Bleak Forest

Pursuit and Evasion

Use these rules when one party actively chases another. The fleeing party is the quarry; the following party is the pursuer. Track the gap as actual distance and use the smallest map tier that contains it. If positions are known, use the measured gap. Otherwise begin at Far range (50 m) after breaking melee, at the current Encounter-Hex separation after a sighted encounter, or at one Exploration Hex (500 m) when following tracks. A group uses its slowest participating member’s applicable rate; a character may split off and use their own rate.

An Encumbered participant uses walking movement instead.

Sustained running: Combat and Encounter pursuits are short-duration chases. After 10 consecutive running rounds, and after every 10 running rounds thereafter, each participant makes a Corpus save (Difficult 16). On a failure, add 1 Fatigue at the end of the round and use tactical walking movement until the participant spends 1 Tick recovering or the pursuit shifts to a strategic scale. Exploration, Operational, and Overland pursuits use trekking speed and follow the normal active-travel and Forced March rules.

Resolving a Pursuit

1. Choose the route. The quarry chooses the route. At Exploration, Operational, and Overland scales, both parties apply the normal terrain and weather multipliers to trekking speed. At Combat and Encounter scales, do not apply trekking multipliers to tactical movement; instead resolve cover, visibility, obstacles, climbing, swimming, difficult footing, and other local conditions through their normal checks and movement rules. Calculate each party separately if a movement mode, mount, vehicle, path, obstacle, or environmental condition affects only one side.
2. Calculate movement. Determine each party’s distance for the interval from the table above. At strategic scales, start with trekking speed, apply terrain, then weather, then Fatigue and special modifiers. Retain exact fractions while calculating movement and updating the gap; do not round the gap between intervals. When reporting a strategic distance, round to the nearest 0.5 km; when reporting elapsed strategic time, round to the nearest 5 minutes. A gap exactly on a boundary remains in the smaller scale: 31.25 m uses Combat, 500 m uses Encounter, 2 km uses Exploration, and 8 km uses Operational.
3. Update the gap. If the pursuer is faster, subtract the difference between the distances moved. If the quarry is faster, add the difference. Equal rates leave the gap unchanged.
4. Resolve one manoeuvre per side. Use an opposed check: Anima for stealth, misdirection, and awareness; Corpus for forcing pace and physical obstacles; Wits or an appropriate skill for tracking or navigation. Apply the existing Advantage and Disadvantage rules.
5. Change scale. Move to the tier containing the new gap without resetting the distance.

Manoeuvres, Catch, and Escape

• Break contact: A quarry leaving melee makes an Anima save (Average 13). Failure allows each engaged enemy one free attack before movement; the chase still begins if the quarry can move.
• Hide or Lose the Trail: Requires concealment, a broken sightline, confusing tracks, darkness, or visibility no better than Far. The quarry makes an opposed Anima check. A win gains 1 Evasion; a loss removes 1 Evasion, minimum 0.
• Track or Cut Off: The pursuer makes an opposed Wits check against the quarry’s Anima. On a win, remove 1 Evasion and reduce the gap by 10% of the current hex width: 3.125 m at Combat scale, 12.5 m at Encounter scale, 50 m at Exploration scale, 200 m at Operational scale, or 800 m at Overland scale. The gap cannot fall below 0. If this reduction brings the gap to 0, resolve Caught immediately after both sides finish their manoeuvres for the interval.
• Force the Pace: Before movement is calculated, make a Corpus save (Difficult 16). On a success, increase movement for this interval by 25%. On a failure, movement for the current interval is unchanged, and the character adds 1 Fatigue after the gap is updated. Any movement penalty caused by that Fatigue begins with the next interval. At strategic scales, this Fatigue stacks with the normal Forced March rules but does not trigger a second save for the same interval.
• Obstacle: Resolve climbing, swimming, squeezing, or another hazard using its normal check and movement rule. A party that fails does not pass it during that interval.
• Attack: At Encounter or Combat scale, a side with line of sight may attack instead of another manoeuvre. It uses combat movement, not running movement, for that interval.
• Caught: At a gap of 0, begin combat at Close range. The side with the higher movement in the final interval gains Moderate Advantage on the first initiative roll.
• Escaped: Check escape after movement and manoeuvres are resolved for the interval. The quarry escapes if it has accumulated 2 Evasion while beyond Close range. It also escapes with at least 1 Evasion if the updated gap exceeds the current visibility limit and the pursuer has no unobstructed sightline. If the pursuer regains an unobstructed sightline before escape is checked, remove all Evasion. Escape ends the immediate pursuit at the quarry’s updated position.
• Tracks and conditions: Escape ends the immediate chase, not necessarily the hunt. To resume from the last known position, make a Wits check against the terrain’s Forage BAM!. Snow grants Major Advantage; Rain or Downpour imposes Moderate Disadvantage; Fog limits visibility but does not erase tracks. Recalculate rates when terrain, weather, paths, Fatigue, or movement mode changes.
• Long pursuits: Ticks, Marks, and Watches count as active travel for the 8-hour travel day and Forced March. Entering a new sub-hex during an active pursuit increases its Danger Die by 1, as described under Danger Die.

Example: A Base 9 quarry in Forest and Rain moves at 4 × ¾ × ¾ = 2.25 km/h. A Base 6 pursuer on the same route moves at 3 × ¾ × ¾ = 1.6875 km/h. With a 1 km gap, use 10-minute Exploration Ticks. The quarry moves 0.375 km and the pursuer 0.28125 km, increasing the gap by 0.09375 km to 1.09375 km. Retain that exact gap until resolution; use normal rounding only when reporting travel totals.