Exploring the Wilds - GM Tips
Exploration is one of my favorite activities in an RPG, it doesn’t matter if it’s on a computer game, a movie or tv show, a board game, or a TTRPG. If I can explore and hunt around for more lore, see new sights, or just soak myself into a world, I’m going to have a good time.
I am a fan of moving across a map, never sticking in one spot for too long before jumping over to something else. Unless it’s underwater or if I have to swim somewhere. Seriously, even swimming through a game like Fallout is enough to stress me out that I’ll spend an hour walking around the lake or ocean in my way, and if I need something on an island, I’m doing every other side quest I can find before I jump in that water. Luckily for my players, I don’t share that fear when I’m GMing - probably because I know what’s in the water.
But that’s one of the reasons I like exploration so much. When a movie allows you to explore the world, you can start living in it with your imagination. When your players are wandering your world, they get a chance to see all the wonderful, and horrible, things that reside in it. Of course, not every world is just one major landmark and another. Sometimes you have to travel through the untamed regions in between cities, in between encounters, and between you and defeating the BBEG.
Today, we are going to look at the Wilds, those sections between spots of civilization, between ancient ruins where cultists chants, and where the environment and the natural world gets a chance to develop.
The Wilds
The Wilds can be defined as any place where the wilderness has taken over. These are the miles between a city and a village, between the quest marks on a map, or anywhere that it assumes someone would travel through but not reside for any length of time. There are locations in the Wilds, though those locations aren’t the Wilds themselves because they are specific places. Instead, the Wilds is a section of the world that is not a home to civilization or intelligent creatures who force the world to bend to their will.
These locations can be a force of nature to adventurers, explorers, and those who would wander. They are untamed, largely untouched, and unconstrained. Whereas cities, ruins, villages, and more are structured, the Wilds delight in their un-structuredness, fighting against any who would try to tame them. Sometimes cities win in their fight to survive the Wilds, other times it is a temporary victory before the forests creep back and consume the stone streets and wooden walls.
When discussing the Wilds, there are four main types of Wilds, with a wide variety of ecosystems and terrains in each category. When designing the journey from one place to another, adventurers often must journey through the Wilds, and these Wilds provide a host of different dangers that they can’t simply fight back with a sword or some magic.
Natural Wilds
The first type of Wilds are those that have never been touched by society or civilizations. They may have once seen booted tracks from an explorer, but they are so wild as to be completely untamed. No structure has ever been erected within their confines and no accurate maps of this area exist due to how untamed it is.
Many inhospitable ecosystems; like deserts, tundras, jungles, swamps, rocky cliffs, deep ocean, and more, make up the Natural Wilds due to how extreme they are. Intense heat, deep cold, crippling pressure, and horrific beasts can be found in these Wilds, separating beacons of civilization. Often these regions exist between nations, separating them due to how inaccessible they are. They may hold hidden mysteries within them, but ones formed naturally like strange creatures or portals to the planes, to the heavens, or even to the hells.
Most often strange creatures inhabit these worlds, those that have never before seen, and those where only rumors exist of their abilities.
When to Use
These locations are best used when a party must travel from one kingdom to a new one, or when they are seeking ancient ruins in distant locations. The Natural Wilds can transform into the Lost Wilds, have portions of it being transformed into the Frontier Wilds, or be the location of the Supernatural Wilds. These Wilds are best used when you want the natural world to shine through and to prove that even a jungle holds many dangers within it.
How to Use
Unknown creatures, both flora and fauna, exist in these lands and it is up to the explorers to face off against them. Oftentimes these creatures may appear weird and strange, having strange traits not seen elsewhere, and be perfectly adapted to their natural world. If you stumble across an explorer in these Wilds, then it is by divine fate alone for these lands are rarely traveled or explored, for it is far too dangerous to do so.
When a group explores these Wilds, they are often trying to get somewhere on the other side and the danger comes from the natural world fighting them. Adventurers are rarely traveling into the Natural Wilds for the wilderness itself, and instead, it acts as a barrier to their tasks. The desert could offer endless miles of sand and heat, sending adventurers wandering off in endless circles. The jungle could offer horrific dire lizards and strange diseases carried by buzzing insects that can cause all sorts of strange effects.
The Natural Wilds are focused on the natural world and the challenges they face might appear mundane when compared to a dragon or a god, but are nonetheless still dangerous for those who don’t prepare adequately. Many adventurers may call the Frontier Wilds home, but none could truly call the Natural Wilds that.
