¶ Treasure Maps
"Gold lies hidden in the bones of the earth. Only those with patience, wit, and a steady hand may unearth the wealth of ages past."
Across Narumer, adventurers sometimes come across treasure maps. These fragile parchments lead to long-buried hoards, but they are never simple and never direct. Each reading of the map uses up a little of it, and when it is spent, it crumbles to dust.
New to treasure maps? Use the map to get a hint, travel the way it points, and use it again. When you are close enough, a patch of disturbed earth appears at your feet. Use a shovel on it to dig up the chest.
¶ Overview
| Topic | In short |
|---|---|
| Reading the map | Each use tells you how many areas away the treasure is, or which way to go |
| Map tiers | The colour of the map's name shows how far the treasure is and how rich it is |
| Saving charges | Survival and Knowledge: History can stop a use from costing a charge |
| Digging it up | Use a shovel on the earth, then loot the chest within 5 minutes |
| Persistence | What survives a server reset and what doesn't |
¶ Reading the Map
Use the map from your inventory. Each use costs one charge (unless your skills save it, see Saving charges) and gives you a hint based on where you are standing:
| Where you are | What the map tells you |
|---|---|
| Another area | How many areas away the treasure is, counting the shortest route. Hidden paths count too. |
| No route from here | That you can't make heads or tails of the map from where you are. Try again from somewhere else. |
| The right area | Which direction the treasure lies from you. |
| Within 5 metres | That you have found it. The map is used up, a patch of disturbed earth appears at your feet, and you gain a little exploration XP. |
- The map keeps notes. Every distance reading is written into the map's description, with the area you read it from, so you can look back at where you've been.
- Treasure is always buried outdoors, in natural, above-ground wilderness.
- Each map starts with 6 to 16 charges, rolled when it is first found. When the charges run out, the map crumbles, whether or not the treasure was found.
Tip: you don't need to read the map in every area. Travel a few areas in the direction you think is right, then read it again and compare the distance with your notes.
¶ Why Maps Work This Way
Treasure maps are not magical dowsing rods that point unerringly to gold. They are the relics of other hands, often crude and unreliable.
- Many were drawn decades ago, some more than fifty years in the past.
- Their makers might have been goblins, orcs or bugbears, or desperate humans scribbling with a piece of charcoal.
- Their cartography is imprecise and flawed: strange symbols, half-remembered landmarks, and directions based on things that may no longer exist.
Each use of the map is your attempt to get your bearings from these crude instructions: lining up the half-rotted parchment with the real world and trying to make sense of its sketches, notes and faded trails. That is why maps have limited uses. They are fragile guides to secrets that might otherwise have been lost forever.
¶ Map Tiers
A map's tier is set when it is first picked up, by how far the treasure is from that spot. The further away it is, the richer the hoard. You can tell a map's tier by the colour of its name:
| Tier | Name colour | Distance when found | Reward |
|---|---|---|---|
| Common | Green | Up to 7 areas | A modest hoard |
| Uncommon | Blue | 8 to 10 areas | A better hoard |
| Rare | Purple | 11 to 14 areas | A rich hoard, with more and rarer magic items |
| Legendary | Orange | 15 or more areas | The richest hoard |
Every tier starts with the same range of charges (6 to 16), so the further the treasure, the more carefully you need to spend them. A green map can be read freely; an orange one will need some real thinking.
The balance is intentional. Common maps give you breathing room, while rare maps offer high risk and high reward.
¶ Saving Charges
Reading a map isn't just guesswork. Each time you use one, your character makes two skill rolls:
Save chance (%) = (d20 + Survival + d20 + Knowledge: History) / 2
A d100 is then rolled. If it is at or under your save chance, no charge is used this time. Both rolls are shown to you.
- Being untrained in either skill gives -5 to that roll.
- Skilled, well-read characters make a map last noticeably longer.
¶ Digging It Up
When the map finds the treasure, a patch of disturbed earth appears where you stand. To dig it up:
- Use a shovel on the earth. Other digging tools work too, but take about twice as long.
- Your character digs for around 10 seconds with a shovel. Digging wears the tool.
- A Buried Chest appears beside the hole. Loot it quickly: it disappears after 5 minutes.
The person who digs gains exploration XP; higher tiers give more. If more than six player characters are in the area, the XP is greatly reduced.
¶ Persistence
| Thing | Survives a server reset? |
|---|---|
| The map (and its notes) | Yes. Carry on your hunt over as many sessions as you like, as long as the area still exists. |
| The disturbed earth | No. It lasts until the next reset. |
| The Buried Chest | No. It lasts 5 minutes. |
Dig as soon as you find it. The map is used up the moment it reveals the disturbed earth, and the earth is gone after a reset. Don't find a treasure just before the server restarts and leave it for later.