Blessed Sandy Shore

Sandy Shore
Sandy beach with driftwood on Havelock Island, Andaman Islands · Vyacheslav Argenberg, CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons

Holy ground. Springs heal, wounds close cleanly, and the dead stay in their graves. Travellers wake rested, and the beasts here are calm. Beaches and dunes held together by tough grasses, open to wind and sea. Easy walking at low tide, a landing place for boats, and a place where storms leave strange things behind.

Hear it

For the table

Ground
open, about 30 km a day on foot
Water
scarce
Foraging
rich

Hazards

  • Tides. The sea comes back faster than a walker on the flats. A causeway or a beach crossed at low tide can close behind the party.
  • Healing spring. A spring of very clear, very cold water. Those who drink and wash in it feel their wounds close and their fever drop.
  • Sanctuary ground. No beast attacks inside the old boundary stones, and the dead do not cross them. A camp here is a quiet camp.
  • Pilgrim light. A soft light shows the way at dusk, always toward water and shelter. Those who walk with ill intent do not see it.

D&D 5e

Plays as
coastal, normal pace at most
Checks
forage: Survival DC 10 · find the way: DC 5 · search: DC 15
Creatures are spotted at
2d10 × 10 ft
  • Healing spring. (House rule) A short rest by the spring heals as if each creature had spent one Hit Point Die more, rolled at its maximum. Once a day, its water ends the Poisoned condition.
  • Sanctuary ground. (House rule) Undead and fiends must succeed on a DC 15 Charisma save to enter the boundary. A long rest taken inside removes 1 more Exhaustion level.
  • Pilgrim light. (House rule) While following the light, the party cannot get lost and has Advantage on Survival checks to find water or shelter.

This work includes material from the System Reference Document 5.2.1 ("SRD 5.2.1") by Wizards of the Coast LLC, available at https://www.dndbeyond.com/srd. The SRD 5.2.1 is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode.

Pathfinder Second Edition

Plays as (Pathfinder Second Edition)
plains, open terrain, about 32 km a day at Speed 25
Checks
Subsist: Survival DC 15 · Sense Direction: Survival DC 15
Random encounters
flat check DC 12 each day

This product is licensed under the ORC License located at the Library of Congress at TX 9-307-067 and available online at various locations including paizo.com/orclicense, azoralaw.com/orclicense, and others. All warranties are disclaimed as set forth therein. Attribution: this rules layer is based on the following Licensed Material: Pathfinder Player Core © 2023 Paizo Inc., Designed by Logan Bonner, Jason Bulmahn, Stephen Radney-MacFarland, and Mark Seifter. Authors: Alexander Augunas, Kate Baker, Logan Bonner, Jason Bulmahn, Carlos Cabrera, Calder CaDavid, James Case, Eleanor Ferron, Steven Hammond, Joan Hong, Vanessa Hoskins, James Jacobs, Jenny Jarzabski, Erik Keith, Dustin Knight, Lyz Liddell, Luis Loza, Patchen Mortimer, Dennis Muldoon, Stephen Radney-MacFarland, Mikhail Rekun, David N. Ross, Michael Sayre, Mark Seifter, Kendra Leigh Speedling, Mark Thompson, Clark Valentine, Andrew White, Landon Winkler, and Linda Zayas-Palmer; Pathfinder GM Core © 2023 Paizo Inc., Designed by Logan Bonner and Mark Seifter. Authors: Amirali Attar Olyaee, Logan Bonner, Creighton Broadhurst, Jason Bulmahn, James Case, Jesse Decker, Eleanor Ferron, Fabby Garza Marroquín, Jaym Gates, Matthew Goetz, James Jacobs, Brian R. James, Jenny Jarzabski, Dustin Knight, Jason LeMaitre, Lyz Liddell, Luis Loza, Ron Lundeen, Stephen Radney-MacFarland, David N. Ross, Michael Sayre, Mark Seifter, Owen K.C. Stephens, Amber Stewart, Clark Valentine, Landon Winkler, and Linda Zayas-Palmer; Pathfinder Monster Core © 2024 Paizo Inc., Authors: Alexander Augunas, Dennis Baker, Kate Baker, Joshua Birdsong, Joseph Blomquist, Logan Bonner, Jason Bulmahn, James Case, John Compton, Paris Crenshaw, Adam Daigle, Darrin Drader, Brian Duckwitz, Robert N. Emerson, Scott Fernandez, Eleanor Ferron, Leo Glass, Matthew Goodall, BJ Hensley, Thurston Hillman, Vanessa Hoskins, James Jacobs, Jenny Jarzabski, Miko Kallio, Jason Keeley, Jeff Lee, Lyz Liddell, Luis Loza, Ron Lundeen, Robert G. McCreary, Philippe-Antoine Menard, Jacob W. Michaels, Dave Nelson, Jason Nelson, Tim Nightengale, Stephen Radney-MacFarland, Mikhail Rekun, Patrick Renie, Alex Riggs, David N. Ross, Michael Sayre, Mark Seifter, Chris S. Sims, Amber Stewart, Jeffrey Swank, William Thompson, Jason Tondro, Clark Valentine, Landon Winkler, Tonya Woldridge, and Linda Zayas-Palmer. If you use our Licensed Material in your own published work, please credit us as follows: Biomes, Pathfinder Second Edition rules layer © 2026 Michael Ghelfi. Reserved Material: the names of Biomes and its catalogues, its descriptions, sounds, art and code. Pathfinder is a registered trademark of Paizo Inc.; this site is not published, endorsed, or specifically approved by Paizo Inc.

