Game Mechanics

Camp Actions

Each turn you choose one action from camp:

Action	What It Does
Travel	Move toward the valley exit. Costs food and water. Risk of breakdown and events.
Rest	Heal the party, recover morale. Costs supplies but no progress.
Hunt	Spend ammo for a chance at food. Better in forests and plains.
Repair	Spend a spare part to fix the wagon. Critical for survival.

Supplies

Twelve resource types govern your survival, split into consumables and gear:

Core consumables

Resource	Consumed By	Replenished By
Food	Every turn (2 per person per day, scaled by pace)	Hunting, trading at towns
Water	Every turn (extra in desert biomes)	Towns, water-available nodes
Meds	Auto-consumed when Healer trait treats illness	Trading, events
Ammo	Hunting (1 per attempt)	Trading, events
Firewood	1 per night camp (2 in alpine biomes)	Events, caches
Lantern Oil	1 per night travel action	Events, caches
Salt	Prevents food spoilage (checked every 3 days)	Events, trading
Cloth	Desperate repairs, trading	Events, caches

Gear

Resource	Purpose
Parts	Wagon repairs (1 per repair action)
Tools	Improve repair quality (+10 condition)
Rope	Helps with river crossings and rescue events
Boots	Worn by rough terrain, repaired with cloth

Wagon Condition (0-100) degrades from travel and events, restored by repair actions and maintenance windows.

Physics Engine

The game uses deterministic physics with seeded RNG. Given the same seed and same choices, the outcome is identical every time.

• Scarcity curve – consumption scales up to 1.12x as you approach the end of the trail (journey pressure)
• Breakdown probability – scales with wagon condition: well-maintained (>60%) gets 0.3x chance, damaged (<30%) gets 1.8x. Hard pace adds +3% on top
• Doctrine modifiers – adjust specific rates (consumption, repair quality, travel speed)
• Night mechanics – traveling at evening/night without lantern oil has a 15% chance of bonus breakdown or injury. Firewood is consumed during evening/night camps

Party Traits

Each party member spawns with 1-2 traits that provide passive bonuses:

Trait	Effect
Tough	General resilience
Healer	Auto-treats sick members using meds (+10 health, cures sickness)
Tracker	+15% hunting success chance
Mechanic	-8 breakdown damage, +10 repair quality, +20% desperate repair success
Lucky	General fortune
Anxious	Narrative flavor
Steady	General resilience
Sharp Eye	+10% hunting success chance

Biomes

The route passes through five terrain types, each with gameplay effects:

Biome	Water	Food Spoilage	Sickness Risk	Hunting	Notes
Plains	Available	Normal	Normal	Good	Balanced terrain
Forest	Available	Normal	Normal	Best	Hunting bonus +15%
Desert	Scarce	Normal	Normal	Poor	Water consumption 1.5x
Swamp	Available	Normal	High	Normal	Sickness chance +4%
Alpine	Available	Normal	Normal	Normal	Food consumption 1.2x, firewood 2x

Twists

Each run generates 1-2 twist modifiers from the seed that change global conditions:

• Bandit Year – More hostile events and ambushes
• Sick Season – Higher baseline sickness rates
• Flood Year – River crossings are more dangerous
• Early Winter – Cold weather arrives sooner
• Good Hunting – Hunting yields are improved

Twists are shown at the start of each run.

Events

80+ events interrupt travel with choices. Each event offers 2-3 options:

• Cautious — Safer but costs time or supplies
• Bold — Faster but risks damage or loss
• Creative — Sometimes available; unconventional approaches with mixed outcomes

Events aren’t random — they’re drawn from a seeded deck and influenced by terrain, party state, and doctrine. The same seed produces the same event sequence.

Real Stakes

Events can wound and kill. A bad choice at a river, a poor camp, a gamble that fails — these can cost a party member their life, not just a slice of morale. Roughly thirty curated events carry bodily danger, and they run through the engine’s health path the same way illness and exposure do.

When a member dies, the death is attributed to its real cause. An event-wound death reads as Injury, not a generic “The trail.” Dysentery, exposure, and the other named causes follow the same rule — the trail ledger records what actually killed someone, so the history of a run reads true.

Escape Valves

Emergency actions available when things get desperate. Each has side effects and a cooldown:

Valve	Trigger Condition	Effect	Side Effect	Cooldown
Hard Ration	Food < 3 per person	Halves food and water consumption for 2 travel steps	-10 morale, -5 health to all members	Shared cooldown
Desperate Repair	Wagon < 30% AND no parts	50% chance: +15 wagon condition (success) or -10 and someone injured (failure)	May consume cloth if available; Mechanic trait adds +20% success	Shared cooldown
Abandon Cargo	Wagon < 30% condition	Drops half of non-essential supplies (salt, cloth, rope, boots), +25 wagon condition	-8 morale	Shared cooldown

Pace

Pace	Distance/Turn	Supply Burn	Breakdown Bonus
Slow	3 miles	0.8x	+0%
Steady	5 miles	1.0x	+1%
Hard	8 miles	1.3x	+3%

Steady is the default and usually optimal. Hard pace is for when you’re close to the exit with supplies to burn. Slow pace is for when the wagon is one bump from breaking.

Doctrines and Taboos

Each run assigns one doctrine and one taboo from the seed. These modify the rules for the entire run.

Doctrines

Doctrine	Consumption	Travel	Repair	Other
Travel Light	0.8x	Normal	Normal	+5% breakdown chance, +10% hunting bonus
Careful Hands	Normal	-1 mile/turn	1.5x repair quality	Maintenance bonus +1
No Debts	Normal	Normal	Normal	Morale floor 20, 0.85x wagon capacity, +15% trade bonus

Taboos

• Never Night – The party refuses to travel at night
• Never River – The party refuses to drink river water
• Leave Nothing – The party leaves nothing behind

Taboos are narrative constraints that the GM incorporates into storytelling.

Maintenance Windows

Resting and repairing in consecutive turns (either order) triggers a maintenance window – a temporary state where breakdown probability drops to 30% of normal. This is the primary tool for keeping your wagon alive through the mid-game.

Warning Callouts

The game warns you when resources hit critical levels:

• Verbose mode (default) — Early warnings and cliff-edge alerts
• Minimal mode — Only cliff-edge warnings (last-moment, critical threats)

Switch with --callouts minimal or --callouts verbose.

Graded Endings

A run no longer simply wins or loses. It is graded, and the grade is read from the shape of the whole journey — who walked out, how long it took against par, and what the trail took from you along the way. A graded epilogue closes the run in the GM’s voice, the same story told back to you one last time.

There are four endings:

Ending	What it means
Triumphant	Everyone reached the valley, on time against par.
Weathered	Everyone reached the valley, but late. A broken vow is a fact on the ending, not this tier.
Pyrrhic	The valley was reached, and someone did not live to see it.
Lost	The trail won. The party did not reach the exit.

The grade is not a single number on a scoreboard. It weighs survivors and days against par, then narrates the result as a proper epilogue rather than a bare cause-of-death line. Two runs that both “escape” can earn different endings depending on what the escape cost.