Flooded Grassland

Flooded Grassland
Alicia Yo, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons

Wide grassy plains that lie under shallow water for part of the year. Birds gather in their thousands, fish spread across the plain, and travel turns from walking to wading or poling a boat.

Over the year it averages 24 °C.

Hear it

For the table

Ground
hard going, about 10 km a day on foot
Seasons
21 °C in the heart of winter, 28 °C in the heart of summer
Water
plentiful
Foraging
rich

Hazards

  • Sucking mud. Firm-looking ground opens onto deep mud or peat. Alone and laden, a traveller can be held until the water rises or the cold comes.
  • Fevers. Warm stagnant water breeds the fevers that emptied whole expeditions before anyone knew the mosquito carried them.
  • Biting insects. In the warm season, clouds of mosquitoes and flies bite day and night. Sleep and tempers wear thin.
  • Downpours. Rain for days soaks gear, swells streams into torrents and turns paths to mud.

D&D 5e

Plays as
swamp, slow pace at most
Checks
forage: Survival DC 10 · find the way: DC 15 · search: DC 20
Creatures are spotted at
2d8 × 10 ft
  • Downpours. Heavy rain makes the area Lightly Obscured, gives Disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks and puts out open flames.

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)
swamp, greater difficult terrain, about 11 km a day at Speed 25
Checks
Subsist: Survival DC 15 · Sense Direction: Survival DC 15
Random encounters
flat check DC 14 each day
  • Sucking mud. Quicksand (GM Core p. 107): a hidden patch about 5 m wide (Stealth +12; Survival DC 18 to spot by disturbing it). Stepping in sinks a traveller to the waist, then one step each round (neck, then under); Athletics DC 20 climbs back a step, and allies can pull with Athletics DC 20.
  • Downpours. Heavy rain gives a –1 to –4 penalty to Perception that relies on sight, conceals distant creatures, douses flames and brings travel fatigue down to 4 hours (GM Core p. 95).

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 12 km a day
  • By river boat: about 35 km a day
  • By airship: about 900 km a day
  • By bush plane: about 800 km a day
  • By rover: about 20 km a day
  • By hover sled: about 80 km a day
  • By elephant: about 20 km a day
  • On a flying mount: about 150 km a day
  • By flying carpet: about 100 km a day
  • By armoured buggy: about 40 km a day

Adventure hooks

  1. As the flood withdraws, a fisherman finds his net full of fish in a field a day’s walk from the river. Tangled in it is a bronze helmet of a kind nobody has worn for a thousand years.
  2. A boatman poles travellers across the flooded plain for a coin each, and three of his passengers never reached home. He swears he set them down on dry land, and he did, on an island that was gone the next morning.
  3. Cranes come every year to dance in the same reed bed, and the village holds its weddings when they arrive. This year they are late, and a bride’s family has decided it is the groom’s fault.
  4. A baron is diking the plain to grow wheat, and the fishing villages are left with mud. Someone breaks the dikes at night; the baron wants the culprits hanged, and the villages want to hire the party before he does.

