Cosmic Peril Fantasy: Survival & Travel

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While every game of CPF is different, this page contains an overview of how CPF evokes a sense of gritty, yet simple-to-play survival and travel.

Topics include Status Effects, Hazards, and Travel.

STATUS EFFECTS

Status Effects, also known as conditions or ailments, are states that player characters (PCs) in CPF can acquire and heal from. Each condition or family of conditions is acquired and healed in different ways. The list is as follows:

Condition Name	How to Acquire:	Effects:	How to remove:
Healthy	Characters are created healthy.	No advantages or disadvantages.	Suffer any of the below conditions.
Dead	Characters can die in various ways: You can die by first being brought to 0 hp (i.e., mortally wounded, or nonlethally KO'd) and then receiving any additional damage. You can be instantly killed, bypassing a "mortal wound", by receiving overwhelming damage--such a large explosive, or being crushed by a large vehicle or animal or object. You can be suffocated in a liquid or particulate solid or from lack of oxygen. You can fall into a hazardous substance or area--harmful liquid, gas, solid, plasma or radiation--and fail to be rescued in time. A helpless human -- restrained, unconscious, etc -- can be killed by an attacker with a single action, no roll needed.	While dead, a character can take no actions, and their body rapidly rots to inert materials. If it exists, their soul departs, and it is not known where the soul goes. Generally, the player of a dead character must make a new character to keep playing. The GM will fit in the new character as quickly as possible as long as there is no active battle.	Death is usually incurable, but players can try to use the magic spell "Revive" or "Resurrection" to attempt to cure it. Resurrection usually leaves permanent side effects however, usually in the form of mild insanity.
Exhaustion	Characters can become exhausted in various ways. The most common is by receiving a mortal wound, but you can also become exhausted by lack of oxygen or low oxygen, excessively high or low gravity, ionizing radiation, rotten food, starvation, or lack of sleep. In most of these cases, the GM might ask players to pass a Toughness check or receive 1 or more levels of exhaustion.	Exhaustion has 4 levels: Exhaustion 1: -1 disadvantage die on all tasks requiring a roll, including attacks and skills. Exhaustion 2: All above, and your statistics are capped at 0. Exhaustion 3: All above, and you now must roll with disadvantage for basic tasks such as driving or climbing stairs. Exhaustion 4: All above, and your HP drops to 1, you must crawl rather than walk, and you will die in 24 hours without aid.	If you are exhausted due to a mortal wound, then you must cure the mortal wound first. Otherwise, you can cure exhaustion from other sources with one level cured per full 24 hours of good comfortable rest (minimal movement) and good healthy food. You can also use the 'cure exhaustion' spell.
Paralysis	Paralysis in this game is generally caused by spells and toxic hazards, i.e. paralytic brine pools on an ocean floor.	The GM may ask players to roll Toughness to resist a toxic paralysis, or Meditation to resist a psychic paralysis effect.	Paralyzed characters can speak haltingly and take 1 free action per round, but otherwise cannot act. If left unattended they may crawl 1 meter per minute, but otherwise cannot move. They may make a Meditation or Toughness check at the start of each turn to resist the effect. Attackers of paralyzed targets can kill them instantly if out of combat or receive a free critical hit in combat. Paralyzed characters automatically fail dodge rolls.	Removing the person from the hazard, medical care, the spell "cure affliction", or dispelling the spell or disrupting the concentration of the enemy sorceror can all end paralysis.
Poison/Disease/Infection/Etc.	Characters may become poisoned, diseased, or infected in a variety of ways: Successful attacks by a poisonous enemy such as a viper or ghoul, or being hit by a poisoned weapon. Being in contact with corrosive gas or inhaling toxic gas unprotected. Eating poisoned or rotten food and drink. Exposing fresh or bandaged wounds to filth and dirt, or failing to promptly treat fresh wounds.	Each of this type of affliction is unique, but symptoms generally comprise a loss of hit points over time (linear or rolled) and often also increasing levels of exhaustion.	The first step to curing afflictions is to make a medical check to diagnose the issue. Then, the player can either be fed the proper medicine from a medical supply room or a character skilled in chemistry could brew the cure themselves in a laboratory. The spell "Cure Affliction" might also help.
Recovering	Characters who were mortally wounded and then stabilized are considered Recovering until their mortal wound is fully healed.	The character cannot recover HP until their mortal wound is fully recovered. This takes ~1 week of bed rest, nutrition, and care. Light activity such as reading and meditation is allowed, but turbulent traveling will cancel the recovery. They will not regenerate HP during recovery week. If brought to zero hp while in recovery mode, that player will die instantly. If the character is forced to walk/work/fight while recovering, they may receive a permanent crippling deformity.	The character will be healthy again (and begin regenerating HP naturally) after 1 week of good comfortable rest and care
Sleeping	Characters may fall asleep by choice, because of tiredness, or by magic.	The character cannot act while asleep. The character is usually prone. They have severely decreased senses while asleep. They may generally be killed without rolling unless they are some kind of extremely durable alien.	Loud noise, strong smells or firm touches will wake them. If magical sleep, then dispelling will cure them.
Stabilized	Characters who are mortally wounded and then bandaged are now considered stabilized.	Stabilization is the first step to recovery from a mortal wound. After being stabilized, the character needs a week of good rest to recover from the mortal wound.	A week of good rest will help a stabilized character make a full recovery.
Stunned	Some special attacks and spells might cause a character to be stunned.	Stunned characters can move normally and take free actions but not other actions. Attackers have +1 advantage die to hit them with attacks and they automatically fail to dodge explosions or similar effects.	Characters usually stop being stunned after 1 round of being stunned. The spell "Cure affliction" can also help.
Traumatized	NPCs subjected to torture or other horrific experiences may become traumatized. This generally does not happen to PCs unless the group wants to.	For a traumatized NPC, when exposed to anything recalling or triggering a recollection of the traumatic experience, the NPC may react with sudden panic, fear, rage, breakdown or flight. They may find it difficult to hold a job or social relationships.	Long term therapy or the spell "heal mental trauma" can help.
Unconscious	Caused by reaching 0 HP due to nonlethal damage, or general anesthesia and other drugs of various forms.	The unconscious character is prone and automatically fails dodge rolls. They may or may not be wounded. They have no ability to sense or defend themselves while unconscious. Attackers may generally kill them without rolling unless there is some other context.	If not mortally wounded as well, the character will generally wake up in 1d8 hours, gaining 1 hp if they had 0.
Insane	Insanity can be caused by spells or exposure to mind-altering effects.	This fictional condition is difficult to define and never looks exactly the same. In mild cases, the player merely sees and hears and feels things that healthy players cannot. In serious cases, the player may temporarily or permanently lose control of their actions to the game master, and may need to make a new character to keep playing.	Depending on the specific type of insanity, it might be cured by simply preventing the victim from hurting themselves and waiting a few hours, or it might be able to be cured by therapy or by magic, or it may be incurable by any known means.
???	The universe is a dangerous place and stranger things can always happen.	Parasites, brain-sharing posession, symbiotic slime and more are all quite possibe to encounter in CPF.	Focus on seeking solutions by consulting with allied NPCs and in-game abilities and resources.