Crossing it

Besides walking, depending on the era and the season (Biomes estimates of a day’s distance):

  • On horseback: about 45 km a day
  • By camel: about 40 km a day
  • By wagon: about 25 km a day
  • By train: about 500 km a day
  • By airship: about 900 km a day
  • By bush plane: about 800 km a day
  • By 4x4: about 250 km a day
  • By motorcar: about 150 km a day
  • By rover: about 120 km a day
  • By hover sled: about 150 km a day
  • On a flying mount: about 150 km a day
  • By flying carpet: about 100 km a day
  • By bicycle: about 80 km a day
  • By car: about 450 km a day
  • By truck: about 350 km a day
  • By motorbike: about 350 km a day
  • By armoured buggy: about 200 km a day
  • By sand skimmer: about 150 km a day

Adventure hooks

  1. A war band is marching to cross the blessed land, because their wounded heal there in a night. The pilgrims who keep the holy ground want them turned aside, and the war band has never been turned aside.
  2. A man condemned for murder has fled onto the holy ground, where no blood may be shed. He is guilty, and he is the only one who knows where the murdered child’s body lies.
  3. A merchant has bought the rights to bottle the healing water and sell it in town. The bottled water does nothing, and now people come to the source itself, by the thousand.
  4. The blessing is fading, a little each year, and the abbot has kept it secret. A novice has found the reason in the old books: it was a promise, and the land is waiting for it to be kept.
  5. A storm has left a whale on the beach, and three villages claim the meat, the bone and the oil. The lord’s bailiff is a day’s ride away, and he will claim all of it.
  6. Every year turtles come ashore to lay, and every year a merchant buys their eggs for a sauce the court adores. This year the turtles have not come, and the merchant has promised the court its sauce anyway.
  7. A beachcomber has found a sealed bottle holding a love letter in excellent verse, addressed to whoever finds it. He has fallen in love, and wants help finding the poet before the next storm brings him a rival.
  8. The dunes are moving inland, as they always have, and will bury the chapel within the year. The priest wants the old bones in its floor moved first; the villagers would rather move the dunes.

