Adventurer’s Guide
Introduction
Skills
TODO
Maybe something here about how Skyline expects you to multiclass? PCs who are only invested in Brave are going to be hobbled, etc.
Brave
Prowler
Forager
Archaeologist
TODO: Introduction
TODO: “Scrounger”? Olin referred to himself as a scrounger.
Strengths of an Archaeologist:
- Understanding the devices of the Old Ones
- Adapting and repurposing technology, both Old One and modern
- Navigating delves, be they Old One facilities, cauldrons, or even just caves
Skills
Weaver
TODO: Introduction
Strengths of a Weaver:
- Negotiation and information gathering
- Deception and spying
- Motivation and inspiration
Travel Speed
Many game systems will have their own rules for overland travel speeds, durations, etc. Refer to your system, or your system adapter, for the appropriate values for your system. The values presented here are broad strokes, and should not be considered hard limits.
Foot Speed
These values presume normal humans with up to light encumbrance.
| Travel Method | mi/h | km/h | mi/day | km/day | Limit | Assumptions |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Walking, on road | 3 mi/h | 5 km/h | 24-30 mi | 40-50 km | 8-10 hr | Clear weather, daytime |
| Walking, off-road | 1.5 mi/h | 2.5 km/h | 12-15 mi | 20-25 km | 8-10 hr | Clear weather, daytime, uneven terrain |
| Running, on road | 6 mi/h | 10 km/h | - | - | 1-3 hr | Clear weather, daytime |
| Sprinting, on road | 12 mi/h | 20 km/h | - | - | 1-5 min | Clear weather, daytime, sure footing |
Walking: Most travel times in Skyline are listed as walking times. Unless specified otherwise, these assume 8 to 10 hours of walking along roads in clear weather for the 8-10 hrs of daylight, stopping for an hour for lunch and other breaks. This gives an effective daily travel distance of 24-30 mi (40-50 km).
Running: Athletic humans can maintain a running pace longer than the 3hr listed above, but it requires training. Maintaining that pace while encumbered requires even more training.
Sprinting: Average humans can maintain a sprint for about 1 minute, or a little shy of a quarter mile. Moderate training in athletic humans can get this to 5 minutes, or about 1 mi (1.6 km). It takes daily, Olympic-level training to get this to an hour.
World Records: The world record for the marathon (26mi/42km) is almost exactly 2 hours, or 13 mi/h (21 km/h). Usain Bolt’s 200m world record almost doubles the pace above, for 20 mi/h (37 km/h), but only for 20 seconds. By the time you get up to the mi/km distance, world record speeds are closer to 16 mi/h (26 km/h). For ultra distance, the 100km record is just over 6 hr, for an average 10 mi/h (16 km/h).
Mounted Speed
For simplicity, all basic machine mounts in Skyline use the same speed and range. This includes Striders, Broadheads, and Chargers. Like horses and humans, Skyline mounts have a range which diminishes with speed — the faster you go, the quicker you wear out. While machine mounts do not tire as horses would, their riders do — humans become just as exhausted after a day of riding as they do with a day of walking.
| Mount Speed | mi/h | km/h | mi/day | km/day | Limits | Assumptions |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Walking, human speed | 3 mi/h | 5 km/h | 24-30 mi | 40-50 km | 8-10 hr | Clear weather, daytime |
| Walking, machine speed | 4.3 mi/h | 7 km/h | 34-43 mi | 56-70 km | 8-10 hr | Clear weather, daytime |
| Walking, off-road | 2 mi/h | 3.2 km/h | 16-20 mi | 26-32 km | 8-10 hr | Clear weather, daytime, uneven terrain |
| Trot, on road | 8 mi/h | 13 km/h | 64-80 mi | 104-130 km | 8-10 hr | Clear weather, daytime, consumes Blaze |
| Trot, off road | 4 mi/h | 6.4 km/h | 32-40 mi | 51-64 km | 8-10 hr | Clear weather, daytime, consumes 3× Blaze |
| Gallop, on road | 24 mi/h | 39 km/h | 192-240 mi | 310-390 km | 8-10 hr | Clear weather, daytime, consumes 3× Blaze |
Walking: While machine mounts can comfortably walk at the 3 mi/h (5 km/h) human pace, they can also walk a little faster, 4.3 mi/h (7 km/h), before they break into a trot. They can sustain this for an entire day without significant effort.
