Corrupted Temperate Forest

Temperate Forest
Fagus pudica, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons

Nature here has gone sick. Water runs tainted, plants grow in wrong shapes, and the animals are diseased or worse. Whatever lives here eats what it should not. Oak, beech and hazel woods with four clear seasons, green in summer and bare in winter. It is the forest of most old tales: easy to live from, easy to get lost in, and full of game.

Over the year it averages 10 °C.

Hear it

For the table

Ground
rough, about 20 km a day on foot
Seasons
1 °C in the heart of winter, 19 °C in the heart of summer
Water
plentiful
Foraging
fair

Hazards

  • Getting lost. Under the trees, in the dunes or in the dark, every direction looks alike. Without a guide or a sure landmark, a party walks in circles.
  • Tainted water. The water has a film on it and a sweet smell. Boiling does not make it safe; only clean water carried in does.
  • Grasping growth. Roots and vines that move when nobody looks. They close around an ankle while the party rests.
  • Wound rot. Here even a scratch goes black at the edges in a day. Clean cloth and strong drink are worth more than gold.

D&D 5e

Plays as
forest, normal pace at most
Checks
forage: Survival DC 10 · find the way: DC 15 · search: DC 15
Creatures are spotted at
2d8 × 10 ft
  • Tainted water. (House rule) Whoever drinks it makes a DC 13 Constitution save: on a failure, the Poisoned condition until the next long rest and 1 Exhaustion. Purify Food and Drink makes it safe.
  • Grasping growth. (House rule) A creature resting on the ground makes a DC 12 Dexterity save or has the Restrained condition; escaping takes a DC 12 Strength (Athletics) check or 10 slashing damage dealt to the growth.
  • Wound rot. (House rule) A creature that took piercing or slashing damage today makes a DC 12 Constitution save at the end of the day, or regains only half the hit points from its next long rest. A healer's kit used on it gives Advantage.

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)
forest, difficult terrain, about 16 km a day at Speed 25
Checks
Subsist: Survival DC 10 · Sense Direction: Survival DC 15
Random encounters
flat check DC 14 each day
  • Getting lost. Sense Direction (Player Core p. 246): a Survival check once a day, –2 without a compass; DC 15 in ordinary wild land, 20 in deep forest or underground, 30 in a featureless desert. Getting lost has no fixed penalty: the GM decides where the party ends up.

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.

A scene

  • Treant Forest. The canopy is cathedral-high. There is no sky here, only a dappled mosaic of branches, leaves, and wounded memory. The trees themselves are enormous, bark like armour, roots like buried fists, savagely grasping the earth. They do not move. But their guardians do. The treant forest watches you; it remembers; it broods. Shadows and other servants stalk and silence trespassers. What are you? How long before the forest decides? The full generator on the blog
  • Forest River. The trail weaves alongside the forest river. Sunlight filters through the canopy in golden shafts; somewhere nearby is the gentle flow of water over stones. A bird calls out for its mate. Is this forest as tranquil as it seems? The full generator on the blog

Adventure hooks

  1. A herbalist wants a sample of the sick plants to find a cure. Every sample taken out of the land rots within the hour, unless it is carried by someone who is already sick.
  2. The corruption started at a single spring, and a local lord has paid a priest to say it started elsewhere. The priest is dying of it, and wants to confess before he goes.
  3. A beast of the land has gone strange: a deer with too many legs that is gentle, follows travellers and seems to want help. Following it leads toward the heart of the sickness.
  4. A family that lives on the edge of the corrupted land has learned to eat its plants without falling ill. They will not share the secret, which is that they are no longer entirely human.
  5. Two villages share one swineherd, who drives their pigs under the oaks every autumn to fatten on acorns. This year he came back with one pig too many, and nobody will admit it is theirs.
  6. A charcoal burner found a white hart in his snare and let it go. The lord’s huntsmen are now looking for whoever freed the beast the lord had promised to a royal guest, and they are starting with his hut.
  7. The village says wolves took a child last winter and wants the old she-wolf in the hollow beech killed. The child’s mother says it was no wolf, and she has stopped speaking to her husband.
  8. A woodcutter has lost his way three times this month on a path he has walked for thirty years. His wife hires the party to chalk the trees along it; on the third morning there are chalk marks on trees they never touched.