Frontier Wilds
On the very edges of civilization are the Frontier Wilds where laws try to tame the chaos of the Natural Wilds. These are places where temporary buildings morph into permanent structures, where supplies are sparse, hunters are needed to deal with the ferocious beasts, and laws can be ignored in defense of the frontier village. Often this can be the small villages between the large cities, barely holding on as their small populace is ravaged by the Wilds. Sometimes these places can last for years, other times a kingdom is having to send out constant settlers as the previous expeditions keep disappearing.
It’s a hard life on the frontier where rugged individuals must work for every comfort they have.
When to Use
These Wilds are best used where regular patrols are impossible. These lands exist where civilization’s influence is at its weakest, and where laws might be in the hands of a single sheriff. These lands might exist just a few miles outside of a major city where the farmers must fight constantly against the nearby forest, or in a desert oasis where a small trading post has taken root. These Wilds pop up as places of respite and rest. One can’t completely put their guard down, but for a weary traveler, they are a welcome sight for those who are craving, if not a comfortable bed, at least a real one.
How to Use
Frontier Wilds are often the sight of adventure and local legends. Since they are at the forefront of the Wilds, they often have to deal with a very active push from the chaotic natural world as they try to implement their order upon it. Many adventurers might first gain fame and prominence as they move between the Frontier Wilds as they hunt down dire beasts, deal with nature spirits, and protect towns from dragons and other dangers.
Frontier Wilds are often the most common Wilds an adventurer or explorer would interact with in their journeys simply because they are places to rest and relax. These Frontiers are spots of civilization where a sword can get sharpened, jobs taken, and are often the most in need when it comes to protection.
Many see the inhabitants of these Wilds as backward or simple, that they don’t understand the lofty practices and laws of high society. Instead, these people are just more focused on the trials of survival, not caring about balls or what clothes to wear to what event. If a king is offering new land to their nobles, it is often land that they recently liberated from the Wilds and requires the noble to come in and protect what they have from the ever-encroaching weeds, vines, and devastation that nature brings.
Lost Wilds
Sometimes land is lost to the Wilds and thus the Lost Wilds take hold. These could be the sites of ancient cities, of lost civilizations, and where the Frontier Wilds have devastating effects and are lost to the Wilds. These lands are wild and untamed, with crumbling ruins, forgotten knowledge, and monsters that prowl these lands. Very few people journey to these lands and ancient maps might exist showing where secrets might lie within.
Adventurers are often called on to explore and excavate these ruins, fighting dragons who have claimed these ancient cities as their own. Fighting against magical monsters who are so powerful that others are forced to bow down before them or face extinction. These lost lands were all once the property of civilization before its light died out and it was sucked into the swamp, into the swirling desert sands, or lost in the jungle canopy. While adventurers and explorers may visit these ruins, there is little chance of rescuing them from the Lost Wilds as they are often located in faraway locations, maybe even nestled in places where the Natural Wilds have swallowed them up.
When to Use
Ancient knowledge to defeat a god can be a powerful motivator to get explorers to these forgotten spots. These ruins can be used to help further the lore of a world, to provide locations for others to visit to remember life before a cataclysm or to hold world-ending power that no king should wield. These Wilds are forgotten by society, with only the sages able to recall them from musty tomes.
The Lost Wilds are used when ancient power, artifacts, or long-trapped beings are needed to help adventurers conquer and overcome their challenges. They are often long trips that culminate in clearing out the Lost Wilds, for a brief time at least before something just as bad, or worse, claims the territories again. Very little can be done to civilize these Wilds again, though if it were to be done, would bring about ancient technologies, old magic, and more to the world.
How to Use
Some monsters are too powerful to reside next to civilization, and thus take up residences in these Lost Wilds, ruling over their crumbling ruins as they see fit. Sometimes they have information they have gathered over the eons, hold an artifact for the gods so that it doesn’t fall into unworthy hands, or have found a nexus of power in these old sites. Adventurers often visit these Wilds intending to leave soon after they gather up what they need, and journeying to these lands can be quite dangerous.
It is difficult to arrive at these Wilds, for if it wasn’t others would be crawling about these lands, making them lose any special qualities they hold in your world. These sites could offer strange wonders, floating citadels, or some other strange geography that allows them to seem and feel different than other places in the world.
Supernatural Wilds
The strangest of the Wilds, the Supernatural Wilds is where magic gathers, creating an unknown landscape. These places could be where leylines meet, where strong connections to other worlds can be felt, or where the dividers between our world and the afterlife are thin and frail. These Wilds are not often very large but can be outside of the natural world. They are often the homes of the undead, celestials, strange creatures beyond imagining, and more. Geography may not work, gravity could be a figment of a creature’s imagination, and portals may spring up, dumping creatures from far off worlds to haunt these Wilds.
