Climbing Wintertop Mountain

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From: Allan Henderson (allan@tcrystal.gla.ac.uk)
Date: Tue 23 Nov 1993 - 15:21:13 EET


Good People,

>(Mark Sullivan -- Michigan Library Consortium)

>If it is two kilometers tall it doesn't compare with Wintertop's 12
>(please say it's a typo) kilometers [from p61 of Genertela Book, GoG]. I
>mean just how high *is* the atmosphere? That there middle air must go up
>pretty damn high or those Shakers are breathing with oxygen tanks.

I know that 12Km sounds a lot but Mt. Everest is 8.9Km high and humun beings can climb that without Oxygen in tanks. If life is designed to go up that high (or spends a lot of time acclimatising) then life on earth can live up to 21,000 feet. Nothing else lives at this altitude so there is no need for people to go to this height. In reality the problem of oxygen is normally superceded by the problems of extreme cold, and very high winds.

Which bring me to how to make an adventure of players climbing Wintertop. This is a fantasy world so let the player climb to the top without worrying about oxygen, which they can do very little about. You can quite freely worry them with any of the following above the snow line:

  1. Bedevil them with frost bite. Any extermities encased in metal, or unprotected will take damage for example 0.5 points per hour, until they get warmed up. I estimate that 5 points of damage is worth a finger or toe.
  2. Hurricane force winds. If they attempt to do anything during a storm then excessive application of the knockback rules should see them dig in again.
  3. Impenetrable mists or white outs. The air need not be calm for a pea soup fog to decend on a mountain. If vision is impared then "we go up" is not smart. It is very easy to get lost, and just as easy to find yourself trapped on a spurr from the main mountain.
  4. Got them pinned down for a few days, good. Now spring the "your water is frozen and you're running low on food". Above the tree line there is little or no fuel for fires, so a long cold night is in store. Eating snow for water is not good for you, but it is better than dying of thirst.
  5. Throw in the odd monster at inconvenient times. Sylphs are fun on ridges, and mountain trolls digging into your snow hole are a real scream at night.

Some DM tips for running this :

  1. Check the eqipment lists carefully. Arguements like "But of course I would have brought fur lined waterproof boots" cut no ice with me. In the real world people die every week on mountains because they thought they wouldn't need any fancy equipment.
  2. Make sure that you know who is tied to who at all times. This can make for interesting role playing.
  3. Just when all hope/food/fuel is gone have the players find a snare with a mountain hare in it, or an adventure frozen for decades with a pack of firewood and an ignite matrix. Most of all give them hope, have the clouds part briefly showing them the summit, or a dream of the safe end to the journey.

Movement rates are 3 miles or 2000 feet (650m) of ascent per hour, with no more than 8 hours per day spent moving.

Why would people climb Wintertop ?. I think that religious reasons are best elivation to Runelord, atonement etc. There may be something at the top of Winter top, a temple, a means to enter the hero plane, who knows ?.

>STEVEG@ARC.UG.EDS.COM (Steve Gilham)
>impressive than the little hills dotting the British Isles.

Steve you can come climbing with me some day in the Scottish mountains. As they say "size isn't everything") 

	Bye Y'all
	       	 Allan Henderson

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