AGE of Hexploration

AGE of Hexploration

When traveling long distances in the open world of your campaign, only one unit of time actually matters: Days.
In a day, you'll be able to traverse a predetermined distance along the hex map, and the day always ends in a total rest. The minutiae of how exactly those 24 hours are spent is irrelevant to this ruleset.
Each hex on your map should represent a 3 mile / 5Km diameter, and traversing and searching these hexes consumes a resource that's reset daily: Paces.
Different hexes may cost different amounts of Paces to traverse and search. And the party's mode of transportation may incur different amounts of Paces to be used daily.

Daily Paces

At the beginning of each day, your party will have a set amount of Paces to be spent traversing and searching the hexes of the world you’re exploring. If the party is travelling on foot you will always start the day with 8 Paces.
If the party is using mounts or vehicles to travel, the amount of daily Paces will change according to the type of transportation being used.
In order to move from one hex into another, you’ll spend 1 Pace. Pretty simple right?
You can also “Hunt and Gather” by spending 1 Pace without traversing any hexes. This allows players to find resources for their travels. More information on this further in the document.

Difficult Terrain

Some hexes are considered “difficult terrain”. What that means is, if the party wants to enter a difficult terrain hex, they’ll spend 2 Paces to do so. And if they want to Hunt and Gather inside a difficult terrain hex, that will also cost 2 Paces.

Roads

Difficult terrain hexes might have roads crossing it. If that's the case, going into this hex will only consume one Pace, as if it's regular terrain, but Hunting and Gathering in it still costs 2 Paces.

Swimming

You can only enter and swim in one water Hex each day (Hexes representing lakes, seas, oceans and other large bodies of water), and leaving the water Hex is considered crossing into difficult terrain. Those effects can be mitigated, however, if your characters are particularly good at swimming, whether through skill or ancestry advantages (like for amphibian Wildfolk).

Field of View

At ground level, the party should have an idea of what every adjacent hex to the one they’re standing on are like in terms of general features, unless there’s something blocking their view, like a wall or a tall hill or mountain.
If the party can get themselves high of the ground, however - like getting to the top of a tree, tower or mountain, they can get a general idea of the layout of a lot more hexes around them. The height climbed is proportional to how many hexes ahead the party can see, but the exact relation between height and field of view is up to the GM.

Pushing it

The party can spend more Paces than they actually have, bringing the number of available Paces to negative numbers. That’s called Pushing it.
You can only push it in order to travel from one hex to another, and not to search a hex. And everytime the party pushes it to travel to another hex, each character has to take a Constitution (Stamina) test in order to avoid getting a degree in the Fatigued condition.
The TN for this test is 12 + the current number of negative Paces taken.
At the dawn of the next day, the number of paces that should be available to the party after a total rest will be reduced by the amount of negative Paces taken. So if you should get 8 daily Paces, but yesterday you got to -2 Paces, today you will only get 6 Paces.
If the party goes unconscious while pushing it they will probably die unless they get external help or just get lucky. If the party survives, they will wake up the next day with no Paces to spend.
If somehow the party ends up with a negative number of paces equal to or greater than their daily paces without going unconscious they are forced to take a total rest and wake up the next day with the Tired condition and only 1 Pace to spend that day.

Hunt and Gather

You can choose to spend Paces without moving from one Hex to another in order to “Hunt and Gather” and try to find other resources for your travels. Choose one character to make a Perception (Tracking) test TN 11 to search for these resources. On a success, you can either find ingredients for meals that can be made in camp, or objects that could be sold for a profit.
The number shown in the Stunt Die is the amount of ingredients or items you were able to find.
If you find ingredients: Know that they can’t be consumed in natura. They have to be transformed into meals for it to have any mechanical significance. But you can store them for a couple of days before they spoil.
What exactly are the ingredients the character hunted down isn’t relevant. 5 ingredients could mean a bunch of berries or a single wild boar.
Stunt points can be used to find Special Ingredients. For each SP spent you can bring one relatively common Special Ingredient, or you can increase the rarity of a single special ingredient.
If you find items: the stunt die will give you a general idea of the estimated value of all of your findings combined in silver pieces. You can use 2SP to multiply the value by 10, or 5SP to turn that estimated value from silver pieces to gold pieces.
If you fail: You will trigger a random combat encounter with a very dangerous beast(s).
The party shouldn’t do a Hunt and Gather on every Hex they land on. For every time they Hunt and Gather after the first in a day, raise the TN by 3.
So if the party already did this once, on the second time the TN will be 14, on the third time it will be 17, and so on.

Mounts and Vehicles

Mounts can get your party to start each day with 10 Paces instead of 8, or even 12 Paces if these animals are especially trained for travelling long distances. However, for that effect to work, each member of the party has to have their own mount.
There is no set list of possible difficult terrains - that’s up to the GM - and no set list of different kinds of mounts - that’s also up to the GM - , but here are some examples:
Say your world has 4 types of difficult terrain: dunes, swamps, jungles and mountainsides.
Horses would have a hard time traversing any of these terrains, but a camel could easily treat dunes as regular terrain. Bird mounts could consider jungles as regular terrain. Goat mounts could consider mountainsides regular terrain. And… idk… some kind of mount with really long legs but a nimble body could consider swamps as regular terrain. 
Wheeled vehicles can get your party to start each day with 12 to 16 Paces, but unless otherwise specified they cannot enter difficult terrain unless there’s a road crossing it.
Not everyone in the party needs their own vehicle for this to work, but all characters need to fit inside or on top of the given vehicles.
Most boats and ships travel through rivers and oceans at the same pace as humans do walking, so unless you’re in a particularly fast ship or current, you won’t get more than 8 Paces a day. When sailing through a river. However, the GM may decide that you can quickly cross to the next hex without spending a Pace simply because the current pulled you that way.