What grows here

  • Cashew (tree). An evergreen tree up to 14 metres from tropical South America, carried round the world by the Portuguese; it wants hot lowlands with a hard dry season and grows on stony thickets and sand dunes by the sea. Each nut hangs under a fleshy cashew apple. Beware the shell: its oil is caustic, kin to poison ivy, and blisters the hands, so nuts are roasted in the shell and cracked with gloves. Gives: Cashew Nuts, Cashew Apple.
  • Coconut Palm (tree). A palm up to 30 m tall that grows wild on sandy, salty tropical shores and coral atolls; its floating nuts drift across the sea, and Austronesian voyagers carried it on their sea voyages. A tree gives up to 75 nuts a year, and fruits for some seventy years. Green nuts hold a drink, ripe ones white flesh, milk and oil; the husk gives coir for ropes and mats, the fronds thatch roofs, and its sap makes palm wine or sugar. Climbers who pick the nuts risk injury or death from falls. Gives: Coconut, Coir, Coconut Frond.
  • Grey Mangrove (tree). A mangrove tree of 3 to 10 m (up to 14 m in the tropics) that sheds salt through its leaves and breathes through pencil-like roots poking out of the mud at low tide. It lines mudflats, sandy shores and estuaries around the Indian Ocean, from East Africa and Arabia to Australia and northern New Zealand, even on desert coasts. Its heavy, durable wood makes poles and boat ribs, and the smoke of the burning wood keeps mosquitoes off. Gives: Grey Mangrove Wood, Grey Mangrove Seedlings.
  • Sea Hibiscus (tree). An evergreen coastal tree of the tropics the world over, on beaches, along rivers and in mangrove forests, tolerant of salt and waterlogging. Its flowers open bright yellow with a deep red heart and turn orange, then red, before they fall at the end of the day. Austronesian voyagers carried it across Southeast Asia and Oceania for its wood and fibre. Gives: Sea Hibiscus Bast, Sea Hibiscus Wood.
  • Stone Pine (tree). A pine usually 12 to 20 m tall whose flat umbrella crown marks Mediterranean coasts from Portugal to Lebanon. It grows in Mediterranean woods and scrub and on coastal sands, and is planted to hold dunes. Its cones take three years to ripen, longer than any other pine, and hold large edible nuts traded since early times. Gives: Pine Nuts, Stone Pine Wood.
  • Salal (shrub). An evergreen shrub of the heather family, 0.4 to 3 m, that carpets the understory of the coastal conifer forests from Alaska to California and forms near impenetrable thickets on dunes, bluffs and forested peat. Its dark blue berries were a major food of coastal peoples, eaten fresh or dried into cakes. Deer and elk browse it in winter, and bears, grouse and squirrels eat the berries. Food of: American Black Bear. Food of: Wapiti. Gives: Salal Berries, Salal Leaves.
  • Sea Buckthorn (shrub). A spiny shrub of 2 to 5 m with silvery leaves and clusters of small orange berries, found from the coasts of Europe to Mongolia and China. It grows on coastal dunes, riverbeds and gravel slopes, in the dry semi-deserts of central Asia and above the tree line in the mountains. The thorns make picking slow; fieldfares and other birds strip the berries in winter. Gives: Sea Buckthorn Berries, Sea Buckthorn Oil.
  • Sea Purslane (shrub). A shrub up to 1 m tall of the sea shores of western and southern Europe and from the Mediterranean to western Asia, with thick, oval, powdery leaves, growing in salt marshes and coastal dunes and usually flooded at high tide. Gives: Sea Purslane Leaves.
  • Aloe Vera (herb). A stemless succulent up to a metre tall from the Hajar Mountains of Oman and the Emirates, now wild in North Africa, Sudan and the Atlantic islands, on desert ground and on coastal sands and rocks. The clear gel of its leaves soothes minor burns, scrapes and insect bites, a skin cure recorded since the fourth millennium BCE. The bitter yellow latex under the leaf skin is a strong laxative; taken by mouth, aloe can bring cramps, and hepatitis if kept up. Gives: Aloe Vera Gel.
  • Glasswort (herb). A small succulent annual, 20 to 30 cm, with jointed stems so full of water they look almost translucent, which gave it the name glasswort, and leaves reduced to scales; it grows in salt marshes, on beaches and among mangroves on most coasts of Europe. Eaten as marsh samphire: young shoots raw in May and June, later boiled in plenty of unsalted water; it tastes of young spinach stems, asparagus or artichoke. Its ash long gave the alkali of glassmakers and soapmakers, and the word alkali comes from the Arabic al-qalyah, 'glasswort ash'. Gives: Marsh Samphire.
  • Rock Samphire (herb). A bushy, fleshy perennial 20 to 50 cm tall, with grey-green succulent leaves that smell of furniture polish and taste hot and peppery, rooted in cliff crevices, on rocky shores and shingle around Europe, North Africa and the Black Sea. Its leaves and stems are pickled in spiced vinegar or eaten fresh in salad; it was also a famine food. Gathering it meant hanging off cliffs, a danger Shakespeare mentions in King Lear, and in the 19th century it went to London in casks of seawater. Gives: Rock Samphire.
  • Sea Beet (herb). A perennial 30 to 80 cm high with dark green, fleshy leaves, growing on sand and pebble beaches, along the drift line of salt marshes, on sea walls, rocks and cliffs, from western Europe to North Africa and southern Asia. Its leaves are good raw or cooked like spinach, hence the name wild spinach. It is the wild ancestor of beetroot, sugar beet and Swiss chard, and Pliny already described it. Gives: Sea Beet Leaves.
  • Sea Kale (herb). A stout perennial up to 75 cm tall, with large fleshy blue-grey leaves like collards and masses of white flowers, growing on shingle and pebbly sand above the high-tide mark, from northern France and Britain to the Baltic and on the Black Sea. Its blanched shoots taste like asparagus with a hint of cabbage; growers forced them under pots heaped with fermenting manure, and in Victorian times a basket of sprouts cost nine pence. The leaves and flower buds are eaten like cabbage or broccoli, the roots, rich in sugar and starch, are cooked, and the plant is now protected in several French departments. Gives: Sea Kale Shoots, Sea Kale Root.
  • Sea Pea (herb). A trailing perennial with stems 50 to 80 cm long, waxy grey-green leaves and purple flowers, growing on sandy or stony seashores across the temperate north and in Argentina, and on lake shores in North America. Its seeds float in seawater for up to five years, which is how it spread around the world. The pods can be eaten, but like other wild peas the seeds can cause lathyrism, a paralysis. Gives: Sea Pea Pods.
  • Marram Grass (grass). A stiff grass up to 1.2 m with sharp rolled leaves, native to the coasts of Europe and North Africa. It holds the sand of beach dunes with long rhizomes and grows upward as sand buries it, which is why it was planted to fix dunes, as in the Landes of Gascony. Where it was introduced, in California, New Zealand and Australia, it has become an invasive weed. Gives: Marram Stem, Marram Rhizome.
  • Common Gulfweed (seaweed). A brown seaweed that never takes root: it floats its whole life on small gas-filled bladders and multiplies by breaking into pieces, forming golden-brown mats that can stretch for kilometres over the Sargasso Sea, the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean and the Gulf Stream. The mats shelter more than a hundred species, among them young sea turtles and crabs, fish and snails found nowhere else; Columbus wrote of great masses of floating weed that hindered his ships. Since 2011 huge rafts have washed ashore up to about a metre deep from Brazil to West Africa; rotting, they give off hydrogen sulfide that makes people ill, and coastal people turn the beached weed into compost and fertiliser.

