is used is up to the GM, as are any quests, rumors, NPC’s, and activities found there. Depending upon your GM, the tavern may not be of much excitement or could be a place more dangerous than the most dangerous dungeons.

• There are other buildings and locations within a community besides your shops, inns, taverns, and homes. These are the community government locations, such as elders homes, mayor offices, jails, and other like locations. The more important the community is, the more government locations there are within the community. Again, it is up to your GM to determine this and provide any information on them.

Questing within Communities

It is very possible to have quests within communities. Perhaps the quest will have you scouring the city for a criminal or lost heirloom. Maybe the quest will have you assassinate a member of the community. Whatever the reason or purpose, there are plenty of opportunities for the clever GM to provide a quest here.

Should the questing take your characters to a non-civilized area, such as going into the sewers or even finding a lost ruin underneath the city, then the GM will need to follow the Exploring Dungeons and Ruins rules. Otherwise, if the players are only interacting within the community for their quest, it is fine to stick with these rules.

You can find treasures within a community. These treasures can be something as simple as lose shillings laying on the ground or something more traditional, such as a locked treasure box hidden in an ally way. Again, it is up to the GM to determine this and what the treasure is when a treasure is found. There are also plenty of perils when questing in a community. There could be robbers and thieves, or pitfalls. The quest could take you within an unsteady building, or you could find yourself tricked by an innocent looking local.

Make use of your skills if you have them. Try to con the natives, or try to influence them with your charisma by making a personality check. Explore other ideas that put to best use your characters skills, and have fun with it. The GM is free to create the community as he desires, and provide the environment in any way he wishes, and you are free to role play in it.

Yes, you have to be prepared to accept the consequences for your character’s actions, especially if your GM is a clever one that can link ever action with a reaction, even if not an immediate reaction, but the point here is you can be your character. There are no rules telling you how you must talk to a local or how you must barter at a shop. Instead, just use the skills your character has to survive and do well in the environment your GM provides for you. Have fun with it, and try to stay in character instead of dictating for the character.

Exploring civilized castles, towers, farms, remote inns, forts, and the like is just like exploring communities. The only differences are that there may not be any shops, taverns, or inns and your characters may be restricted to where they can ‘explore’.

Movement Abilities in Communities

Just like on the world map, you can make use of movement abilities.

• Climbing: There are various situations in which you might need to climb, and the Skillful Climbing Ability has specializations to cover these. The specializations are: Mountain, Cliff, Tall Tree, and Flat Wall. There is no need for climbing ability for easy to climb trees and other areas that can be climbed without training. Each specialization grants you the ability to climb those difficult to climb situations at the Endurance cost of climbing. The Endurance cost depends on the difficulty of the climbing environment.

  • Simple Climb: 2 Endurance per foot; movement decreased by 2

  • Average Climb: 4 Endurance per foot; movement decreased by half

  • Hard Climb: 6 Endurance per foot; movement decreased to 1

  • Challenging Climb: 8 Endurance per foot; movement decreased to 1 every 2 hours

  • Nearly Impossible Climb: 10 Endurance per foot; movement decreased to 1 every 3 hours

• Swimming: As long as you are unarmored, you can swim. Everyone in Nor'Ova has basic swimming ability. If you are wearing armor, you will need the Swimming While Armored ability. Swimming does cost Endurance and can impact your world movement rate, depending upon the swimming environment.

  • Wading: You aren't really swimming as you can reach bottom. Your area movement is decreased by 2.
  • Gentle Waters: A still pond or a creek with barely any current, this water is easy to swim in. 1 Endurance per foot, area movement decreased by 2.
  • Average Currents: a river with a steady current, 3 Endurance per foot. If moving with current area movement increased by 2. If going against the current area movement decreased by half.
  • Rapids: heavy currents, 5 Endurance per foot and Speed Checks may be required to keep swimming and not drown. If moving with current area movement increased by 4. If going against the current area movement decreased to 1.

• Run: You can run over long distances. Every character can. You simply use 3 Endurance per 6 feet that you run, doubling your area movement rate. If you are running downhill, increase movement rate by an additional 10.

• Racial Movement Abilities or Skills: You can use any racial movement skill such as fly or teleport. Their effect and cost is once per hour.

Interacting with the Locals

Interacting with the locals is perhaps one of the largest activities you will find yourself doing in a community. The locals will all be played by the GM as NPC's, and depending upon how you interact with them and how they see you, they might give you good hints, might help you, might lie to you, and even might fight you. When interacting with the locals it is important to always remember to play in character and to think like your character. Do not take things said personally, as it is just role play after all.

Do not forget that you can make use of certain stat checks, skills, and abilities when interacting with the locals. Perhaps you might want to use haggle to haggle a better bribe. Maybe you want to detect lies or use your influence. You could even use perception to try and see any hard to notice signs or body language that may alert you to danger or if the person is being less than honest.