Time

Missions take time, and time is an intrinsic part of the West Marches campaign style and the Reach itself.

For simplicity's sake, the Reach uses the modern, Gregorian calendar, day namings, months, and so on - we handwave that there are local equivalents and names (And we'll probably express them later) - but it's easy to work with a year we already understand.

Time Advancement:

Time advances in real time within the Reach.

What does that mean?

Time is..today. Now. Right now, in game. IC conversations in Discord happen exactly when they do; parties go on adventures that begin on the day the adventure leaves Landfall. You don't, of course, have to play for four days straight if your jourrney takes four days in the game, but it does mean that characters who return from an adventure will not be available until they return from their journey.

This is a primary reason to actually have more than one character - an extended journey could take one of your personalities offline for a bit of time!

Expediency:

Because the narrative would be utterly incoherent and incomprehensible if two parties actually met in the wilds, we're going to assume that parties never encounter each other directly - even if they're going the same direction at about the same time. The logistics of that would simply be terrifying.