What grows here

  • Common Yew (tree). A slow-growing evergreen conifer of Europe, North Africa and western Asia with flat dark needles and a red fleshy aril around each seed, often found in the shade of broadleaf woods and on limestone slopes and cliff edges. Every part except the red aril is poisonous, and livestock die of it. Its springy wood made the medieval longbow, and the trade in bowstaves felled it almost to extinction across much of Europe. Gives: Yew Bowstave, Yew Needles.
  • European Beech (tree). A tall deciduous tree with smooth silvery-grey bark that casts deep shade and dominates many forests from southern Scandinavia to the Mediterranean mountains, wherever the air is humid and the soil drains well. Its triangular nuts, the beechmast, fed pigs in the forest and people in lean years, and were pressed for cooking and lamp oil. The fine, even-grained wood is made into furniture, flooring, veneer and charcoal. Food of: Wild Boar. Food of: European Badger. Gives: Beechmast, Beech Wood.
  • Pedunculate Oak (tree). A large, long-lived deciduous oak of Europe and western Asia with thick, deeply fissured bark and acorns hung in clusters on long stalks. It forms dominant stands in lowland forests and wood pasture and tolerates occasional flooding. Its hard, durable heartwood went into houses, ships, furniture and barrels, its bark tanned leather, its acorns fattened pigs, and the galls that wasps raise on oaks gave Europe its iron gall ink. Food of: Wild Boar. Gives: Pedunculate Oak Acorns, Oak Tanbark, Oak Timber.
  • Silver Birch (tree). A slender tree of 15 to 25 m with white peeling bark and drooping twigs, native from Europe across Siberia, a pioneer of bare and burnt ground on dry acid soils. Its pale wood made furniture, skis and utensils, its spring sap was drunk fresh or made into syrup and wine, and its bark was distilled into tar and used for tanning. Host of: Chaga. Gives: Silver Birch Bark, Silver Birch Sap, Silver Birch 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.
  • White Willow (tree). A fast-growing, short-lived willow of Europe, western and central Asia and North Africa, named for the silky white hairs under its narrow leaves, that grows along riverbanks, in wetlands and on floodplains. It is often pollarded for its long flexible shoots, the withies, woven into baskets. Its bark held salicin, the compound from which salicylic acid was first separated, and once tanned leather; its light, tough wood makes cricket bats and small woodwork. Gives: Willow Withies, White Willow Wood, Willow Bark.
  • Black Elder (shrub). A fast-growing deciduous shrub or small tree of Europe, western Asia and North Africa with pinnate leaves, flat sprays of scented ivory flowers in early summer and drooping clusters of black berries in autumn. It favours open, nutrient-rich ground: woodland edges, hedgerows, scrub and riverbanks. The flowers make cordials and the cooked berries jam, soup and wine, while the raw berries, leaves and bark are poisonous. Food of: Sheep. Gives: Elder Flower, Elderberries.
  • Common Hazel (shrub). A many-stemmed shrub or small tree of Europe and western Asia, three to eight metres tall, that grows in the understorey of mixed broadleaf woods and in hedgerows. Its yellow catkins open before the leaves, and its round nuts ripen in autumn. People ate the nuts and cut the coppice poles for wattle-and-daub walls, fencing and baskets. Gives: Hazelnuts, Hazel Rods.
  • Common Heather (shrub). A low evergreen undershrub of Europe, under sixty centimetres, with tiny scale leaves and mauve flowers from July to September, the dominant plant of most European heath and moorland, also found on bogs and in acidic pine and oak woods. Grazing and light burning keep the moors in heather, and sheep and grouse feed on it. It dyed wool yellow, tanned leather, bound besoms, flavoured medieval ale before hops, and still gives a prized honey. Food of: Sheep. Food of: Willow Ptarmigan. Gives: Heather Tops.
  • Common Juniper (shrub). A shrub or small conifer of very variable shape, with needles in whorls of three and berry-like cones that take eighteen months to ripen to purple-black. It has the widest range of any woody plant, around the cool north of the world from the Arctic southwards, on heaths, mountains, tundra and in open forest. Its berries flavour gin, beer and meat, and its fragrant wood made dairy vessels in Scandinavia. Gives: Treated Juniper Berry, Juniper Wood.