HAZARDS

Hazards are a very important part of making an interesting exploration scenario, because dealing with the hazards will consitute the majority of game play.

With enough hazards, you can create a fun and challenging multi-session exploration adventure with no combat necessary.

As an example, consider an adventure where the goal is to get to a place in a magma cavern beneath a deep, dark high-pressure ocean swept by an eternal hurricane and patrolled by invincible, dangerous megafauna. Overcoming those four hazards can be done in a wide variety of ways depending on player skills, and finding items to help navigate them can also consitute a lot of interesting play.

Weather:

On any planet, and even in space, bad weather can make adventures much more challenging and dramatic.

1. Ion Storms: These strange storms occur in interstellar nebulas and on some planets. Strange clouds form, bathing everything in a weird pale-gree light. Charged ions bombard buildings and ships, shutting down electronic devices and corrupting stored data, and randomly destroying constructions with bolts of bruised plasma. Random sparks may cause fires to break out on flammable liquids or materials.
2. Solar Flare: Particularly big explosions or flares from a star will not only raise temperatures suddenly on nearby planets, but also send out an electromagnetic pulse that disables, but does not erase, electronics.
3. Storms, Tornados and Hurricanes: Lightning deals direct damage. High winds may push or lift unsecured objects, building parts and vehicles, and cause disadvantage on driving and skill use. Huge waves may form on oceans. Rain may cause flooding and give disadvantage on the use of ranged weapons.
4. Blizzards and Snowstorms: Heavy snowfall and high winds causes both intense visual occlusion to within 5 meters and disadvantage on ranged weapons and other dexterity based skills. Large amounts of snow may make it impossible for lower or higher-tech ground vehicles to move properly.
5. Fog: Heavy fog may reduce humanoid vision and that of lower-tech robots to 1m or less, meaning that any skill requiring vision becomes a question of guesswork. Sonar and radar can help here.

