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Expeditions

The Hermit's Toll

A one-log bridge over a gorge, and a hermit who has decided it is his. The toll is strange: he wants a story he has not heard.

Entity ID
hermit
Choices offered
3
Safest option
Offer supplies instead — 85% base
Riskiest option
Cross anyway — 32% base
Can end the run early
No
Energy to mount a ranging
25 (three scenes per run)

Every choice, and exactly what it pays

The odds words are contracts, not atmosphere: safe is 85%, even is 55%, risky is 32%, and every one of those numbers is fixed and tested. Fortune then bends the roll by +4% per point, clamped at ±3 points, so a good early call buys slack later and two disasters make the rest of the road meaner. Nothing here is ever certain: the check is clamped to the 5%–95% band whatever your fortune.

The Hermit's Toll: the three roads out, with base odds and both outcomes.
ChoiceOddsBase chanceOn successOn failure
Tell your best true storyeven55%Food +70, Wood +40, Fortune +1Food -20
Offer supplies insteadsafe85%Food -15, Renown +1, Fortune +1Food -15, Fortune -1
Cross anywayrisky32%Renown +1, Fortune -1Renown -2, Fortune -2

What the chronicle records

Tell your best true story (even, 55%)

Success: He laughs at the part you're least proud of, and shows you a cache 'for guests' — dried fish and good rope. → Food +70, Wood +40, Fortune +1

Failure: 'Heard it.' You detour a half day, composing better stories the whole way down. → Food -20

Offer supplies instead (safe, 85%)

Success: He takes bread and salt, mutters a blessing that may be a curse said kindly, and stands aside. → Food -15, Renown +1, Fortune +1

Failure: He wants the STORY, not the bread. Half a day, the long way. → Food -15, Fortune -1

Cross anyway (risky, 32%)

Success: He's one old man and it's one log. He salutes your nerve, oddly cheerful about it. → Renown +1, Fortune -1

Failure: He knows exactly which end of the log wobbles. You land in the shallows with the taste of moss and humility. → Renown -2, Fortune -2

Fortune, at this scene

The Hermit's Toll: the real chance of each choice once fortune is counted.
ChoiceFortune −3Fortune −1Fortune 0Fortune +1Fortune +3
Tell your best true story43%51%55%59%67%
Offer supplies instead73%81%85%89%95%
Cross anyway20%28%32%36%44%

A ranging draws three scenes from the sixteen, deterministically from its seed, so this encounter can appear at any of the three stops. Guide: Mysteries of the Realm. Index: all 16 encounters · the whole database.

Other encounters: The Flooded Ford · A Watchfire Where None Should Be · The Barrow Door Stands Open · A Caravan in the Ditch · Wolves on the Kill · The Walking Septon · The Abandoned Quarry · An Uninvited Feast · The Cold Beacon · The Smugglers' Cache · A Singer with a Broken Lute · The Feral Orchard · The Mist That Doesn't Lift · The Toll That Isn't · The Night Something Fell

Every figure above is generated from the shipped game code — the same constants and formulas the running game uses — and regenerated whenever the balance changes. Nothing on this page is hand-typed.

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