Narrow Passages     Compared to the average person, adventurers spend an unusual amount of time trying to squeeze through tight spaces. Sometimes this is the price of progress in large ancient ruins, where a narrow maintenance tunnel might be the only practical way forward. Elsewhere, perhaps a daring rescue requires crawling through cramped rubble to reach trapped civilians, or maybe a breaching charge has opened a smaller-than-expected hole in a fortress wall. High DEX, low WGT, some Athletics Abilities, and small inventories can all help an adventurer overcome the challenge of a narrow passage.

Size & Effective AWGT     A narrow passage has a given size, which will usually be apparent upon inspecting the passage. The passage's size describes the highest AWGT at which an unladen character can make it through the passage without a roll. For example, a narrow passage of size 6 can be traversed without a roll by any character of 6 AWGT (before considering inventory). Remember that characters of 20 WGT or less have an AWGT equal to their WGT.

    A character must consider their AWGT to be 1 higher for every 2 occupied carry slots. For example, a character of 6 AWGT who is currently counting 4 slots against their carry factor functions as 8 AWGT for the purposes of narrow passage rules, and can only make it through a passage of size 8 or higher without a roll.

    Soft-bodied creatures count only half their AWGT for the purpose of narrow passage rules (effective AWGT from carry slots is unaffected); this includes Therbolgites. Reanimators count as 1 AWGT when outside of their skeleton. Such rules do not affect the increase from carry slots.

Example Sizes     Sizes of narrow passages will often be determined randomly by the GM, and some are determined randomly as per other rules. But a few more predictable narrow passage sizes are listed here.

    Note that some of the examples are not exactly "narrow." This is because narrow passage rules are also useful to determine whether a large creature - say, a Sylvan's tamed animals - can enter a certain building or ruin. Some zones (such as most building interiors) use large narrow passage rules throughout their entire area for this purpose.

Example
 Narrow Passage Size
Alacrian ventilation tunnel
 4
House window
 10
Standard doorway
 25
Standard hallway or modern house room
 35
Alacrian security door or small ruin room
 70
Large Alacrian hallway or medium ruin room
 120
    Vehicles cannot traverse narrow passages of any size. Whenever any rule would call for a narrow passage size greater than 125, disregard narrow passage rules - the opening is large enough for any creature or land vehicle to move through normally.

Rolls & Failures     To traverse a narrow passage with a size less than your effective narrow passage AWGT, make a narrow passage roll of d12 on DEX. If your effective AWGT is at least 50% greater than the passage's size, 1 Hindrance must be added to the roll, and another 1 Hindrance for every additional 50%. That is, a total of 2 Hindrance for an AWGT that is double the passage's size, 3 Hindrance for 2.5 times size, 4 Hindrance for triple size, and so forth. As a roll on DEX, narrow passage rolls receive Hindrance from Core Injuries. Hand/Arm Injuries do not inflict Hindrance.

    If the roll succeeds, you successfully make it through the narrow passage. If you fail, the GM will compare the amount you failed by to the following chart to determine what happens next:

Failed by:
 Result
1-2
 You get temporarily stuck and waste some time, but are able to free yourself. You are back where you started and may re-attempt the roll.
3-5
 You become stuck in the narrow passage.
Another character may attempt to free you, either by pushing you onward or pulling you back. For a short narrow passage, this may simply be an ally who did not attempt the passage, while a longer passage might require your rescuer to follow you in. If your ally pulls you back, they must roll d6 on STR; if they push you onward, they must roll d20 on STR. Either option requires them to take 2 exhaustion, and takes about 30 seconds. Pushing a large creature adds 1 Hindrance to this roll for every 25 WGT.
If no ally is available to free you, you may re-attempt the narrow passage roll every 15 minutes, but at a cost of 5 exhaustion per attempt. This roll is to return to where you started rather than finish the attempt, and is a simple pass/fail with no differences for margin of failure. Once you arrive back where you started, you may try again.
6-7
 As 3-5 above, except that whenever you are freed (either by an ally or yourself), you must also roll d20 on CON. If failed, you take damage equal to your injury factor; roll d4 to determine whether a Superficial, Core, Hand/Arm (right), or Hand/Arm (left) Injury is received.
8+
 You try, wasting some time, but cannot make any progress. You can re-attempt this narrow passage roll only one more time, and must add 2 Hindrance when you try; this Hindrance is not removed, even if you remove other Hindrance due to dropping inventory.
Time, Length, & Combat    Many narrow passages are short and simple - holes in walls, gaps in rubble, and so forth. Longer passages, such as tunnels or pipes, still only require a single narrow passage roll. Willpower can be used to pass short narrow passage rolls, but not longer ones. Unusual passages - such as a tunnel with many turns - or very long passages may cause the GM to split the ordeal into two rolls, or simply add Hindrance to one.

    Narrow passage rules rarely coincide with combat - if anything, they may be a means of escaping or delaying a fight. If it is necessary to follow combat rules, treat a character in a narrow passage as if they were knocked down, and a character who has become stuck as paralyzed. Unstuck characters must add 4 Hindrance to ranged defense rolls. Entering, moving within, or exiting a narrow passage is always a major action. If it is necessary to determine which character is faster within a narrow passage, compare the margin of how much they succeeded by on their narrow passage roll.

    If a narrow passage's size is at least double a character's effective narrow passage AWGT, it is extremely easy to pass through; a character can move through just as fast as if they were moving normally. If the passage's size is less than double AWGT but at least equal to AWGT, the character can make it through more slowly (2 Hindrance to movement rolls), but still without a narrow passage roll and without counting as knocked down. If the size is less than AWGT and narrow passage rolls are required, progress can be quite slow, normally taking several minutes to cross one zone's worth of distance.

    Characters currently in a narrow passage sufficiently small to require a narrow passage roll cannot make melee attacks with weapons that have the Reach tag, nor with any type of natural weapon other than a Bite.

    In combat situations involving radically diverse AWGTs, some characters may be following narrow passage rules, while others are not. For example, techs might ambush a party making their way through an Alacrian tunnel, and the Sylvan's tyrannosaur might be the only one who finds it rather cramped.

Exhaustion     Narrow passage rolls which are short enough to be valid for Willpower use do not inflict exhaustion. Longer passages may inflict exhaustion, at a suggested rate of 2 per zone's worth of distance. This exhaustion cost applies whether or not the narrow passage roll succeeds, and may be in addition to exhaustion costs from the failure chart. It does not apply to characters who do not need to make a roll.

Passing Items    The carry slots of items on one's hands are not counted against carry factor, and thus do not increase a character's effective narrow passage AWGT. Fitting one's items through a narrow passage is normally a simple matter, unless circumstances are unusual (such as passing polearms through a steeply curved tunnel). If the GM decides it is questionable whether an item can fit through a narrow passage, the carrying character can make a narrow passage roll for the item, using half the item's slots as its effective AWGT.

    If a character wants to pass items though a narrow passage without going through themselves at the same time, this can only be done if the passage is quite short. Otherwise, the items must be carried through by the character.