Traveling between Hope and Silvereno

[darthauthor]

Traveling between the cities of Silvereno and Hope.

What ways are there?

Does one have to climb the mountains?

Are there plane flights?

Is there a road between the cities?

Can adventures take hovercycles between the two cities?

Are there secret routes?

Are bandits / highway men a common problem?

Given the great number of spell casters in the city of Hope is there a "Circle of Travel" between the two cities?

[Grazzik]

Traveling between the cities of Silvereno and Hope.

What ways are there?

Well, generally there are two types of ways... the right ways and the wrong ways.

Does one have to climb the mountains?

You don't HAVE to do anything.

Are there plane flights?

Depends on the type of plane, weather, availability of pilots and reasons for travel.

Is there a road between the cities?

Probably stretches of track or path for part of the way, but not a road, unless you have a house rule like I do that all Pre-Rifts interstate highways were MDC and mostly survived the Cataclysm to be dug up or repaired. Whether they stay open and clear and free of dangers is another question altogether.

Can adventures take hovercycles between the two cities?

Well, not if the *adventure* is located somewhere far away or based in town. However, *adventurers* that have hovercycles that can clear wooded areas via altitude or can hover over water and use riverways as paths probably could find routes between the cities.

Are there secret routes?

I can neither confirm nor deny the existence of any secret route.

Are bandits / highway men a common problem?

Given there are those very OCCs for such professions in WB14... they are definitely not a problem and a figment of someone's overactive imagination. BTW read up on US history... between 1856 and 1913, there were only 458 recorded stagecoach robberies. That's about 8/yr in ALL of the USA, including during a Civil War. So, it sounds like the Wild West wasn't so wild most of the time.

Given the great number of spell casters in the city of Hope is there a "Circle of Travel" between the two cities?

Any reason why there wouldn't be?

[darthauthor]

Grazzik,

At first, you write like your having fun.

Second, you are funny.

Third, the bit of U.S. history and stage coach robberies is cool.
Good Context.
Yeah, it makes a better story for Holleywood movies if their were more gunfights and robberies.

Of course, I can write a work around with D-Bees for who are a people with a lifestyle of robbery or just a particular gang who is OCD about highway robbery.

[Grazzik]

Grazzik,

At first, you write like your having fun.

Second, you are funny.

Third, the bit of U.S. history and stage coach robberies is cool.
Good Context.
Yeah, it makes a better story for Holleywood movies if their were more gunfights and robberies.

Of course, I can write a work around with D-Bees for who are a people with a lifestyle of robbery or just a particular gang who is OCD about highway robbery.

You got that right. If we're not having fun, then what the heck are we doing here??? Sometimes folks can get uber-serious and ya just have to ask "why?"

Bottom line... the reason I love roleplaying, and Rifts in particular, is that you can do anything you can imagine. You want a horde of murderhobos barreling down the mountainside towards a sleepy village of drunken pixies only to suddenly have a potted plant that self-identifies as a whale fall from the sky and cast a spell to teleport the murderhobos to a dimension full of cyberzombies made from the parts of AM/FM radios...? Yeah, that works.

You want the stagecoach pulled over every week at the same time and the same place by Ol' On-Time Tom, the Larmac highwayman with OCD and his band of drunken pixie bandits? GO FOR IT. Just do it and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Though you gotta wonder why the stagecoach driver doesn't vary the route... oh right, it's a Magic Manikin created by Billy Squire, the local mage / postmaster, who recently past away. The Manikin still tends the horses and runs the stagecoach as it's default instruction by Billy.

Oh, and more Western trivia from the Internets... estimates are that 2 men were killed every 3 days by gunfire between 1866 and 1900 in the Old West. So, let the bullets and lasers fly. EDIT: 3 men every 2 days!!!

One last thing... the gunfight at the OK Corral lasted the equivalent of 2 melee rounds IRL. Think about that next time you're on your 10th round in a fight!

[glitterboy2098]

i would assume that there is a road, though it is probably a fairly basic one. basic macadam, with some wooden bridges perhaps. probably winding its way through valleys and alongside the sides of mountains. honestly, there are probably several roads. one or two main ones, and then various side paths. it would be likely that the roads are blocked for part of the year in winter, due to heavy snow. and avalanche/rockfall risks seem likely. hovervehicles seem likely, especially given that rifts hover vehicles don't seem to have the sideslip issues real world one do. odds are the roads would be designed for large trucks and other large wheeled vehicles, for hauling the mined ores out, and the bulk food and commercial goods in.

regular plane flights seem unlikely. air travel isn't really touched on much in rifts, but it is heavily implied to be uncommon outside the 'domain of man' in the midwest. combine that with the difficulty that flying in the mountains has (IRL they are one of the more dangeorus areas to fly in, due to the mix of unpredictable winds and weather, and the high risk of collisions when viability is low) and it seems unliekly there would be anything like regualr flights. wouldn't stop a player group with a VTOL or plane from travelling up there though.

what might be interesting would be a narrow gauge railway, like the real world Durango and Silverton. this would have a lot of the same issues with snow and rockslides as the roads would, but would be very in-theme for the New West. heck, while the engine might be nuclear, it might even be designed to look like a old steam engine for the aesthetic.

whether there would be magical means of travelling is going to be up to the GM. i could see there being such, but i could also imagine that such a method would be controlled by a magic guild, expensive to get access to, and not suited to moving lots of people and goods at a time. so it would mostly be used for when someone important or wealthy doesn't want to spend the time on the road, or some important messages or small cargo needs to get to the place fast. (if such a magical means exists, it might be the only way to reach the town during the depths of winter when the passes are blocked by the snow.

