Following is the introduction to the section on Encounters in Skirmisher Publishing's Swords of Kos Fantasy Campaign Setting! On the most recent episode of the “d-Infinity Live!” show, “The Road Goes Ever On,” we  talked enough about random encounters and the relationship to travel in general, and I mentioned the Kos milieu a number of times in particular, and I therefore wanted to share some of the pertinent material that appears in it.

 

As characters explore Kos and, ultimately, the islands and countries that lie beyond it throughout the Mediterranean and the lands of Europe, Asia, Africa, and other places, they will encounter, sometimes completely by chance, all sorts of characters, creatures, and conditions. Some will simply be the mundane inhabitants of those places going about their daily business, unaware of or uninterested in the concerns of the characters. Others may be more peculiar in nature or take an interest in the adventurers based on anything from friendliness to malice to simple curiosity. Storytellers should not assume, in any event, that every encounter between characters and others, or even most of them, needs to result in violence, even in the case of creatures that are more-or-less malicious. Harpies, for example, might relish waking characters with their horrible shrieking, but not have any desire to actually attack them; large beings like giants might not deign to even notice characters or to want to interact with them in any way; and local military patrols might simply want to determine whether strangers pose any sort of a threat.