Finding/Losing Mounts and Vehicles mid travel

Finding mounts or working vehicles in the middle of travel is a possibility.
If the party finds mounts in the middle of the road, they can simply gain extra 2 Paces for that day. And if they find a vehicle in the proper terrain and condition it adds 4 extra Paces for that day. And if they lose access to any of those during a day, they lose the same amount of Paces.

Camping

After using all the Paces available to them, the party must set up camp and wait until the next day before they can get more Paces and resume travel, but there’s nothing preventing the party from setting up camp before they run out of Paces, but if they do so they’ll still have to wait until the next day to resume traveling. There is no advantage to setting up camp early.
The GM can also abruptly take away the party’s Paces before they’re over because of some special event that would’ve tired the characters out to the point of not being able to travel further, such as exploring a dungeon inside a Hex or fighting powerful enemies.
The hex the party camps in is considered to be Searched without the need of any ability tests, so just give the party the thing they need from the hex they’re resting.
When camping, the group also consumes Rations. Specifically 2 Rations per party member. If a character chooses to forgo these meals, they’ll start the next day with one degree of the Fatigued condition for each Ration not eaten.
In camp each member of the party can choose a number of activities to help the group better prepare for the next day. I’ll list the possible Camp Activities I’ve thought of, but if your players are creative enough they can propose new kinds of activities. Spells with a long casting time or long duration can also be cast freely as a camping activity if it’s gonna help improve camp in some way or will aid the party the next day. And yes, I am blatantly stealing this from Pathfinder 2e and adapting it to FAGE 2e.
Each activity can only be performed by one character, but characters with nothing left to do can “provide aid” to a person who’s doing the actual activity.

Hunt and Gather

You can hunt and gather during camp without spending Paces. The TN for it is also lower: Perception (Tracking) TN 9. But beware that if you trigger an encounter that way, you will be alone unless someone specifically said they’re accompanying you and spending their camp activity that way.

Camouflage Campsite

Make a Dexterity (Stealth) or a Intelligence (Natural Lore) test TN 13 to try to make your campsite less conspicuous. On a success, hostiles will have a -2 penalty on Perception rolls when trying to find and ambush the party.

Cook Basic Meal

Make an Intelligence (Brewing) test TN 11 to try to make Meals out of Rations or Basic Ingredients. Making 1 Meal costs 1 Ration or 1 Basic Ingredient. When a character eats a meal, it counts as if they have eaten 2 Rations. The character who’s cooking can make as many meals as they wish, but these meals have to be eaten immediately, or they’re going to spoil.
Failure may result in the ingredients or rations being wasted, or into the creation of a meal that actually causes food poisoning on the characters that eat it. The decision of which happens could be up to the player, or decided by a secret dice-roll on the GM’s side.
The poisoned meal still counts as 2 Rations, but whoever eats it has to pass a Constitution (Tolerance) test TN 13. Those who fail will start the next day with the Sickened condition, granting them a -2 penalty to all physical ability rolls until the next Total Rest, until they get proper treatment, or until someone casts Cure on them.

Cook Special Meal

If the character has access to a special ingredient that can only be found in the wilderness or very expensive shops - such as Giant Spider Legs, Drake Eggs, Griffin Thighs, Iridescent Rye, etc. - they can make a special meal that provides bonuses to the group bonuses to the next day of adventuring.
In order to do that, though, the character will need not only the ingredients, but an actual recipe. All cooking is done with the Intelligence (Brewing) focus, but each recipe will have it’s own TN, as well as their own special effect in case of failure.
If the GM wants to make this more fun, they can make the cooking roll secret, and only reveal the effects after everyone’s done eating.

Organize Watch

You spend some time optimizing who’s gonna take watch and for how long, how the shifts will turn, as well as placing alarms and traps nearby. This way, if your camp is found by hostiles, you won’t be taken by surprise. No rolls needed.

Provide Aid

You can go help someone else with their activity. You make the same roll as the person who’s doing the activity, and the highest roll is the one that will actually count to determine success. But if the stunt die number is relevant, you will use whichever stunt die rolled highest.

Tell Campfire Story

Make a Communication (Performance) TN 12 test. And choose if you’re going to tell a heroic tale or a spooky story. Success depends on what kind of story you’re telling.
Heroic Tale: When making ability checks for camp activities, the entire party gets a +1 Bonus.
Spooky Story: If the party is attacked during camp, all members get a +1 Initiative bonus.
Failure: Other party members make light fun of you.

Random Encounters

GMs should make their own random encounter tables and decide when it’s appropriate to use them. Or decide not to use them at all. But it’s fun to put arbitrary danger in front of the players if they are actively looking for it. That’s why failing a Hunt & Gather can place them against some aggressive beasties. The players know the risk they’re taking.
So you should at least try to figure out what those beasties are, what’s their habitat, and if they’re really going to be a challenge for the players. And then you can roll or simply choose whichever creature best fits the situation.
If the encounter is against a monster or magical creature, killing the thing should award the party with extra special ingredients to be used in cooking or other cool items. Or maybe sparing the creature could award them in some other way relevant to the story. Like if the pet boar of a hunter who lives nearby attacks the party, if they decide to spare it, said hunter could become thankful for their mercy.
If making them fight a creature doesn’t make sense, you can make them encounter a member of a rival faction. Killing them or parting ways diplomatically could have interesting consequences in the story.
Hostiles attacking the party camp at night can be decided through random encounter tables, but only if that fits the setting you’re playing. Such as if the party is traversing disputed territory in a war and either side could see the camp as an enemy camp. Otherwise, only really try to ambush the party camp if they are being hunted by a specific person or group.