Symbaroum Weather

[GrumpyOldAndy]

So, after finishing the first two parts of Chronicle of the Copper Kettle ... erm Crown, the group is taking a break before going onto the third part with a bit of exploring of Davokar.
Given where Davokar is, and to add interest to the exploring, I looked up weather for where Davokar is in the real world, and picked Murmansk as having appropriate weather, and created the following weather table(s).
I now need to work on survival rules for the sub-zero temperatures the party will be going in, and adding in the encumbrance rules from the Advanced Players Guide to limit how much equipment they will be carrying. The premise being that the Forest itself is an enemy, not just the creatures they find in there.

Any thoughts?

[Valyar]

I also finished the Copper Crown chronicle, with two different groups and while the weather was not key, I wanted the journey from south (old Alberetor) to Davokar to start in Winter and while they reach the Malgomor river early spring to start. Since I am from Europe and I love the temperate climate zone for its diversity, I imagine the world of Symbaroum like continental Europe, Nordics to be specific. The four seasons are there and the summer and winter are slightly longer than spring and autumn and the descriptions and images convey this feeling of grandeur.

What I don't understand much is why people use tables for the weather and many other things... What prevents the DM to decide the weather according to the narrative in the most dramatically appropriate way?

[GrumpyOldAndy]

...
Since I am from Europe and I love the temperate climate zone for its diversity, I imagine the world of Symbaroum like continental Europe, Nordics to be specific.
...

I originally thought that it was based in Sweden/Iceland area, but found a map that placed Symbaroum into a real world location. Mostly Northern Russia.
Edit: I suppose I should mention I'm old and use Russia and the USSR interchangeably still when talking about geography.

What I don't understand much is why people use tables for the weather and many other things... What prevents the DM to decide the weather according to the narrative in the most dramatically appropriate way?

Absolutely nothing, if something dramatic is called for, but when travelling and exploring every day, it is very easy to fall into the trap of saying "today is overcast" every morning and the weather then not impacting anything. When exploring, you can make it more atmospheric by having people trudge through wet and muddy terrain, perhaps providing a penalty to VIG rolls in rain, and even if nothing actually happens, the players will be more "on edge" and expecting wolves to leap out at them.

[Valyar]

This placement of Symbaroum on Russia is hilarious! Indeed it looks like perfect fit... Who knows, this might be the intention of the original authors

Tell me, how do you run the exploration sequences?

I tend to narrate periods where nothing happens and the group traverse miles or days through the forest and jump to scenes where something interesting will happen - wolves, spiders, elves or more horrible things. This way the pace is from scene to scene rather than having some forest-crawl and rolling for events each day for example, as in many D&D-based campaigns. I don't think Symbaroum is fit for that, Forbidden Lands is much more appropriate as it is OSR hex-crawling.

[GrumpyOldAndy]

One of the major sources of income for players in Thistle Hold is bringing back items from Davokar to sell. Adventure Pack One presents a chapter on it (pgs 4-11), and the adventure/campaign Symbar Mother of Darkness (pgs 86-100) expands on and gives fairly detailed information and tables on what you can find, . This includes the type of places you can find (ruin, lone statue, cave), different terrain (marshy, hangmans hill, corrupted soil), encounters and events that can happen while exploring.

I created the weather table (and added random terrain tables, random place encounters) because I was drawing at blank at being descriptive/immersive in describing walking through forest looking for things. As a DM I rate my lack of spontaneous descriptive ability as one of my worse faults. These give me something to start with and let me expand as necessary. For my group, I find if I provide a broad outline, the players then fill the details in themselves with only mild prompting, and I get away with having to say, or do very little for 30 minutes while they work themselves up over a suddenly appearing patch of fog. Having a frog leap out at them from the mist is amusing, and makes for a memorable point as they overreact.

This "directionless" wandering also lets me give them an idea of what is in the woods, and that there are things they should really avoid rather than try to fight. The Ogre discovered this after nearly being killed by corruption from blighted creatures, despite taking very little physical damage. One hit killed them, but as he uses berserk, they never missed and with each hit through the armour inflicting 2 points of temporary corruption, it added up quickly. Given he went the melee heavy route and does 1d12+1d6+2d4, (two handed force, berserk, robust, iron fist) most things die in one hit, so he was feeling very overconfident.

Saying that, I do only intend for this to be a recurring interlude before resuming a more plot driven scenario, but it does make for a nice change of pace. IMO.