What grows here

  • Buriti Palm (tree). A palm up to 35 m tall that grows in and near swamps and periodically flooded ground across tropical South America, from the Amazon to the Orinoco and Trinidad. Humboldt called it the 'tree of life': tapirs, peccaries, fish and monkeys depend on its scaly chestnut fruit. People eat the fruit fresh, as juice, jam or a fermented drink, take a sago starch from the trunk, drink the sap, eat the palm-weevil grubs in the trunk, and twist the leaf fibre into ropes, nets and hammocks. Food of: South American Tapir. Food of: White-lipped Peccary. Gives: Buriti Fruit, Buriti Sago, Buriti Fibre.
  • Pond Apple (tree). A fruit tree up to 12 m, a cousin of the soursop, native to Florida, the Caribbean, Central and South America and West Africa, and common in the Everglades. It grows in swamps, tolerates salt water and cannot grow in dry soil; its fruit floats and drifts on the floods to new ground. It is also called alligator apple, because American alligators often eat the fruit, and wild boar eat it too. It has become an invasive weed in Sri Lanka and Australia. Food of: American Alligator. Food of: Wild Boar. Gives: Pond Apples.
  • Southern Cattail (herb). A cattail of 2 to 2.5 m found throughout the tropics and subtropics, in marshes and wet ground; it is one of the main plants of the Sudd and grows as an understorey in some mangroves, for it stands much saltier water than its relatives. Around some lake villages of Michoacán, in Mexico, it spreads so fast that it is cut back every month to keep it out of the fields. Gives: Southern Cattail Pollen, Southern Cattail Leaves.
  • Giant Water Lily (herb). The giant water lily of the Amazon basin, the Pantanal and Guyana, with floating leaves up to 3 m across on stalks 7 to 8 m long, in calm warm water and the várzeas flooded by the rains. A leaf has held over 100 kg, but the stems and the undersides bristle with spines. Its lentil-sized seeds, rich in starch, pop in the heat like popcorn, and the rhizome and leaf stalks are eaten like manioc. Gives: Giant Water Lily Seeds, Giant Water Lily Rhizome.
  • Water Hyacinth (herb). A free-floating plant of tropical South America, buoyed by swollen leaf stalks, with glossy leaves, purple-black hanging roots and spikes of lavender flowers. It spreads by cloning itself and now chokes waters across the world: in the Sudd it has largely replaced the Nile cabbage, and on Lake Victoria it blocks the harbours and thins the fish. As it rots it robs the water of oxygen and kills fish. It cannot stand brackish water, and fresh plants hold prickly crystals that make the skin itch. Gives: Water Hyacinth Stalks.
  • Longstamen Rice (grass). A perennial wild rice with creeping rhizomes, native to most of Africa south of the Sahara and Madagascar, growing in swamps, ponds, lake and river sides and flooded grasslands, it can blanket flooded meadows and grows in water up to 4 m deep, though usually less than 1 m. The grain is cooked and tastes good, but it falls from the ear at a touch, so people reap it unripe or shake the ripe heads over baskets; it is a famine food. The tall straw makes thatch. Gives: African Wild Rice, Wild Rice Straw.
  • Antelope Grass (grass). A tall, reed-like perennial grass of tropical and subtropical Africa, growing in dense even stands on seasonally flooded grassland, in swamps and along rivers and lakes; it makes up much of the vegetation of the Sudd. It grows in the wet season, dies back in the dry season and resprouts hard after wildfire. It is grown as fodder for livestock and withstands heavy grazing. Gives: Antelope Grass Grain.
  • Bourgou (grass). A floating water grass of tropical Africa and Asia whose spongy stems trail up to 2 m and form nearly pure mats in swamps and standing water. The Fulani once grew it widely in the Inner Niger Delta: they ate the seeds and brewed drinks from it, and the sweet stems are chewed for their juice or boiled down to brown sugar. It still gives hay for animals and holds flood banks against erosion. Gives: Bourgou Stem, Bourgou Seeds.
  • Common Reed (grass). A tall wetland grass of 1.5 to 4 m, found worldwide, that forms vast reed beds in shallow fresh or brackish water, like the 1,700 km² of the Danube Delta. Its purple plumes turn grey and silky in autumn and the stems stand through the winter. It is the classic thatch of Europe. Food of: Goat. Food of: Cattle. Gives: Reed Stem, Reed Rhizome.
  • Hippo Grass (grass). A thick-stemmed, hairy aquatic grass of Africa, from Senegal to Egypt and south to Namibia, and of Assam, Bangladesh and northern Indochina, growing in dense stands in water up to 5.5 m deep. On the Kafue Flats of Zambia it rules the slow, rich waters, and the great herds of lechwe live on it through the dry season. When the floods rise, whole clumps tear loose and drift as floating islands that other sedges and herbs colonise.
  • Papyrus (sedge). A tall sedge of 4 to 5 m whose triangular stems end in a green mop of thread-like rays. It forms vast pure stands in the swamps and on the lake and river margins of tropical Africa, and in deep water floats in mats that make the sudd. The Egyptians made paper, boats, mats and rope from it. Gives: Papyrus Stem, Papyrus Rhizome.
  • Sawgrass (sedge). A sedge 1.5 to 3 m tall from the Americas, the plant of the Everglades' 'River of Grass', where sawgrass marsh covers the land from Lake Okeechobee to Florida Bay. Its leaves have hard serrated edges, and harvesting it can leave deep cuts. Fire burns it above the water but spares the roots, and alligators nest in its dense stands. In Europe the same sedge was once an important thatch, and it is sometimes made into cheap paper. Gives: Sawgrass Thatch.

Animals

Creatures

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

African Wild Rice, Wild Rice Straw, American Alligator Meat, Antelope Grass Grain, Bourgou Seeds, Bourgou Stem, Buriti Fibre, Buriti Fruit, Buriti Sago, Capybara Hide, Capybara Meat, Reed Rhizome, Reed Stem, Crocodile Glands, Nile Crocodile Egg, Papyrus Rhizome, Papyrus Stem, Pond Apples, Sawgrass Thatch, Sitatunga Meat, Tapir Hide, Tapir Meat, Southern Cattail Leaves, Southern Cattail Pollen, Water Hyacinth Stalks, Yacare Caiman Hide, Yacare Caiman Meat, American Alligator Hide, Swamp Deer Antler, Swamp Deer Venison, Green Anaconda Fat, Hippopotamus Hide, Hippopotamus Ivory, Jabiru Feathers, Jabiru Meat, Jaguar Fang, Jaguar Pelt, Marsh Deer Meat, Nile Crocodile Hide, Sitatunga Hide, Giant Water Lily Rhizome, Giant Water Lily Seeds, Yacare Caiman Urine, Marsh Deer Antler, Beetle Wing, First Morning Dew

Beneath

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

At the surface
24 °C
100 m
27 °C
500 m
38 °C
1 km
52 °C
3 km
107 °C

A town here

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

Fantasy variants

Primeval Flooded Grassland, Toxic Flooded Grassland

Nearby biomes

Tropical Rainforest, Tropical Dry Forest, Temperate Forest, Temperate Conifer Forest, Taiga, Savanna, Grassland, Alpine Meadow, Tundra, Mediterranean Scrub, Hot Desert, Cold Desert, Ice Sheet, Barrens

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