[darthauthor]

i would assume that there is a road, though it is probably a fairly basic one. basic macadam, with some wooden bridges perhaps. probably winding its way through valleys and alongside the sides of mountains. honestly, there are probably several roads. one or two main ones, and then various side paths. it would be likely that the roads are blocked for part of the year in winter, due to heavy snow. and avalanche/rockfall risks seem likely. hovervehicles seem likely, especially given that rifts hover vehicles don't seem to have the sideslip issues real world one do. odds are the roads would be designed for large trucks and other large wheeled vehicles, for hauling the mined ores out, and the bulk food and commercial goods in.

regular plane flights seem unlikely. air travel isn't really touched on much in rifts, but it is heavily implied to be uncommon outside the 'domain of man' in the midwest. combine that with the difficulty that flying in the mountains has (IRL they are one of the more dangeorus areas to fly in, due to the mix of unpredictable winds and weather, and the high risk of collisions when viability is low) and it seems unliekly there would be anything like regualr flights. wouldn't stop a player group with a VTOL or plane from travelling up there though.

what might be interesting would be a narrow gauge railway, like the real world Durango and Silverton. this would have a lot of the same issues with snow and rockslides as the roads would, but would be very in-theme for the New West. heck, while the engine might be nuclear, it might even be designed to look like a old steam engine for the aesthetic.

whether there would be magical means of travelling is going to be up to the GM. i could see there being such, but i could also imagine that such a method would be controlled by a magic guild, expensive to get access to, and not suited to moving lots of people and goods at a time. so it would mostly be used for when someone important or wealthy doesn't want to spend the time on the road, or some important messages or small cargo needs to get to the place fast. (if such a magical means exists, it might be the only way to reach the town during the depths of winter when the passes are blocked by the snow.

glitterboy2098 ,

Love your attention to detail and history.

I am curious if they think the spell casters of the city of Hope would create a magic "Circle of Travel" to move people and goods back and forth.

I still think there would be trucks and trains because unless the spell is for free people will choose to save money.
IRL people take the bus instead of the plane.
Trains too, sometimes for the scenery.

I'm basically writing and setting up adventure in these parts and want are believable setting for the players.
IF powers and spells exist that could teleport people then what would their world look like and how would it work.
There would still be the haves and have nots. Fear and Greed.

The spell "Circle of Travel" is just too good. It is even better when one of the "Circles" is made at a ley line nexus.
The distance of teleportation is great. It sidesteps the dangers of travel. You mainly need security at both ends to keep someone from distroying one of the circles.

Of course, the spell caster who makes it could be a part of a guild who insists on a monopoly of the circle of travel business. Maybe they have an agreement with the city to be the only one with exclusive rights to operate a cirlce of travel business.

[glitterboy2098]

magic is not one of my areas of expertise in the game, so i went to a friend. and he pointed out that the circle of travel is a level 15 ritual spell, so would be extremely rare. also that said circle couldn't be used for moving goods, since it can only move a single person at a time. so you could give someone a box to carry and send them through, but then they'd be stuck on the other end until the caster came through and could reopen it on their end. and you can only let 2 people per caster level through (one at a time) before the caster either has to close it or go through themselves (automatically closing it). so if the caster is level 15, you could only let about 30 people through.. but if the caster is a lot lower level and had only been taught the high level spell by someone else, you might be limited to only a handful of people per casting. and the higher the spell level, the harder it is for other caster's to learn in both time and chance of failure. and the circles themselves are very fragile, needing excessive care to protect from being damaged. which would be a serious issue when moving groups of travellers. especially people who don't understand magic and wouldn't realize they shouldn't touch.
so it really isn't a very viable way to get travellers there.

[Soldier of Od]

I know it doesn't help much for me to says this, but any or all of those things may or may not be present, based on what you think would be useful or interesting. They are all plausible, so at the end of the day, it is up to you what to include/make available.

One thing not mentioned yet, that you could consider, is including a ley-line train (TW Ironhorse: New West, page 220). I have had a lot of fun with these in the past. There is technically no ley-line running directly between the two locations, but the GM may decide there is! Or at least have it run part of the way, with a station or outpost at the other end, leading to whatever road, track or uninhabited wilderness faces the characters for the next leg of their journey!
There are also TW stagecoaches and TW ley-line stagecoaches left out of the New West book, that I believe are on the cutting room floor somewhere.

[darthauthor]

I like the ideas.

It becomes a bit of a thing for rules lawyers if the books say ALL ley lines are straight and so on.

For me, as a GM, it is more about consitancy than perfect accuracy

You are right in that stations can be made for stops.
Then transport to the towns.

The train idea sounds iconic and scenic.

I suspect there is also an interpretation that allows for tranport over the area of influence of a ley line (like a mile or two away) rather than exclusively on the center of it.

I can already think of adventures on a train.
Murder mystery who done it.
Train robbery.
Medical emergency (is there a doctor on the train)
Gambling.
Stow-aways
Con-Artists and pick pockets
Talent show (for credits and experience; maybe the adventurers have to work for their train fare)

[Grazzik]

I suspect there is also an interpretation that allows for tranport over the area of influence of a ley line (like a mile or two away) rather than exclusively on the center of it.

Ley lines are 0.5 to 2 miles wide (RUE pg 191) and the TW transport can move anywhere on that LL. That's assuming it doesn't have a mechanical backup to move off the LL.