Water:

Humands and humanoids generally do not feel at home in water and liquids, which can create interesting tension and challenges.

While unprotected in water, the following rules apply:

1. Disadvantage on all skills involving the use of hands or talking
2. At athletics 1, swimming speed is half your normal speed, and may require athletics checks depending on currents
3. Player characters can hold their breath for 30 seconds + 6 seconds per Toughness skill rank. Speaking, or losing consciousness counts as loss of breath.
4. One full round past losing breath = death by suffocation
5. Add 1d6 pressure damage per round to non-native creatures and vehicles starting at 200m depth
6. Every additional 100m past 200m depth, add another +1d6 pressure damage per round. So, 1km depth is (1d6+8d6)=9d6 damage per round.
7. Special suits and vehicles will have safe dive ratings that will modify the original 200m threshhold.

In addition to these challenges, some liquid oceans will be made of a substance other than water such as oil, gelatin, acid, lava, toxic sludge, etc. which provide additional challenges.

Generally speaking, falling into or being doused with liquids of the following substances will cause the following damage:

• Lava or Magma: 10d10 fire damage per round
• Acid: 4d10 acid damage per round
• Toxic chemicals: 2d10 poison damage per round, plus immediate ongoing infection
• Special types of the above liquids will have special effects.

Radiation:

Radiation can have widely varying intensity and particle types. Some are more dangerous than others. Generally we are speaking of ionizing radiation.

1. Special suits and vehicles have specific levels of tolerance for different types of ionizing radiation. These may be measured units of "rems".
2. Light amounts of radiation might cause a Strength check for ill effects after an hour of exposure, and then apply radiation sickness or a level of exhaustion on a fail.
3. Significant radiation in an area might demand Toughness rolls every 5 minutes.
4. Extreme radiation will likely forgo the Toughness roll and provide continuous direct damage and/or exhaustion levels.
5. Some more exotic types of radiation might cause bodily and genetic mutations.
6. Other types might specifically damage the brain, causing statistic damage to intelligence, dexterity, charisma etc.
7. Special meta-dimensional radiation might permanently change a person's brain, allowing them to see things that, from a "normal" point of view, do not exist--strange messages, creatures and doors. The more that this is investigated, the further the brain damage progresses until the subject appears completely insane or disappears from "reality" entirely.

Other Hazards:

Here is a sample though not an exhaustive list of dangers that might challenge players:

1. Falling damage. 1d6 per 3 meters fallen in standard gravity.
2. Low/high gravity. Low gravity causes muscle atrophy over time while high gravity causes exhaustion over time.
3. Bacteria, viruses, parasites, mundane, nanite, and psionic
4. Extreme temperatures and equipment which protects against certain levels of it
5. Pools of acid, magma, toxic waste, paralytic brine, liquid nitrogen, nanite sludge, electric arcs, poison gas
6. Oceans of exotic liquids such as fuels, acids, gelatin, etc

TRAVEL

Overland Travel

• For overland travel, generally someone skilled in animals or vehicle piloting will be in charge of the minute-to-minute driving, while another player will be electec as the navigator.
• The pilot skill or animals skill (depending on if a vehicle or animal is used for travel) is used for immediate problems such as chases, bad weather, broken roads, etc., while the result of the navigation roll will determine if the party gets lost.
• On a failed navigation roll, generally this will leave the party in a bad situation such as:
  • Realize too late you are in a hazardous and/or hostile area
  • The party may be led into an ambush
  • Realize that you have not only gone the wrong way, but bad weather has come up
  • The party may find themselves in a desolate place, with a key resource drained to 0 such as food, water, fuel, oxygen

Normal Space Travel

• Normal space travel uses something called an impulse engine or ion pulse engine, fueled by power cells. One power cell generally gives 1 day of in-system travel for a small space ship of the size that the party usually uses.
• Similar to overland travel, generally you select one player as the pilot and one as the navigator.
• The pilot skill is used for immediate challenges such as blockade runs, stealth runs, debris field navigation, entering turbulent atmospheres and unstable wormholes, etc
• To travel from the innermost to the outermost planet in a given star system will generally take from 3 to 14 days. It depends on the size (and gravitation) of the star, the size of the system, and the tech level of your impulse engine.
• A smaller trip, for example from a rocky planet to its moon, might take 1-2 hours. A trip from one gas giant moon to another could take up to 8 hours.
• The pilot skill or animals skill (depending on if a vehicle or animal is used for travel) is used for immediate problems such as chases, bad weather, broken roads, etc., while the result of the navigation roll will determine if the party gets lost.

