Cold Desert

Dry steppe and stony desert far from the sea, scorching in summer and freezing in winter. Saxaul and tough grasses hold the ground, and caravans and herders cross it from well to well.

Over the year it averages 5 °C.

Hear it

By day: Cold Desert (On Patreon, Guardian tier)
In the wind: Desert with Bursts of Wind (On Patreon, Guardian tier)
In a storm: Cold Desert Storm (On Patreon, Guardian tier)
A canyon: Walking in a Desert Canyon (On Patreon, Guardian tier)
Bitter cold: Strong Snowy Wind (On Patreon, Guardian tier)
Crushing heat: Windy Desert (In the album RPG Ambiences Vol. 1)

For the table

Ground: open, about 30 km a day on foot
Seasons: -10 °C in the heart of winter, 22 °C in the heart of summer
Water: scarce
Foraging: poor

Hazards

Bitter cold. Without furs, a fire and shelter at night, the cold numbs, then kills. Frostbite takes fingers and toes first.
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.
Strong wind. Steady wind tires walkers, blows out fires and, on sand or snow, blinds and buries the track.

D&D 5e

Plays as: desert, normal pace at most
Checks: forage: Survival DC 20 · find the way: DC 10 · search: DC 10
Creatures are spotted at: 6d6 × 10 ft

Bitter cold. At −18 °C (0 °F) or colder, anyone exposed makes a DC 10 Constitution save at the end of each hour or gains 1 Exhaustion. Cold resistance passes automatically; sleeping in a bedroll does too, and a blanket gives Advantage.
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.
Strong wind. Disadvantage on ranged weapon attacks; open flames go out and fog clears; a flyer must land at the end of its turn or fall. In a desert it can raise a sandstorm: Disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks.

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): desert, difficult terrain, about 16 km a day at Speed 25
Checks: Subsist: Survival DC 30 · Sense Direction: Survival DC 20
Random encounters: flat check DC 17 each day

Bitter cold. Temperature bands (GM Core p. 95): at 0 °C to −11 °C (mild cold) travellers tire after 4 hours; at −11 °C to −29 °C (severe cold) they also take minor cold damage (1d6 to 2d6) every hour; at −29 °C to −62 °C (extreme cold), every 10 minutes. Cold-weather gear removes severe-cold damage and turns extreme cold into severe. A soaked traveller counts the band one colder.
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).
Strong wind. Wind gives a –1 to –4 penalty to Perception that relies on hearing and to physical ranged attacks, and puts out handheld flames; strong wind can call for Athletics to move, a critical failure pushing back and knocking prone (GM Core p. 95).

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Adventure hooks

A caravan bound for the eastern markets carries silk, tea and an iron box its merchant never lets out of his sight. Wolves have shadowed the caravan for three nights, and they howl only when the box is unloaded.
A herding family’s well has been fouled with a dead dog, and the next well is five days off. They suspect an uncle who wanted their grazing; the uncle is camped at the next well, waiting.
An old seller of saxaul wood knows every well and every grave on the route. He will only guide those who can sit with him through a whole pot of tea without saying a word.
Winter has fallen on the steppe in a single night, and a caravan of a hundred camels is stuck in snow up to their knees. The master offers half the cargo to whoever gets the other half to town alive.

What grows here

Saxaul (tree). A shrub or small tree two to eight metres tall whose leaves are reduced to tiny scales, so that it looks almost leafless. It forms open woods on the sands, dunes and salty soils of the Central Asian deserts, from the Caspian to the Gobi. Its very dense wood, which sinks in water, is the firewood and building timber of the desert peoples, and it is planted to hold the dunes. Gives: Saxaul Wood.