Eldritch Rocky Shore

Rocky Shore
JJ Harrison ( https://www.jjharrison.com.au/ ), CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons

Something from outside the world has touched this land. Angles are wrong, the stars sit in the wrong places, and the animals that remain have too many eyes or too few. Those who stay too long start to hear a voice under every other sound. Rocks, cliffs and tide pools battered by the sea. Seals and seabirds crowd the ledges, shellfish cling to the stones, and the tide decides when a way along the foot of the cliff is open.

Hear it

For the table

Ground
rough, about 20 km a day on foot
Water
scarce
Foraging
fair

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.
  • Falling rock. Frost, rain or a careless step bring stones down from above. Scree slides underfoot.
  • Wrong angles. Paths bend back on themselves and distances will not hold. A ridge seen at noon is no closer by evening.
  • Whispers from beyond. At night a voice speaks just below hearing, in a language no one ever learned and everyone almost understands.
  • The glimpse. Sometimes, at the edge of the light, something shows itself for a heartbeat: too large, too many limbs, gone at once.

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
  • Wrong angles. (House rule) Each day the guide makes a DC 14 Wisdom (Survival) check. On a failure the party covers only half the day’s distance, however long it walks.
  • Whispers from beyond. A creature that keeps watch alone makes a DC 15 Wisdom save, taking 3d6 Psychic damage on a failure, or half as much on a success.
  • The glimpse. Whoever sees it makes a DC 15 Wisdom save or is Frightened, repeating the save at the end of each of its turns.

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, 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 12 each day
  • 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.

Crossing it

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

  • On horseback: about 30 km a day
  • By airship: about 900 km a day
  • By bush plane: about 800 km a day
  • By 4x4: about 100 km a day
  • By rover: about 60 km a day
  • On a flying mount: about 150 km a day
  • By flying carpet: about 100 km a day
  • By car: about 200 km a day
  • By truck: about 150 km a day
  • By motorbike: about 150 km a day
  • By armoured buggy: about 120 km a day

Adventure hooks

  1. A surveyor hired to map the land keeps drawing paths that close on themselves in fewer steps than it took to walk them. His guild thinks he drinks, and he wants a sober witness who can count to sign his maps.
  2. A shepherd’s daughter has begun answering questions a moment before anyone asks them, and her mother begs the party to cure her before the priest hears of it. The girl is not possessed: she is translating the voice under every sound, and all it asks is to be left alone.
  3. A scholar from the city pays a silver piece to anyone who can hum him the voice beneath the sounds. By now the whole tavern hums the same tune without noticing, and the scholar has stopped humming it, which frightens him far more.
  4. A hunting party came back with one man more than it left with. Each hunter swears he knows the newcomer, and each names a different person; he is kind, helpful and tireless, and nobody has ever seen him blink.
  5. Wreckers light false fires on the cliffs on stormy nights to draw ships onto the rocks. A young wrecker wants out, since he found his own brother’s sea chest among the spoils.
  6. Egg gatherers go down the cliffs on ropes each spring to rob the seabird ledges. One man’s rope was cut, and he lived two days on a ledge before anyone heard him; he saw who did it, and will not say.
  7. A grey seal comes into the cove every evening and stares at one house. The widow who lives there asks the party to find out what it wants; she thinks she already knows.
  8. A spring tide has opened the way along the foot of the cliffs to a cove cut off the rest of the year. A smuggler pays well for a cargo carried through and back, and the tide turns in four hours.