Animals

Kept here

  • Cattle (can wound or kill, in herds, by day)
  • Goat (dangerous if cornered, in herds, by day)
  • Horse (dangerous if cornered, in herds, at dawn and dusk)
  • Sheep (dangerous if cornered, in flocks, by day)
  • Silkworm (harmless, in colonies, day and night)

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

Sibriex Bile, Bat Guano, Beeswax Block, Elderberries, Boar Perfect Tusks, Cattle Fat, Cattle Hide, Cow Milk, Common Adder Fat, Hazelnuts, Hazel Rods, Heather Tops, Juniper Wood, Eagle Eye, Elder Flower, European Badger Hair, European Badger Skin, Beechmast, Beech Wood, European Rabbit Skin, Goat Hide, Goat Wool, Grey Wolf Pelt, Honey Comb, Horsehair, Moose Hide, Oak Tanbark, Pedunculate Oak Acorns, Oak Timber, Red Deer Antler, Red Deer Hide, Red Fox Pelt, Sheep Hide, Sheep Milk, Sheep Wool, Silkworm Pupa, Silk, Silver Birch Bark, Silver Birch Sap, Silver Birch Wood, Sweet Chestnuts, Chestnut Wood, Treated Juniper Berry, Western Honey Bee Propolis, Willow Withies, White Willow Wood, Wild Boar Bristles, Willow Bark, Brown Bear Bile, Brown Bear Hide, Common Adder Venom, Yew Needles, Yew Bowstave, Crystallized Honey, Doe Muzzle, Eurasian Lynx Pelt, European Bison Hide, European Bison Horn, Golden Eagle Feather, Sable Pelt, Tiger Bone, Tiger Pelt, Aconite Branch, Activated Charcoal, Handful of Almonds, Beetle Wing, Boggle Oil, Bugbear Tooth, Datura Leaf, Fire Beetle Glands, Fly Agaric, Frog Lung, Garlic Clove, Giant Hyena Blood, Giant Mosquito Wing, Hemlock Stem, Lavender Stem, Monkey Heart, Orchid Flower, Panther Paws, Poppy Petal, Snake Venom, Valerian Root, Vervain Leaves, White Myrtle Petals, Wolf Aloe Leaf, Worg Tongue, Alchemical Resin, Amber Tears, Balisse Berry, Blessed Rowan Sprig, Broom Pod, Centennial Ginkgo Living Leaf, Chervil Leaf, Deadly Nightshade Root, Elf Ear, Ettercap Mandible, Eucalyptus Leaf, Four-Leaf Clover, Foxglove Flower, Giant Spider Perfect Eye, Grung Venom, Henbane Leaf, Nightshade Berry, Owlbear Beak, Pitcher Plant Nectar, Potassium Powder, Satyr Heart, Spring Eladrin Pollen, Summer Eladrin Ember, Sundew Tentacle, Thistle Flower, Thuja Sap, Warrior Turtle Shell, Truffle Shaving, Will-o'-Wisp Spark, Autumn Eladrin Leaf, Barghest Fang, Centaur Hoof, Centennial Oak Living Leaf, Concentrated Venom, Corpse Flower Petal, Dryad Soul, First Morning Dew, Ghost Orchid, Mistletoe Berry, Peryton Perfect Feather, Quickling Blood, Sprite Blood, Will-o'-Wisp Trail, Lightning Strike Ash, Oni Liver, Pixie Dust, Wandering Mound Mother Root, Adult Dragon Tonsils, Dragon Tongue, Fairy Dragon Wing, Lycanthrope Fur, Millennial Ginkgo Living Leaf, Millennial Oak Living Leaf, Sylvan Heart, Unicorn Horn Powder, Witch's Eye

Beneath

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

At the surface
10 °C
100 m
13 °C
500 m
24 °C
1 km
38 °C
3 km
93 °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

Temperate Forest, Cursed Temperate Forest, Blessed Temperate Forest, Haunted Temperate Forest, Fungal Temperate Forest, Enchanted Temperate Forest, Dead Temperate Forest, Frozen Temperate Forest

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