Burning Mine

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. Shafts and galleries dug by people after ore, coal, salt or stone. Dark, cramped and dangerous, with bad air, flooding and falling rock, and the work of generations in its walls.

Hear it

Lava: Inside a Volcano (In the album RPG Ambiences Vol. 2)
Chamber: Volcano Chamber (On Patreon, Raven tier)
At work: Active Mine (In the album RPG Ambiences Vol. 3)
A mine cart: Slow Minecart in Mine Layer (On Patreon, Raven tier)
The shaft: Mineshaft Elevator (On Patreon, Raven tier)
A collapse: Collapsing Mine (In the album RPG Ambiences Vol. 7)
Darkness: Gloomy Cave (In the album RPG Ambiences Vol. 1)
Bad air: Mineshaft Elevator in Damp Cave (On Patreon, Raven tier)
Rising water: Underground Waterfall (In the album RPG Ambiences Vol. 7)

For the table

Ground: hard going, about 10 km a day on foot
Water: by season
Foraging: nothing

Hazards

Darkness. No daylight at all: every step needs a light, and every light burns out. A party without spare torches or oil is blind.
Bad air. Low pockets of foul or burning air: lamps gutter, then miners faint. Miners carried a flame, later a bird, to tell.
Falling rock. Frost, rain or a careless step bring stones down from above. Scree slides underfoot.
Rising water. Rain outside fills passages within hours. A way in can become a sump.
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: Underdark, normal pace at most
Checks: forage: Survival DC 20 · find the way: DC 10 · search: DC 20
Creatures are spotted at: 2d6 × 10 ft

Darkness. Darkness is Heavily Obscured: a creature trying to see into it is Blinded. Dim light is Lightly Obscured. Darkvision turns darkness into dim light within its range, in shades of grey.
Bad air. A creature that cannot breathe holds its breath for 1 + its Constitution modifier minutes (at least 30 seconds), then gains 1 Exhaustion at the end of each of its turns until it breathes again; that Exhaustion goes once it does.
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): underground, difficult terrain, about 16 km a day at Speed 25
Checks: Subsist: Survival DC 40 · Sense Direction: Survival DC 20

Falling rock. An avalanche, landslide or collapse deals major or massive bludgeoning damage (8d6 to 24d6); a Reflex success halves it and a critical success also avoids burial. Buried creatures take minor damage each minute and are dug out with Athletics (GM Core p. 96).

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

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.
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.
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.
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.
The miners have broken into a gallery nobody dug, its walls smoothed by tools, its floor worn by feet. The owner wants it explored before the men refuse to go back down.
The owner has stopped paying, claiming the vein is worked out. The miners know it is not, and they know he walled up the richest galleries after the collapse, with two of their friends still behind the wall.
A retired miner, nearly blind, wants to go down once more to the place where he first struck the vein. He will find the way only by the sound of the water, and he wants company, not help.
The miners leave bread for the little folk of the mine so they will knock before a roof falls. The new foreman stopped the custom to save money, and now the knocking never stops, at any hour, everywhere.

Creatures

Magma Mephit (a threat to the unwary, Challenge 1/2)
Magmin (a threat to the unwary, Challenge 1/2)
Azer (a fight to fear, Challenge 2)
Hell Hound (a fight to fear, Challenge 3)
Red Dragon (deadly, Challenge 4-24)
Fire Elemental (deadly, Challenge 5)
Salamander (deadly, Challenge 5)
Fire Giant (deadly, Challenge 9)

Also met here

Giant Fire Beetle (harmless, Challenge 0)
Rust Monster (a threat to the unwary, Challenge 1/2)
Xorn (a fight to fear, Challenge 5)

To gather

Obsidian Powder, Ash Lizard Egg, Firenewt Bile, Native Sulfur Crystal, Volcanic Fume, Efreeti Ashes, Salamander Brain, Azer Flame

The same milieu, otherwise

Mine, Corrupted Mine, Haunted Mine, Crystalline Mine, Fungal Mine, Dead Mine, Eldritch Mine, Toxic Mine

Open it in Biomes — MGS Toolbox