A typical Mythic Bastionland realm, following the procedure in the book, has a navigable river. It’s an extremely fast way to get around! You might put some barriers alongside it if you want to represent especially turbulent waters, but generally it assumes that the Knights can find a crossing without too much bother.
Here are some optional bits if you want to deal with more impactful rivers that pose more of a challenge to navigate and cross.
It’s more detail than I’d want all of the time, but another tool for the belt.
Creating a Realm
The book doesn’t explicitly say whether to put rivers through the centre of hexes or along their borders, but the movement rules certainly imply the former, by allowing Knights to travel along a river through hexes as normal.
Now, when you’ve placed your river(s), you should note which direction they’re flowing in. Again, the core game doesn’t care about this, but we’re going deeper here.
For most Realms you’ll want there to be a major crossing on the river, typically a bridge, ford, or small ferry.
If you want a stretch of river to be un-crossable, then draw a barrier right through the middle of the hex. Yeah, you can do that! Knights can enter the hex, but can’t go out the other side of the line.
Riding the River
Cruising on the river is a very fast way to get around, because you generally don’t need to beat your way through overgrown woodlands or scramble up and down hills.
Well, it really depends on the river. For wider, easily navigable rivers use the existing rules. For smaller or wilder rivers roll d6 whenever a group intends to cruise on the river. Normally this means travelling 3 Hexes in a single Phase.
River Travel
1: Roll d6 on the Boat Disaster table.
2-3: Roll d6 on the Boat Problem table.
4-6: The river is kind, Cruise as normal.
Boat Problem
1: The river is thoroughly overgrown or dried up. Move a single hex only.
2-3: It’s dangerous going. Either move a single hex or try to move the full distance but roll on the River Travel again. If you roll this result again, treat it as a 1.
4-6: It’s rough waters, but nothing serious. Move up to two hexes only.
Boat Disaster
1: The boat is destroyed before you even leave the hex. Passengers are treated as making a Rough Crossing (see below).
2-3: The boat is damaged before you leave the hex, requiring a phase to repair. If you carry on without repairing it then treat any future boat disaster or boat problem rolls of 2-3 as 1 instead.
4-6: The boat is stuck, requiring the rest of the phase to release it. No progress is made.
Crossing the River
Roll d6 when trying to cross a river in a place where you don’t already know there’s a crossing.
River Crossing
1: There’s no remotely safe way to cross in this hex. Even if you take time to prepare ropes or a raft, treat this as a Rough Crossing.
2-3: Either make a Rough Crossing (see below), or you spend an entire extra Phase to prepare a safe crossing with ropes or rafts.
4-6: You find a safe crossing, cross as normal. You still get wet. Note that this crossing may not be here when you return. Rivers are fickle things.
Rough crossings cause d6 Vigour loss to everybody making the crossing, including steeds. Anybody rolling a 6 for this rolls again (and again, if necessary).
Anybody who is reduced to Vigour 0 and therefore Exhausted during the crossing is swept away. Roll d6.
Swept Away
1: Wash up d6 hexes downstream and roll on the River's Mercy table below.
2-3: Wash up d6 hexes downstream.
4-6: Wash up in the next hex downstream.
River's Mercy
1: You wash up dead.
2-3: You wake up after d6 phases. Roll d6 for each significant piece of equipment, on a 1-3 it is lost to the river.
4-6: The river has mercy and washes you up with all of your possessions.
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