Burning Mediterranean Scrub

Mediterranean Scrub
Sten Porse, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons

Fire has taken the land and will not let go. Volcanoes smoke on the horizon, lava runs in the cracks and ash falls like grey snow. The ground is warm underfoot, and at night the hills glow red. Dry hills of fragrant shrubs, olive and cork oak, with mild wet winters and hot dry summers. Rosemary and thyme grow wild, fires come in late summer, and the land has been farmed for thousands of years.

Over the year it averages 16 °C.

Hear it

For the table

Ground
rough, about 20 km a day on foot
Seasons
10 °C in the heart of winter, 24 °C in the heart of summer
Water
by season
Foraging
poor

Hazards

  • Crushing heat. At midday the heat wears a walker down far faster than the road. Those who know the land travel at dawn and dusk and rest in the shade.
  • Thirst. Water is far apart and not always where the map says. A day without drinking in the heat is enough to put a traveller down.
  • Wildfire. In the dry season, grass and scrub burn fast, driven by the wind. A fire front outruns a person on foot.
  • Searing air. The heat rises from the ground as much as it falls from the sun, and it does not ease at night.
  • Ember rain. Gusts carry glowing embers and hot ash. Cloth, hair and dry packs catch at a touch.
  • Crusted lava. A black crust over a river of lava looks like any other rock until it cracks.

D&D 5e

Plays as
hill, normal pace at most
Checks
forage: Survival DC 15 · find the way: DC 10 · search: DC 15
Creatures are spotted at
2d10 × 10 ft
  • Crushing heat. At 38 °C (100 °F) or hotter, anyone exposed without drinkable water makes a Constitution save at the end of each hour, DC 5 then 1 higher each hour, or gains 1 Exhaustion. Medium or heavy armour gives Disadvantage; fire resistance passes automatically.
  • Thirst. Each Medium creature needs about 4 litres (1 gallon) of water a day. Drinking less than half of it brings 1 Exhaustion at the end of the day, which does not go until a full day's water is drunk.
  • Searing air. At 38 °C (100 °F) or hotter, a creature exposed without drinkable water makes a Constitution save at the end of each hour, DC 5 and then 1 higher each hour, or gains 1 Exhaustion level. Medium or Heavy armor gives Disadvantage; Fire resistance or immunity passes automatically.
  • Ember rain. A creature on fire takes 1d4 Fire damage at the start of each of its turns. It can spend an action dropping Prone and rolling to put itself out; dousing, plunging into a liquid or smothering the flames does it too.
  • Crusted lava. (House rule) A DC 14 Wisdom (Survival) check spots a crust before the party crosses it. A creature that breaks through makes a DC 13 Dexterity save, taking 6d10 Fire damage on a failure, or 2d10 on a success as it scrambles out.

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)
mountain, difficult terrain, about 16 km a day at Speed 25
Checks
Subsist: Survival DC 15 · Sense Direction: Survival DC 15
Random encounters
flat check DC 16 each day
  • Crushing heat. Temperature bands (GM Core p. 95): from 35 °C (mild heat) travellers tire after 4 hours; from 41 °C (severe heat) they take minor fire damage (1d6 to 2d6) every hour; from 46 °C (extreme heat), every 10 minutes. In high humidity the mild and severe thresholds are about 8 °C lower.
  • Thirst. Without enough water a creature is fatigued; after its Constitution modifier + 1 days without drinking it takes 1d4 damage an hour, which cannot be healed until it drinks (GM Core p. 43).
  • Wildfire. A wildfire front advances up to about 20 m a round in forest, twice that on plains; flames are hazardous terrain (moderate damage, 4d6 to 6d6, plus persistent fire), smoke works like fog and can suffocate (GM Core p. 97).

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.

