Posted on by Diogo Nogueira

The Primal World of Thaia – Resources and XP for Gold

Resources

One of the main themes of The Primal World of Thaia setting is survival, and to emphasize that, we use two Resources: Food and Water.

Art by Felipe Faria

Food and Water are necessary for any character’s survival, and are used as a form of currency in the sense that almost everything is evaluated in terms of how many units of these resources they are worth.

Food

A unit of Food can be anything from dried meat, dried fruits, a bowl of bone soup, edible mushrooms, or anything else.

  • A PC needs to eat 1 unit of Food per day. Failure to do so forces a Save vs. Death to avoid taking 1d3 points of damage.
  • Usually 3 units of food weighs 10 coins.
  • Animals usually yield 1d6 units of Food per HD if someone spends a turn/HD collecting it, and succeeding in an INT test. In a failure, only half that amount is collected.

For Primal Quest

  • Animals usually yield 1d6 units of Food per Lvl if someone spends a turn/Lvl collecting it, and succeeding in a Mind Test. In a failure, only half that amount is collected.

Water

A unit Water can be collected in the rain, from a river, cactus or whatever other source the PCs can safely drink from.

  • A PC needs to eat 1 unit of Water per day. Failure to do so forces a Save vs. Death to avoid taking 1d6 points of damage.
  • Usually 3 units of Water weighs 10 coins.
  • When looking for Water, a character needs to make an INT test with a penalty according to the environment. Success allows one to find a viable source of water with at least 1d6 units.

For Primal Quest

  • When looking for Water, a character needs to make a Mind Test with the Difficulty determined according to the environment. Success yields Mind + Effect units of Water.

XP for Gold?

As items and treasures are evaluated in terms of their worth in Resources, so will XP will be based on how many units of Resources the PCs bring back to their people.

  • 1 unit worth of Resources brought back to the PC’s people gives 10 XP.
  • Mundane items are exchanged for half their value in XP this way.
  • If in doubt how much units of Resources something is worth, consult the Primal Quest – Essentials booklet for reference. 

Relics, artifacts and other valuable and useful treasure award their full amount of XP for recovering them.

In the next post we will be back with another play report of our Primal Quest campaign in The Primal World of Thaia, an upcoming zine for Old-School Essentials and Primal Quest!