New Vehicle Options for Alnwich

The region around the Trollenmere gets pretty cold in the winter, and there are two months that always have at least a foot of standing snow, with other months often having that much. This raises some logistical issues for adventurers. They need to get to the dungeon, but more importantly, they need to transport loot back from the dungeon. Normally, this can be done easily enough with wagons and oxcarts, but when the snow sets in, such vehicles can get bogged down.

This raised the question: How do the PCs get their loot back to Alnwich to sell? Sure, they can go by boat, but then why bother even having interesting terrain to walk across? There needs to be a reasonable land option. Thankfully, there are!

One solution is to just give carts big wheels so the axle never ends up in the snow. That might sound fine and dandy, but mashing through the snow is still slow going. And slow going leads to needing more supplies, which means needing more wagons to carry all of that. So what else can be done?

Sleds. That's what.

A cart with the wheels and axles replaced by runners is called a sled. And sleds work well on snow and ice. Really well. They even work on ice, although that makes for a very bumpy ride. So much so that nails can work themselves out and the entire thing can fall apart. But not to worry! There's a solution for that, too.

Inuits have long since figured out that drilling holes in the frame of a sled and lashing it together allows for enough play that the sled won't shake itself apart as it crosses ice. Such construction doesn't depend on expensive metal, either, but it does take more time and labor to build. But that's worth not having your ride fall apart in the middle of a frozen lake, right?

And what about all that snow and those ice shavings that are bound to get into everything? It'd be pretty cool if you could waterproof the bottom of your wagon so your loot stays dry and in good condition. Heck, that would let you float your cart whenever you need to ford a stream or river, too. Sounds like yet another option.

So let's sum all of these up with some Cost Factors and weight modifiers. Note that I don't impose any difference in cost or weight for runners versus wheels. This is because runners might need to be beefier, but wheels are more complicated. I gave lashed construction a modest Cost Factor, but otherwise that shouldn't be any heavier, and lastly, I based waterproofing on the costs and weights for doing this with containers in Low-Tech.

Vehicle Options

The following options are available for

Runners. The wheels on a land vehicle can be replaced with runners. On arctic terrain defined as snowy or icy, these allow the vehicle to operate at full speed; however, operation on icy terrain inflicts 1d damage per hour on the vehicle as the constant impacts work out the nails holding it together. Price and weight are unchanged.

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Lashed Construction. A land vehicle can be held together with lashes fed through drilled holes instead of by nails. This lets the vehicle give and flex on hard impacts, making it possible to use such sleds on ice without risking damage. +0.25 CF, weight is unchanged.

Waterproofing. A land vehicle can be built like a small boat with wheels or runners and waterproofed. This lets the vehicle float while fording and keeps moisture and snow out when used in winter conditions, but the added weight reduces its top speed by 20% in any conditions. +3 CF, +100% weight.