Adventure hooks

  1. A glassblower wants an escort into the burning land, where sand fused by the lava keeps the last voice it heard before it cooled. She is looking for the piece that holds her brother’s, who died the night the fire came.
  2. Two villages on either side of the fire have quarrelled for generations over whose fault it is, and each hires the party, separately, to prove it was the other. Both are wrong: it was an old goatherd’s wish, made in a temper fifty years ago, and he is still alive and still rather proud of it.
  3. Under the ash lies a town buried in a single night, its people still seated at table. In one house a lamp burns: a clerk has spent eleven years keeping the dead town’s ledgers in perfect order, and he does not want to be rescued.
  4. A fire priest pays handsomely for an escort to the heart of the burning, where he means to ask the fire to go out. On the way the party notices that he never sweats, and that the fire seems to be following him rather than the other way round.
  5. A family’s olive grove is older than the town, and the new magistrate has claimed it for a road. The trees go at the next new moon, unless someone finds the old boundary stone that proves the grant.
  6. A fire has started in the late-summer hills and everyone knows who set it. Proving it is harder, because the man is also the only one in the village with a water cart, and he is out there saving houses.
  7. A beekeeper’s honey has always tasted of rosemary and thyme; since spring it tastes of wine. He wants to know where his bees are going, and he suspects the abbey cellar.
  8. Cork strippers peeling an old cork oak found a face carved into the trunk beneath the bark, years ago by the look of it. It is the face of the oldest stripper, and he will not go back to the grove.

What grows here

  • Cork Oak (tree). A medium evergreen oak, ten to fifteen metres tall, wrapped in a thick, cracked bark of cork. It grows in the coastal lands of the western Mediterranean, from Portugal and Spain to Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, in open woodland on well-drained soils. The cork is peeled from the trunk every nine to twelve years without killing the tree, and its acorns fatten pigs. Gives: Cork.
  • Olive (tree). An evergreen tree about ten metres tall with a gnarled, twisted trunk, grey bark and narrow leaves, grey-green above and whitish below. It has been grown around the Mediterranean for six to eight thousand years and likes sunny limestone slopes and coasts. Most of the crop is pressed for oil, the rest cured as table olives, and the dense wood is turned into small objects. Gives: Olives, Olive Wood.
  • Sweet Chestnut (tree). A large deciduous tree of southern Europe and Anatolia, with a deeply furrowed bark and spiny husks that hold the nuts. It was planted widely across western and central Europe from the Middle Ages, both for its nuts, a staple ground into flour, roasted or boiled, and for coppice wood. The tannin-rich wood resists rot and makes posts, fencing, barrels and roof beams. Gives: Sweet Chestnuts, Chestnut Wood.
  • Rosemary (shrub). An aromatic evergreen shrub of the mint family, up to about two metres tall, with needle-like leaves and small white, pink or blue flowers. It is native to the Mediterranean and grows best near the coast, enduring drought. Its leaves season food and give an oil used in perfume, and the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans held it sacred. Gives: Rosemary Sprig.
  • Common Wormwood (herb). An aromatic perennial of North Africa and temperate Eurasia with small pale yellow flower heads, growing wild on dry uncultivated ground, rocky slopes and field edges. Its herb is intensely bitter and most forms contain thujone. It flavours absinthe and vermouth, once bittered farmhouse beer in place of hops, and was long given as a remedy against intestinal worms. Gives: Wormwood Sprig.

Animals

Kept here

  • Cattle (can wound or kill, in herds, by day)
  • Goat (dangerous if cornered, in herds, by day)
  • Sheep (dangerous if cornered, in flocks, by day)

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

Obsidian Powder, Ash Lizard Egg, Firenewt Bile, Native Sulfur Crystal, Volcanic Fume, Efreeti Ashes, Salamander Brain, Azer Flame, Beeswax Block, Cattle Fat, Cattle Hide, Cow Milk, Cork, European Rabbit Skin, Goat Hide, Goat Milk, Goat Wool, Grey Wolf Pelt, Honey Comb, Olives, Olive Wood, Rosemary Sprig, Sheep Hide, Sheep Milk, Sheep Wool, Sweet Chestnuts, Chestnut Wood, Brown Bear Bile, Brown Bear Hide, Crystallized Honey, Golden Eagle Feather, Wormwood Sprig, Agave Leaf, Amaranth Seed, Beetle Wing, Garlic Clove, Hemlock Stem, Mandrake Root, Poppy Petal, Rue Sprig, Snake Venom, Vervain Leaves, Alchemical Resin, Treated Dragon's Blood Resin, Dragonblood Sap, Enchanted Sugar Pinch, Eucalyptus Leaf, Henbane Leaf, Opium Extract, Pomegranate Wine, Concentrated Venom, First Morning Dew, Lightning Strike Ash

Beneath

Near the surface the rock keeps the year's mean warmth, without seasons; it warms as one goes down.

At the surface
16 °C
100 m
19 °C
500 m
30 °C
1 km
44 °C
3 km
99 °C

A town here

How large a town this land can feed, what it makes and what it must buy. Build it in Hearth

The same milieu, otherwise

Mediterranean Scrub, Blessed Mediterranean Scrub, Enchanted Mediterranean Scrub

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