When to Use
Supernatural Wilds are best used in small amounts, they might be well known or completely unknown. They can be used when you need ways to travel to other worlds, or if a breach has happened between the worlds that are disrupting the natural one. This could be a call for adventurers to fix or to explore.
These Wilds are thought to happen on every plane of existence, and most planes outside of the Material Plane are simply Supernatural Wilds with a few cities providing the only sources of civilization. They operate by their own rules, and when used, should adhere to those rules to make them feel alien and strange.
How to Use
The Wilds are used to inject strangeness and magic into a world. Adventurers would journey to these Wilds because of their oddities, maybe hoping to gain power from them or to seal them to stop a horde of demons from taking over the world. Supernatural Wilds are difficult to map accurately, and in fact, their actual size may increase or decrease based on where adventurers might be traveling too.
Supernatural Wilds can’t be controlled but by the strongest of creatures, maybe even limiting it to only gods who can control more than just a few feet of its space. These Wilds are dangerous in their sporadic nature, they are dangerous in their unknown nature, and are the sites of strangeness. Adventurers should expect to encounter creatures so strange that very few, if any, have ever heard of them. They shouldn’t be surprised when their normal tactics of exploration have little effect in these Wilds.
Exploring the Wilds
When exploring the Wilds, there are a few key things to keep in mind. Weather can be just as dangerous as a monster, extreme temperatures can be ways to drain resources from a large party, and not every encounter must be violent or even against a living creature. The Wilds offer chances to live in a fantastical world that is struggling to survive against the chaos of nature, where civilization is only held together by those few brave enough to venture to the edges to protect it.
Weather
Weather can turn a pleasant walk into a slog of hailstones and torrential downpours. It can wash away roads, briefly turn well-traveled forests into a confusing maze hidden by fog so thick that you could cut it with a knife. Often, it can feel like the weather is forgotten in stories, that it is always a perfectly nice day with a light breeze and a few clouds slowly moving across the endless expanse of blue sky.
Weather can cause such great winds as to make an arrow fly off target, to cover a dark sky with thick clouds so you can’t see the swooping dragon, or create such hot tempers you could cook an egg on your armor. When describing the scene, think about the weather and how it might play a role in an encounter. This could be a tropical storm with thunder interjecting its thoughts while you speak to an emperor, it could be that the heat makes it so you need more water than you can carry, that even spells aren’t enough to keep up with your needs.
Extreme Temperatures
Extreme heat requires travelers to have a ready supply of water, requiring double or triple the amount of water required. This would be about 2 to 3 gallons of water for just a regular human, but animals would need even more than that on a normal day. Often, travelers should be traveling in the early morning, late evening, or at night to avoid the worst effects of the sun.
The extreme cold won’t often kill from dehydration but exhaustion. It drains the strength from muscles as your body constantly burns through its calories. Creatures need to eat more than they normally would, need great fires to relax next to, and would only travel during the warmest moments, typically during the middle of the day before they hunker down with fire.
Difficult Encounters
It doesn’t have to be extremes though, it could be a simple rainstorm that makes it harder to track animals, a light fog obscures landmarks, and slick ice makes climbing a mountain that much harder. A thin atmosphere makes trips up the mountain dangerous as you can only spend so long up there before your body collapses from the lack of oxygen, just as journeying far below the waves could invite pressures to crush you.
Sometimes there isn’t magic there to protect you from a rip current in the ocean and a sword can’t deal with the harsh realities of running out of oxygen far below the surface of a lake. Every environment has weather unique to it, from ocean currents and waves affected by distant winds that blow so hard as to create tsunamis, to great dust clouds picked up by winds that blow over a city and coat it in a choking cloud.
Using the Wilds
An adventure often involves journeying into the Wilds, and if there is no danger, then it invites questions as to why no one else goes out there. This isn’t to say that only deadly beasts exist out there, but rather the entire wilderness can be used against explorers. Compasses may stop working, vines so thick that a machete gets dulled against a single one, and weather can roll in and make the journey that much harder. These challenges can be overcome, but not through killing them.
Avalanches are bypassed by those skilled in climbing. Jungles are navigated by those who are attuned to its energies. Deserts are conquered by those smart enough to follow the stars across its endless expanse of sand.
The Wilds are worlds different from the cultured civilization that most adventurers and explorers are used to. When bringing players into the Wilds, it’s important to make it memorable but not frustrating. You can introduce severe weather as a challenge, but not an impossible challenge. The Wilds are a place to explore and survive, but it comes at a cost that can make these locales come alive in legends and rumors.
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