Hyper Space

• Hyper space is a parallel plane or dimension to normal space. It is more compressed and thus used as a shortcut when traveling between star systems, a trip which would otherwise take many thousands of years.
• Hyper drives are a type of technology which allows switching between these parallel dimensions to take advantage of the short cut. Any starship larger than a small tug, miner or interceptor will have these.
  • In the default setting, hyper drives can only be manufactured with the careful advice and assistance of master psychics skilled in teleportation, telekinetics and metaphysics, as well as master scientists and engineers.
  • Since many civilizations do not posess such rare talents, they rely on ancient relic engines that they cannot reproduce, or slavishly pay tribute to a civilization that does.
• Hyper drives use hyperion fuel rods, a very rare mineral of which no stable long-term supply has yet been found.
• Generally, 1 hyperion rod is burned per 1 day of hyperspace travel which corresponds to 1 light year of normal space travel. However, some hyperlanes are nonlinear and may cost more fuel.
• The average distance between stars can range from 1 light-year to 20, but is usually around 5.
• Hyper space is a chaotic, dark, greyish, stormy, cloudy dimension of inchoate things. Some theorize that it is another universe in its infancy, hence the compression.
  • Experts recommend that everyone keep the windows on the starship closed while traveling in hyperspace. Otherwise, mental health has been known to suffer.
• Hyper space is not empty, but rather quite dense. Generally, only small, shifting, nonlinear tunnel-like routes through the stormy black clouds are safe to travel in. These are called 'hyperlanes'.
• Hyper lanes can be entered or exited at a certain point known as the 'rim' of a star system, usually the orbit of the furthest planet.
• There are not always hyperlanes between every star system, and sometimes new lanes form or old lanes fade away. Sometimes whole areas of the galaxy may be isolated by lack of viable lanes.

Hyper Space Travel Procedure

1. First, select a pilot and navigator, and backups if available.
2. They work together, in shifts, for the trip. Particularly long trips may cause exhaustion from the constant focus. Players who are not assigned to these roles may work on downtime projects or rest and heal.
3. The navigator makes a roll first, versus a TN set by the GM based on the turbulence of this area and the stability of the lane. TNs can range from 6 to 30 and higher.
4. Navigation roll outcomes:
   • Critical Success: Half fuel cost and half travel time, or better. Anomalies on the way can be investigated or bypassed.
   • Success: The trip is uneventful. Anomalies on the way can be investigated or bypassed, but there is a risk of unsafe approach or extended detour.
   • Failure: A problem occurs. Examples:
     • Fuel rods suddenly spark, pilot must choose to jettison fuel or risk fuel explosion.
     • Fuel leaks or burns out, you arrive safely but with no fuel left.
     • Arrived not at the destination but at a nearer or further interstellar object.
     • Dropped out of hyperspace in a nebula, position unknown.
     • Arrived near target but dangerously close to an object.
   • Critical Failure: You won't all die immediately, but something very bad happens. A wide variety of things are possible.
     • Generally on all critical failures, the first thing to occur is a fuel explosion and ship systems damage.
     • After that, any number of dimensional-shifting complications must be dealt with, such as phasing, time travel, size shifting, alternate universes, one-way wormwholes to other galaxies, etc,
5. Anomalies: Anomalies are hazards or points of interest encountered along a trip down a given hyperlane. Generally the party will need to decide whether to try to investigate or avoid them. Either way they will likely prompt a piloting check and a drop out of hyperspace. Examples:
   • Hyperspace storms. These are a simple question of either making an active piloting check to try to pass through them undamaged at great risk, or take extra time and fuel to go around them (which may lead to more anomalies).
   • Hyperspace exclusion zones. Some rare minerals, psionic entities, and strange creatures project a hyperspace exclusion zone as they travel. All hyperdrives fail to function in this zone. Options include negotiating with the projector, requesting permission to travel across, or going around.
   • Uncharted black hole or rogue planet. These very dark objects are often hard for navigators to see in the dark between stars. If encountered on your way, you may investigate them or avoid them at the cost of some time.
   • Hyperbergs. Solid matter floating through hyperspace. Extremely dangerous hazard given high speed and narrow lanes, but also of great scientific value.
   • Hyperbeings. They may migrate across lanes, temporarily blocking them or presenting collision/combat hazards. They may bar passage with important information, offers or demands.