Animals

Creatures

Also met here

This work includes material from the System Reference Document 5.2.1 ("SRD 5.2.1") by Wizards of the Coast LLC, available at https://www.dndbeyond.com/srd. The SRD 5.2.1 is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode.

To gather

Holy Water Flask, Consecrated Incense Smoke, Angel Perfect Feather, Couatl Tongue, Empyrean Tongue, Pegasus Perfect Feather, Aloe Vera Gel, Arctic Fox Pelt, Cashew Apple, Coconut, Coir, Coconut Frond, Cockles, European Herring Gull Egg, European Herring Gull Feathers, Marsh Samphire, Green Turtle Egg, Grey Mangrove Seedlings, Grey Mangrove Wood, Harbour Seal Blubber, Harbour Seal Pelt, Hawksbill Turtle Egg, Loggerhead Turtle Egg, Loggerhead Turtle Meat, Marram Rhizome, Marram Stem, Dried Neptune Grass, Razor Clams, Rock Samphire, Salal Berries, Salal Leaves, Sea Beet Leaves, Sea Buckthorn Berries, Sea Hibiscus Bast, Sea Hibiscus Wood, Sea Pea Pods, Sea Purslane Leaves, Pine Nuts, Stone Pine Wood, Tangle Stalk, Walrus Blubber, Walrus Hide, African Bush Elephant Hide, Brown Bear Bile, Brown Bear Hide, Cashew Nuts, Coconut Crab Meat, Elephant Ivory Powder, Leatherback Turtle Egg, Leatherback Turtle Oil, Polar Bear Fat, Sea Buckthorn Oil, Sea Kale Root, Sea Kale Shoots, Walrus Ivory, Tortoiseshell, Polar Bear Hide, Sunken Ambergris, Enchanted Salt Pinch, Coral Polyp Dust, Henbane Leaf, Adult Dragon Tonsils, Dragon Tongue, Witch's Eye

The same milieu, otherwise

Sandy Shore, Enchanted Sandy Shore, Dead Sandy Shore

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