About an invasion that never happened

So, a while back ago, when Monte Cook's Numenera sprung out to existence, our group wanted to test it. Given the premise of being sci-fi-ish RPG rather than trad fantasy, I wrote an intro, which would start very much like DCC RPG's funnel, but every player would create one 0th level character. Foci, descriptors etc. would be added on the fly, on appropriate moment, good role-playing etc. Everyone would start out with abilities of 10 and effort 1.

So, minimal background, first:
I live in a certain town in a certain alpine valley, which is somewhat famous for what happened here during the WW1. Because of the front, landscape is drilled with tunnels, trenches, nearby mountains and remote ravines still hide rusted scraps of weapons, bomb shrapnel and skeletal remains of the fallen. Such is the case of Castle, a hill that rises two hundred meters above the basin, on top of which ruins of thousand year old bastion still stand. The hill is drilled with caverns and there is a legend that a secret tunnel leads from the castle to town below. The cavern system is vast and not completely explored because of many cave-ins and seismic activity in the area.

Valley of Emerald River

This document is not polished, nor finished, as we never really had a chance and will to play it, so feel free to use it if you like it. I found out that cypher system was not my cup of tea, anyways.

You can grab The Egg Of Smohl here.

About daily travel distances

I got this idea yesterday while walking the countryside.
In RPGs there are these travel distance tables and they more or less all claim that a person can walk 24 miles/8hrs(day). I think that these numbers are exaggerated. For normal men, I think, 10 miles a day is enough to feel it next day. So, let's try a different and cruel approach to daily travel distance covered.
Basically, a character can move up to his Constitution in miles per day without problems. Anymore than this, he makes endurance checks or suffer Constitution damage. So one lazy and/or sickly character could move as far as 3 miles per day max and an athletic character type would move as far as 18 miles per day normally.
I would say +-33% for roads, mountains, weather etc.

I don't know why, but - Source.

MOVEMENT RATES

PC/NPC adventurer can normally travel as much as her/his/it's/their CON in miles before they must stop and rest for that day or push forward. If you push forward, you make a lucky roll below, but allow to burn STR to avoid the check.
 Round distances to 5 if you like.
Make another check in half the normal distance.


You press on and ...
0 - This journey starts to wear on your nerves.
1 - Your nagging causes your wizard to save vs. your roll or lose a random spell for that day.
2 - You stumble and easy DEX check or Unlucky bruise: -1 to all rolls for one day.
3 - Trip-a-friend - same as above, with an obvious difference.
4 - You step but your ankle does not agree to cooperate. Lucky check or sprain the sucker: -1d (or-4) on combat and movement die due to poor footwork.
5 -  Your backpack or belt-pouch becomes lose and you lost the marbles. Spend 10 minutes packing back.
6 - Your eyes are heavy and in you drift for a moment. In your vision, your patron appears and gives you a quest to distant land which you must uphold or suffer their disapproval.7 - Gremlins infest your footwear: Lucky roll or it smells so bad that you immediately attract a troll to bug your party.
8 - You lost half of your consumables somehow (potions included).
9 - Traveling fever - gain a random disease from the area.
10 - Double vision - make a save or lose it on next perilous crossing.
11 - This is bat country - bats swarm you and you must fight them off or suffer -2d (or -6) on all checks until rested.
12 - Break a leg - this is bad. Hard check or your limb becomes useless and needs 12 HP in healing to function again.
13 - Foot of lead - your feet become heavy and you sink into matter to some extent, you leave obvious tracks and every distance counts double.

Start with 1d4 + Luck then go to 1d6, 1d8, and 1d10.

Horses double the CON value in mileage, fast horses triple it.
Beasts travel up to their HD before losing interest in chase.
Humanoids add 10 to their HD.

Carts & caravels coming soon.
Maybe.

Copy of this post is at www.drunkenwizard.org