Off-road: Terrain sensors allow machine mounts to make better time off-road than humans: 2 mi/h (3.7 km/h) for machine mounts versus 1.5 mi/h (2 km/h) for humans. Riders should keep an eye on the mount’s Blaze levels — maintaining this speed over rough terrain will start to consume Blaze. Similarly, uphill climbs which would cause a human to get winded will also cause the mount to consume Blaze.
Range: Exhausting mounts occurs in two ways: fuel and wear. For any effort beyond a walk, mounts use Blaze canisters as their fuel source, which will get consumed over time and need to be replaced every 100mi (160km). Faster speeds and rough terrain increase Blaze consumption, reducing this range.
Sustained journeys of several hundred miles, even at a walking pace, break down the body components of mounts, eventually riding the mount into the ground. Unless the mount is repaired for 1 hr for every 100mi (160km) of travel, the mount will degrade to the point of becoming nonfunctional within 500mi (800km). This kind of repair work takes time and focus, so characters can’t do much more than eat a meal at the same time.
In practical terms, this means that without repairs a fresh mount will last ~21hr at a gallop, consuming 15 Blaze canisters in the time it takes to cover that 500mi range.
Reference Distances
Here are some distances between major cities and gates (see Places in the Narrator Guide), and the time in days it takes to make the journey. These distances are via roads and other human-traversable routes, and do not represent straight-line distances.
TODO: /27, /40, /72, /216
| A | B | mi / km | Human Walk | Machine Walk | Trot | Gallop |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All-Mother Mountain | Daytower | 280mi / 450km | 10d | 7d | 4d | 1.3d |
| All-Mother Mountain | Mother’s Heart | 70mi / 110km | 3d | 2d | 1d | 0.3d |
| All-Mother Mountain | Song’s Edge | 620mi / 1000km | 23d | 16d | 9d | 2.9d |
| All-Mother Mountain | Southern Embrace Gate | 70mi / 110km | 3d | 2d | 1d | 0.3d |
| Daytower | Song’s Edge | 620mi / 1000km | 23d | 16d | 9d | 2.9d |
| Deeproot | Meridian | 950mi / 1500km | 35d | 24d | 13d | 4.4d |
| Deeproot | Song’s Edge | 1020mi / 1640km | 38d | 26d | 14d | 4.7d |
| Deeproot | Southern Embrace Gate | 450mi / 720km | 17d | 11d | 6d | 2.1d |
| Deeproot | Tapwash | 430mi / 690km | 16d | 11d | 6d | 2.0d |
| Deeproot | Winter’s Fork | 415mi / 670km | 15d | 10d | 6d | 1.9d |
| Meridian | Daytower | 280mi / 450km | 10d | 7d | 4d | 1.3d |
| Meridian | The Jewel | 240mi / 390km | 9d | 6d | 3d | 1.1d |
| Meridian | Sunfall | 150mi / 240km | 6d | 4d | 2d | 0.7d |
| Song’s Edge | Keener’s Rock | 70mi / 110km | 3d | 2d | 1d | 0.3d |
| Southern Embrace Gate | Winter’s Fork | 34mi / 55km | 1d | 0.8d | 0.5d | 1.4h |
| Tapwash | Winter’s Fork | 100 mi / 161 km | 4d | 2.5d | 4h |
Override Narratives
For tables which enjoy richer storytelling, consider the narrative aspects of performing an override on a machine. Canonically, we know Focus operations do involve an augmented reality user interface: HZD shows young Aloy flipping through menus of options. Her interactions with the Focus as an adult do not show this same level of interaction, though we might believe this is more of a cinematic distinction than functional.
One option for Override narrative might be to take the shorter route: the Focus has a direct neural link and responds to what the wearer intends to happen. This is something of a “Do What I Mean” approach, and lends itself to statements like “I override the Control Pylon” without much detail.
A second option would be to assume that most Focus interactions do have some sort of explicit user interface which doesn’t just read the wearer’s mind. This would make initial tasks far more challenging when they are open-ended:
Your Override Controller connects with the Control Pylon. A huge list of unfamiliar terms scrolls by in front of you. You can read the words, like “Audit Automation” and “Schematic Modeling”, but many of them don’t have an immediately clear meaning. What are you looking for?
This does not inherently mean all tasks become impossible without an Old Ones dictionary. Fundamental software engineering principles would help in many tasks — go to override a Cauldron door, and you’ll probably only be presented with a few options, one of which would probably be clearly labeled as “Door Control”. Sure, you might also see things like “Environmental Logs”, but odds are good you would not see system controls for any other, unrelated part of the facility.
