There are two basic, interrelated components that make up the overworld: nodes, which represent the places that player characters will be traveling to, and paths. For every location that is a significant distance away from any other location on the map such that players will have to expend travel resources in order to get there, a new node should be placed. A good rule of thumb is that if players would have to use the travel round rules to get to a new place, then a new node should be made to represent it.
When a new node is placed on the map, at least one path should be drawn connecting it to another node. A path serves as a representation of how to get from one node to the next. There are two primary elements that make up a path: the means by which the players will traverse the path, and how long it will take to travel the entire path from node to node. The basic unit of time for this is the travel round. Each travel round represents one day of travel. Anything less than a day should be represented by a partial travel round instead. Each path should be given a length, which is the number of days it will take to traverse it under ideal conditions. Each path should also be assigned a number between 0 and 10 called the navigation difficulty that represents how perilous it is to traverse it. Each level of navigation difficulty reduces the probability that the players will be able to successfully get where they are going by 10%. The navigation difficulties for a given type of path are shown in the table below.
| Navigation Difficulty | Description |
|---|---|
| 0-2 | Roads with clear guideposts and boundaries. |
| 3-5 | Countryside trails that are well-traveled but not recognizable by people who aren’t local. |
| 6-8 | Forested paths and/or walking trails that are either overgrown or not well-marked. |
| 9 | Completely overgrown and/or unmapped countryside. |
| 10 | Terrain that is hostile or impassable via conventional means–a volcano, a sheer cliff, an icy mountain, etc. |
While traveling, players may encounter enemies or NPCs on the road. In addition to the navigation difficulty, each path is also assigned a danger rating, which is a number between 0 and 5 that determines how likely it is that they will encounter enemies during their journey, with 0 meaning that it won’t happen and 5 meaning that it has a 50% chance of happening.
In Last Odyssey, travel does not occur at random. That is, “free roaming” is technically possible from a roleplaying standpoint, but the mechanics strongly disfavor it as a means for the players to find their destination. When the players want to set out on a journey, they should know at least one of two pieces of knowledge: either where they are trying to go, which is the location of the node, or the road, path, or direction on the map they are traversing, which is the path they will be taking. If they have neither of these, the GM should warn them that the path they take will be much more dangerous than normal, and increase both the danger rating and the navigation difficulty of the path they are taking by 3-5 points above what it would be if they had more knowledge. In addition, a path in Last Odyssey is not necessarily a literal representation of a road. If players do have a clear destination in mind, their “path” could be the path they forge through wild territory using their orienteering skills. In any case, players that take a path to nowhere should eventually end up somewhere. GMs are encouraged to either connect their random paths to already existing but undiscovered nodes in the overworld, or to eventually block their progress with mountains, rivers, or other natural obstacles to keep them from wandering too far from their objective.
When players either visit a new node, discover an interesting landmark, or discover a hidden or otherwise hard-to-reach area, they should earn 1 Discovery XP for doing so. If they manage to reach a node that is well-hidden or very difficult to find, they should earn 5 XP instead.