1 Dan­ger round = 10 min­utes

Dan­ger is the cau­tious, trepid time scale used when threats are near. It’s the timescale of the dun­geon, of no-man’s land. Of for­bid­den forests and cut­throats’ alleys. 

While in dan­ger, you’re assumed to be ten­ta­tive, step­ping slow­ly and care­ful­ly. 

Though it’s usu­al­ly obvi­ous when you’re in dan­ger, the Book­keep­er will announce the change of timescale regard­less.

Encounters

When in dan­ger, you are at risk of some semi-ran­dom encounter emerg­ing from the threat­en­ing sur­rounds. Wan­der­ing mon­sters, patrolling ene­mies, unex­plained sounds, ambush­es, and the like. Encoun­ters are not always vio­lent or deadly—though they poten­tial­ly are. They can be benign, omi­nous, help­ful, or threat­en­ing. Some­times, they her­ald some­thing worse to come.

Every half hour (3 rounds,) the Book­keep­er checks for an encounter: There is a min­i­mum 1-in-6 chance of an encounter. Busier or more dan­ger­ous areas may entail a high­er chance.

Encoun­ters may sur­prise you, espe­cial­ly if they appear from dark­ness, from stealth, or if no one was keep­ing watch. If the encounter fea­tures intel­li­gent NPCs, you may be sub­ject to a reac­tion roll. It’s impor­tant to man­age your time spent in Dan­ger, lest you tempt one too many encoun­ters.

Actions

Every round in Dan­ger, you can move and take an action. The Book­keep­er will judge what actions you can take while in dan­ger.

Exam­ple dan­ger actions:

• Scrounge a room
• Exam­ine a room fea­ture
• Keep watch
• Sneak around
• Pick a lock
• Take a rub­bing of an inscrip­tion

Move up to 30 m per dan­ger turn. You can opt to be incau­tious and go faster, but you suf­fer -2 to sur­prise rolls per 30 m/round over 30. Max 90 m/turn.

Some actions in dan­ger may take more than 1 round to com­plete. 

• Hav­ing a meal
• Search­ing a large area

Resting in Danger

Cir­cum­stances may dri­ve you to sleep or take nour­ish­ment while in dan­ger. You can do so, but you’ll suf­fer the usu­al rate of ran­dom encoun­ters unless you take some mea­sures to be incon­spic­u­ous or pro­tect­ed.

If you find some way to rest, such as by shel­ter­ing in a locked room, a tree­top, or a hid­den gul­ly, the Book­keep­er will halve the encounter rate, but only if you stay qui­et and don’t pro­duce exces­sive smoke, light, or odors. Some mon­sters are sen­si­tive to spe­cif­ic stim­uli, so you may need to be spe­cial­ly care­ful to avoid their notice if they are roam­ing near­by. Peo­ple are hard­est to hide from, being sen­si­tive to light and smells of camps stoves, cook­ing, and pep­perelle smoke.

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