After journeying along a path, player characters will have accrued injuries, HP and MP damage, and be drained of Supplies, and will need to rest within the boundaries of a settlement. If there are no other options available to the player characters, villages and towns will tolerate people camping on their outskirts so long as they introduce themselves to local authorities and explain their presence. Player characters who do this will undergo a Camping Phase as normal, and can take all of the same actions they can while camping along a path. That being said, there may be consequences for Hunting or Gathering in people’s fields, and GMs should warn players of this if they choose to take these actions. In cities and metropoli, sleeping outside is frowned upon, and will either earn you a beating from the city watch or the local criminal element or get you thrown out of the city in more serious cases. To simulate this, treat the camp as though the player characters were on a path with a danger rating of 10, corresponding to a likelihood of ambush of 50%. Unlike most enemies out in the wild, however, the city guard or local mob will accept surrender for either a bribe of 100 cr or an agreement to not sleep outside again.
Besides camping, players can find free accommodations in settlements that are friendly enough to the presence of outsiders. In villages or towns, this might take the form of sleeping as a guest of the local lord or alderman, or could be as simple as them setting up in someone’s barn. In more populated areas, there are hostels or poorhouses that the players can stay in if they are truly out of money. Enjoying free but simple hospitality means that players will be able to take the Mend, Recover, Explore, and Watch actions as normal. In addition, they will heal HP and MP without needing to spend Supplies as though they had taken both the Shelter and Cook actions as well. Players that are staying in poorhouses will not, except in extreme circumstances, be ambushed during the night. However, there is still the possibility of being stolen from, which is represented by rolling an ambush die with a danger rating of 10 or below. Instead of being ambushed, a “failure” on the ambush die means that the players will be robbed unless one of them is taking the Watch action for either 1d4 items or 2d6 x 10 cr. If the players don’t have that much, they will be robbed of whatever they have left.
The safest option for players to rest in a settled area is to spend the night in a tavern. Most settlements will either have a tavern in town or nearby, although due to the noise and drunkenness they create many village taverns will be situated on the outskirts of the settlement. Taverns serve an important function for travelers, as they are meeting spots for swapping rumors, hiring followers, and exchanging coin. For 1 cr a night per person, they can have a hot meal and a safe room to sleep in. Sleeping in full accommodations (either comfortable ones that are free or in a room at a tavern) for a single night allows player characters to heal themselves to full HP and MP. They cannot take any camping actions apart from the Mend action, and each additional night the players spend in a tavern when they are already at full HP and MP will heal them for 1 injury per night of rest.
In addition to taverns, there are a few other types of accommodations the players may come across in their travels. The first are hospitals, which treat the sick and injured. An effective stay at a hospital will cost 50 cr per resident per day. They will have to spend all day there, and each day they will heal 1d4 + 2 injuries. In addition, more luxurious accommodations, such as at bathhouses or spas, will give players a +1 bonus to one or more of their statistics for staying that lasts until the next time they rest and does not count on the Bonus Tracker. For each bonus to a statistic that staying at a tavern provides to the player characters, the cost of a night’s stay is multiplied by 5. It is also possible that player characters can enjoy certain accommodations for free if they are recipients of the patronage of a local faction or influential person. However, GMs and players should understand that nothing good they receive for “free” comes without strings attached, and that includes hospitality.