Standard expedition: 1 Cartographer outside direct combat, 4 fighters, 1 Porter.
Food, water, equipment, carrying capacity and salvage are central. Inventory creates tension between resources needed to continue and space available for profitable salvage.
Amended D-302 Food matters so much because the Tower feeds almost nobody: few plants grow there and most creatures are inedible. What an expedition eats, it carried up.
Expeditions may take years or decades. Generational transition can be implied rather than explained—for example by a changed Cartographer portrait. Amended D-064 "The Cartographer" is the persistent player identity and its knowledge; the person may change, with no death, heir or dynasty mechanics.
Return routes and shortcuts are Cartographer knowledge. Retreat is assumed to return the Cartographer safely.
Death is common but meaningful. A wipe damages reputation. Lost equipment/material becomes a recovery objective represented by a cairn. Dead expedition members may reanimate around it. A presumed dead person may occasionally have survived.