Encounters at a Glance: Into the Wild - Biome Books (Scratch & Fold)
Not every journey needs a dragon attack; sometimes a runaway animal, a strange contest, or a lovesick goblin is enough to turn the road to the next adventure into a memorable game session.
The Encounters at a Glance: Into the Wild series includes four separately available encounter volumes for forest, mountain, ocean, and swamp. Each volume offers 25 ready-to-play encounters written specifically for that particular environment. These alternate between combat, small puzzles, exploration, and humorous or roleplay-heavy situations.
All encounters are clearly structured across three pages each. Read-aloud text, sequence of events, game stats, traps, minigames, and additional information are all placed directly together. You can therefore simply open the book and start playing without having to read through the entire adventure beforehand.
Filling journeys with small events
In addition to the detailed encounters, each volume contains 80 short travel events. These are divided into morning, day, evening, and night, ensuring that the time between the major scenes does not remain completely uneventful either.
Perhaps a character wakes up especially well-rested, someone complains about an uncomfortable bedroll, or the group has to chase after an animal that has run off with part of their equipment. The appropriate results are simply rolled with a d20.
Discovery Zones
The Discovery Zones randomly determine which encounter the group will face next. To do this, you first roll and then scratch off the corresponding field.
This keeps the further course of events a surprise even for the game master. These editions are the Scratch-&-Fold version, in which the scratched-off elements remain in the book and can be folded out.
Available biomes
Mountain
This volume contains 25 encounters for mountain passes, remote monasteries, and rocky heights. Among other things, the group might get caught up in a drinking contest at an abbey, flee from rolling boulders, help a goblin with dating, or support the preparations for a spring festival.
Ocean
For journeys on the high seas, along the coast, or beneath the water's surface, this volume offers 25 suitable encounters. These include wreck diving, difficult ship maneuvers, eating contests, and tasks centered around protecting a reef.
Forest
The 25 forest encounters range from classic adventure situations to pleasantly strange problems. Among other things, cats must be rounded up, cooking contests decided, disputes settled, or the consequences of unusual magic dealt with.
Swamp
In the swamp, not only monsters and dangerous mire await. The group can take part in a tea tasting, catch ghosts, calm a petting zoo gone out of control, or commit to a wheelbarrow race.
Product details
- Separately available encounter volumes for forest, mountain, ocean, and swamp
- 25 ready-to-play encounters each
- Mix of combat, exploration, and roleplaying
- 80 thematically fitting travel events each
- 20 events for each time of day: morning, day, evening, and night
- Encounters presented on clear 3-page spreads
- Includes ready-made read-aloud texts
- Info cards with puzzles, minigames, game stats, and traps
- Note sections for tracking the party's progress
- Scratch-off Discovery Zones
- Can be used without prior preparation
- Format: Scratch & Fold
- Language: English
For D&D and other roleplaying games
The books were developed for Dungeons & Dragons 5E, but can also be used with Pathfinder and other pen-and-paper roleplaying games. A color-coded symbol system shows the difficulty of checks at a glance and makes it easier to adapt to different party levels and rules systems.
The separately available Explorer’s Journal expands the series with Pathfinder conversions, additional options for scaling combat, and more than 500 additional travel events.
