Many paths to the King’s Highway 49 lead into the mountains. The start of the road is always marked by flower-bearing trees: apple trees in bloom, or cherry trees, or yellow trumpets. The road is a hard red clay, cracked at the edges, twining through the worlds from the crossroads and the Eternal City. Long ago carriages plied the Road but today it is covered with sand. The road is difficult to follow at first, but as they near the mountains becomes easier. When standing directly on the path between the trees, a pass is visible through the mountains. It exists only for those on the path.
Even if the road appears to go towards low hills in the “real” world, on the road the land rises, and snow appears at the peaks, and soon the wind is tearing icy claws against their faces. The mountain is high, cold, and snow-covered. Very few creatures live here.
Mountain encounters
| 01-16 | Bobcat (1d2) | 16% |
| 17-28 | Dire Wolves (2d4) | 12% |
| 29-39 | Yeti (2d6) | 11% |
| 40-50 | Ogres (1d8) | 11% |
| 51-59 | Trolls (d4) | 9% |
| 60-66 | Bats, giant (2d20) | 7% |
| 67-72 | Dwarves (1d20) | 6% |
| 73-77 | Gryphons (1d4) | 5% |
| 78-82 | Wyverns (1) | 5% |
| 83-86 | Manticores (1d3) | 4% |
| 87-89 | Pegasi (1) | 3% |
| 90-92 | Grey-hooked Bats (1d6) | 3% |
| 93-95 | Petraiads (d6) | 3% |
| 96-97 | Cheimon (1) | 2% |
| 98 | Rocs (1d3) | 1% |
| 99 | Gakemai (1d6) | 1% |
| 00 | Phoenix (1) | 1% |
The chance of an encounter is 2% each day and 5% each night.
The cold this high up the mountain is deadly, and they are far above the tree line so there’s little to burn. If they can find warmth, shelter from the wind, and an enclosed space when they rest during the night and if they have warm clothing during the day, they’ll be fine (if cold). Otherwise, they’ll each need to make a Health roll each day they spend in the mountains. A failure means they each gain one injury point.
A fire or other source of warmth for most of the night gives them a bonus of 8 on the health roll. Shelter from the wind gives them a bonus of 2. An enclosed space gives them a bonus of 3. Clothing that’s inappropriate for the cold gives them a penalty of 2.
The wind blows south to north, usually, through the pass. Nights on the mountain are pitch-black. Most of the time clouds fill the air. During the rare moments when the clouds clear, only a few stars are visible, and a razor-thin moon no matter the phase where they came from.
Movement through the snowy mountain pass is half their movement. Snowshoes there can let them move at three-quarters movement.
Mountain adventure
The mountain is the perfect place for the adventure Song of Tranquility. This adventure, or something like it, is key to the flavor of what’s happening on the road. It’s important that the first major decayed artifact they find be something strange and exotic not just to the characters but also to the players. It isn’t just technology that’s unwinding, it’s the world and all within it. All of the rest of the technology on the road should be the low end of steampunk. There are no transistors or solid state technologies on the road.
Especially if they come to the Road through a door in a high-technology world, the next adventure should be decidedly not modern technology.
If they enter the Road through a door, consider having the door open onto a massive snowstorm, a few miles from the ankh-marked grave. They should reach the grave marking just before it gets dark. The shattered ship is about a mile or two beyond; in other words, when they reach the ship, it’s going to be bitterly cold and any shelter (and fuel for a fire) will be welcome.
About forty miles past the Song of Tranquility, the passage gets rockier; their movement goes down to a quarter movement for ten miles; then the passage starts twisting down, and their movement is normal until they reach the Glendale Train ten miles after that. During the rocky passage and the downward path, snowshoes won’t help.