What grows here

  • 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.
  • Common Scurvygrass (herb). A small plant of the cabbage family, 10 to 50 cm tall, with fleshy heart-shaped leaves and small white or lilac flowers from May to August, growing on the coasts of northern Europe on sea cliffs, walls, rocky and muddy shores, gravel beaches and salt marshes, and in mountains as far as the Alps. Herbalists gave it against scurvy, which it cures for its vitamin C, and ships carried it in dried bundles or distilled; its very bitter taste was hidden with herbs and spices, and its leaves were brewed into scurvygrass ale. Gives: Scurvygrass Leaves.
  • 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.
  • Roseroot (herb). A fleshy plant of 5 to 35 cm whose shoots rise from one thick root, met across much of the Arctic, on sea cliffs and on high mountains of Europe, central Asia and the Rockies. Its leaves and shoots are eaten raw or cooked like spinach, bitter. Russians and Scandinavians have used it for centuries against the strain of their harsh, cold climate; rising demand now threatens it in many countries. Gives: Golden Root, Roseroot Shoots.
  • 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.
  • Bladderwrack (seaweed). A brown seaweed up to 150 cm long, buoyed by paired air bladders along its midrib, common on sheltered rocky shores from mid-tide down, around the North Sea, the western Baltic, the Atlantic and the Pacific. It was the original source of iodine, discovered in 1811, and was long used to treat goitre. It can be cooked and eaten, it was fed to livestock and its mucilage was used as medicine; limpets bite pieces out of it, and its chemical defences deter the common periwinkle. Food of: Common Limpet. Gives: Bladderwrack.
  • Dabberlocks (seaweed). A brown seaweed up to 2 m long with a single frond, a clear midrib and a thin, wavy blade, fixed to rock just below the low-water mark on shores beaten by heavy waves, in the far north Atlantic from Atlantic France, Britain and Ireland to Iceland, Norway, Svalbard, Greenland and New England, and in the North Pacific from Alaska to Japan. It is a traditional food along those coasts, eaten fresh or cooked in Greenland, Iceland, Scotland and Ireland, where it is called láir. Gives: Dabberlocks.
  • Dulse (seaweed). A leathery red seaweed, rose to purple, with fronds up to 50 cm, growing on rocks or on the stalks of kelps from mid-tide down to 20 m, on North Atlantic and North Pacific coasts. It is the most popular sea vegetable of the North Atlantic: eaten fresh, dried, fried into chips or powdered into bread and soups. In old Ireland a rock with a crop of dulse was worth three cows, sailors ate it against scurvy, and when hay ran short it went to the cattle. Grows on: Tangle. Gives: Dulse.
  • Irish Moss (seaweed). A small fan-shaped red seaweed, a little over 20 cm, green near the surface and deep red lower down, growing on rocks from mid-tide to the sea floor along European and Canadian Atlantic shores. Boiled in milk, strained and sweetened, it sets into carrageen pudding in Ireland, Scotland and Brittany; it also fines beer and goes into medicines. Its carrageenan thickens ice cream and milk products. Gives: Carrageen.
  • Knotted Wrack (seaweed). A large brown seaweed of the cold North Atlantic, from the White Sea to Portugal and from east Greenland to Long Island, with tough fronds up to 2 m long strung with egg-shaped air bladders, one added each year, and living 10 to 15 years. It dominates the middle of sheltered shores and estuaries, and its mats shelter barnacles, periwinkles and more than a hundred other species. Ireland has cut it for centuries, at low tide with a knife or sickle; it goes into alginates, fertiliser and seaweed meal for beasts and people, Greenlanders take it as a food supplement, and New England ships live bait and lobsters packed in it. Gives: Knotted Wrack.
  • Laver (seaweed). A red seaweed in thin, purple-brown sheets about 10 to 25 cm long, only one cell thick, clinging to rocks high on the shore from the North Sea to the Mediterranean, but not in the Baltic. In Wales it is washed of sand and boiled for hours into laverbread, a green purée rolled in oatmeal and fried with bacon and cockles for breakfast; Richard Burton called it Welshman's caviar. It is still gathered on the Pembrokeshire and Carmarthenshire coasts, though it has grown scarce in parts of Britain. Gives: Laver.
  • Oarweed (seaweed). A tough, leathery, dark brown kelp 2 to 3 m long, its blade split like the fingers of a hand, of the North Atlantic from Greenland to Cape Cod and from northern Russia and Iceland to France. It grows on exposed shores at the bottom of the tide, where it can form wide meadows and dominate the seaweeds, and sea urchins graze it hard. It was spread on the fields as fertiliser, burnt in the 18th century for the potash of glassmakers and in the 19th for iodine; its dried stalks were used in folk medicine to bring on labour or end a pregnancy, and it is still harvested off France, Morocco and Ireland for alginates and as food. Gives: Oarweed.
  • Sea Lettuce (seaweed). A thin bright green seaweed found on coasts all over the world, fixed to rocks, jetties, shells and other algae from the upper shore down to about 10 m, and most abundant where the water is rich in nutrients. It is eaten raw or cooked: in soups and salads in Scotland, salted with raw fish or boiled as soup in Hawaii; it also serves as fertiliser. Piles of it rotting on the shore give off toxic hydrogen sulphide, as in Brittany in 2009. Gives: Sea Lettuce.
  • Sugar Kelp (seaweed). A yellowish brown kelp with a single long, narrow blade up to 5 m long and 20 cm wide, dimpled down the middle and wavy at the edges, held to rock by a claw-like holdfast between the tides and below them, in the North Atlantic, the Arctic and the North Pacific, from northern Europe down to Galicia, Long Island, Washington, Korea and Japan. Its forests shelter and feed fish and shellfish; by 2004 it had lost up to 80% of its beds in the Skagerrak. It is one of the kelps eaten as kombu, mostly in soups and stocks, and owes its name to the mannitol drawn from it as a sweetener. Gives: Sugar Kelp.

Animals

Creatures

Also met here

  • Giant Crab (a threat to the unwary, Challenge 1/8)
  • Sahuagin (a threat to the unwary, Challenge 1/2)
  • Harpy (a threat to the unwary, Challenge 1)
  • Berserker (a fight to fear, Challenge 2)
  • Bronze Dragon (a fight to fear, Challenge 2-22)
  • Merrow (a fight to fear, Challenge 2)
  • Sea Hag (a fight to fear, Challenge 2)
  • Wyvern (deadly, Challenge 6)
  • Roc (deadly, Challenge 11)

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

Nothic Iris, Aloe Vera Gel, Arctic Fox Pelt, Atlantic Puffin Egg, Atlantic Puffin Feathers, Atlantic Puffin, Bladderwrack, California Mussel, California Spiny Lobster Meat, Limpet Meat, Periwinkles, Scurvygrass Leaves, Dabberlocks, Dulse, Eurasian Otter Pelt, European Herring Gull Egg, European Herring Gull Feathers, Giant Pacific Octopus Meat, Harbour Seal Blubber, Harbour Seal Pelt, Carrageen, Knotted Wrack, Northern Gannet Oil, Northern Gannet Feathers, Northern Gannet Chick, Oarweed, Purple Sea Urchin Roe, Rock Samphire, Roseroot Shoots, Sea Beet Leaves, Sea Lettuce, Sea Lion Hide, Sea Lion Meat, Sea Lion Oil, Sugar Kelp, Walrus Blubber, Walrus Hide, Brown Bear Bile, Brown Bear Hide, Common Eider Down, Laver, Polar Bear Fat, Abalone Steak, Red Abalone Shell, Golden Root, Walrus Ivory, Edible Bird's Nest, Percebes, Slipper Lobster Meat, Polar Bear Hide, Sea Otter Pelt, Sunken Ambergris, Coral Polyp Dust, Iodine Powder, Adult Dragon Tonsils, Dragon Tongue, Witch's Eye

The same milieu, otherwise

Rocky Shore, Haunted Rocky Shore, Crystalline Rocky Shore, Frozen Rocky Shore

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