Quote Originally Posted by Mark Oliva View Post
In your last post, your comment Special surface is also interesting. is particularly germane. I don't think we ever encountered a travel time table anywhere that took into consideration the aa lava beds you showed (Icelandic: Apalhraun) or the more crossable pahoehoe lava fields (Icelandic: Helluhraun) in your comparison.

For our project group, it's great that you posted this, because to make our future Jörðgarð campaign setting accessory The Northeast, which will include Miðgarð, Ásgarð and Tröllheim, it will be necessary to include aa lava beds (Aphalraun) and pahoehoe (Helluhraun) lava fields. We hadn't considered that yet, and perhaps wouldn't have given it proper consideration at all. So your posting already has been helpful.

That poses some questions. I've never walked through an aa lava field (Aphalraun), nor do I known anyone who has, but your photo is impressive. Based upon the picture, I would guess that if a PC party had to cross such a lava field, it would have to leave pack animals and riding horses behind. This doesn't look like the kind of terrain through which one could lead a horse on foot. Is that assumption correct?

I also wonder with what tempo a PC party could cross this lava field. Based only upon the photo, I would guess that a party on foot could cross - at the very most - about 5% of the distance in a given time frame that it could on a flat, level road. You estimate it at 25%. How about saying more about why your figure is so seemingly generous.
The Apalhraun.

Out first variable is the age of the lava. At one time I was walking over to hot lava and the bottoms of my walking shoes began to melt.
As time sets in, moss and other growth will start to form on top of the lava.

Young Apalhraun is sharp and the it will eat up the footwear in only few days, boots that was suppose lo last months if not years. But this is also tempered by the overgrowth.

Near settlements there are paths that have been made in the lava fields, by walking on the same surface repeatedly, the sharpness is dulled down to a point that even horses can be lead on them paths without harm to there feet. Also here toe overgrowth will make it all easier.

The lava is usually relatively flat even if the top layer is fussy and sharp.

There are often ways around young lava on older lava with moss and other good things on top.

Walking on thick moss can be boring as you sink into the soft moss.

So travel speed is dependent upon many factors regarding the age of the AApal-lava