This approach does not mean you’d need to describe user interface actions every time you override a door. Please don’t do that — that would be awful for everyone. Instead, use it when you want to add tension (and maybe some chaos and hilarity) to unfamiliar situations.
Some Skyline story modules use this latter approach when describing actions, by explaining in broad strokes what the character must do with the Focus. Feel free to elide these details if they don’t do anything for you.
Override Keys
It’s never explained in Horizon lore, but Skyline makes some assumptions about how Override operations happen. We know that Corruptors (Scarabs) had components which could “slave enemy robots to its own network”. Skyline refers to this component as a Corruptor Override Controller, or generally just an Override Controller. In HZD we see Aloy grab the water-bottle-sized unit off a downed Corruptor, which then immediately begins interacting with her Focus.
When Aloy went to use the Override Controller on a Strider, she found she already had the ability to control that type of machine. Controlling other machines, however, required her to delve Cauldrons, where the Control Pylons stored some kind of codes for a few machines.
Because “code” is an overloaded term in a world where AI exists, Skyline instead refers to these as override keys. In hand-wavy narrative terms, we presume machines work on cryptographic technologies of the modern world: just like modern computer processors and Internet-enabled devices ship with baked-in-firmware cryptographic keys they will trust, we presume each type of machine has a similar “signing key”. Keeping all your keys in one place would also be horrible operational security, so it would be odd to find more than a small number within each Control Pylon.
In HZD, we saw Aloy’s ability to override machines was retained even after her original Focus was destroyed, implying that the keys are at least stored in the Controller. Skyline leaves a few open questions for the Narrator to decide:
- Where are override keys stored: the Controller, the Focus, or both?
- If they can be stored in the Focus, can they be shared?
- Or, does each Controller have the equivalent of its own signing key, meaning the override keys which are obtained by one Controller would be completely useless for another?
Narrators might also choose to use override keys to hide and progressively reveal areas: “the door here looks newer, and while your Override Controller can interface with it, it lacks something the door needs to open”.
Override vs. Corrupt
Skyline makes a distinction between the Override Controller’s ability to interface with systems and the Corruptor’s ability to control machines. An Override Controller is effectively a set of lock-picks for the front door of any electronic system. Whether the system is a Control Pylon, a door, a machine, or something else electronic and networked, an Override Controller is going to get you access to the system’s network and software.
The security of the system from that point controls what you can do with that access. In the example of Override Keys above, most machines require specific cryptographic keys before you can order them around. An Override Controller might get you access to the machine, but without those keys you can’t control it because it will just ignore your commands.
Corruptor nanites work not unlike some insect parasites with the ability to causing the insect to do things it otherwise would not.
Corruptors take this one step further when it comes to machines: they don’t just interface with the machine’s network, they also send out a nanite swarm to take control of the machine’s individual components. This allows a Corruptor to bypass the software-level key requirement, letting the nanite swarm direct the movements and actions of the machine. This is also why later-generation machines are immune to corruption: HEPHAESTUS adapted to the increasing number of active Corruptors, and added some amount of component-level security to new machines.
Can Daemonic machines truly not be overridden? Or do you just need to find the right keys?
It’s not Horizon canon, but as Aloy did not have a nanite swarm under her control, she could not just take over any machine as a Corruptor would — she needed the overrides (keys). A character with control of a nanite swarm, however? If this is interesting to you, check out the section on Magic in Skyline in the Narrator’s Guide.
Corruption Arrows
The word “corruption” here is a little confusing, as the (green) effect of Corruption Arrows is not the same as the (red) effect of a Corruptor’s nanite swarm. The arrows cause both humans and machines to turn on each other, though the effects may be similar but unrelated. To be clear: this effect does not take control of either machines or humans.
Metalburn makes up the active ingredient in Corruption Arrows, though there is no official Horizon canon for the resource. However, the only sources of Metalburn are old Corruptors and Deathbringers, as well as Corrupted machines. This might imply Metalburn has something to do with nanites, which are present in all.
Skyline leaves the rationale for the effect of Corruption Arrows open as a point of flexibility for Narrators. However, one plausible rationale might be that the Metalburn in the arrows is highly EM-reflective when dispersed, causing various imaging and sensors problems for a machine’s friend-or-foe recognition. The same particles might act as a short-term hallucinogen, focusing on the amygdala in humans, causing them to become overly aggressive.