Frozen Alpine Meadow

An endless winter holds the land. Snow lies in midsummer, rivers are frozen to their beds, and trees stand cased in ice that never melts. This cold does not come from the sky, and fires give less warmth than they should. High pastures above the last trees, bright with flowers in a short summer and buried in snow the rest of the year. The air is thin, the weather turns fast, and herders bring their animals up only for the warm months.

Over the year it averages 2 °C.

Hear it

Frozen: Frozen Tundra (In the album RPG Ambiences Vol. 2)
At camp: Campfire on a Frozen Tundra (In the album RPG Ambiences Vol. 2)
Blizzard: Magical Blizzard (In the album RPG Ambiences Vol. 9)
Snowfall: Mystical Snow (On Patreon, Guardian tier)
By day: Walking in the Mountains (On Patreon, Guardian tier)
In the fog: Misty Mountain Path (On Patreon, Guardian tier)
In the wind: Windy Hilltop (In the album RPG Ambiences Vol. 4)
In a storm: Stormy Highlands (In the album RPG Ambiences Vol. 4)
By the river: Mountain River (On Patreon, Guardian tier)
Rapids: Mountain Rapids (On Patreon, Guardian tier)
In a shelter: Mountain Shelter (In the album RPG Ambiences Vol. 3)
Bitter cold: Strong Snowy Wind (On Patreon, Guardian tier)
Falling rock: Avalanche (On Patreon, Raven tier)

For the table

Ground: rough, about 20 km a day on foot
Seasons: -6 °C in the heart of winter, 10 °C in the heart of summer
Water: plentiful
Foraging: poor

Hazards

Thin air. High up, breath comes short and the newcomer tires twice as fast. Some fall sick with headaches and nausea until they get used to it.
Bitter cold. Without furs, a fire and shelter at night, the cold numbs, then kills. Frostbite takes fingers and toes first.
Strong wind. Steady wind tires walkers, blows out fires and, on sand or snow, blinds and buries the track.
Falling rock. Frost, rain or a careless step bring stones down from above. Scree slides underfoot.
Endless cold. The cold does not lift by day or by season, and a campfire only warms those who sit right beside it.
Glazed ground. Paths, roots and stones wear a skin of clear ice that the sun never softens.
Frostbite. Fingers and toes go white, then stop hurting, which is worse.

D&D 5e

Plays as: mountain, slow pace at most
Checks: forage: Survival DC 20 · find the way: DC 15 · search: DC 20
Creatures are spotted at: 4d10 × 10 ft

Thin air. At 3,000 m (10,000 ft) and above, each hour of travel counts as two toward the day's limit, so forced-march saves come sooner. Thirty days at that height acclimatise; above 6,000 m (20,000 ft) only natives do.
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.
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.
Endless cold. (House rule) The extreme cold rule holds in every season, day and night: at the end of each hour outdoors, a creature makes a DC 10 Constitution save, DC 12 at night, or gains 1 Exhaustion level. Cold resistance or immunity passes automatically; furs and winter clothing give Advantage.
Glazed ground. Slippery ice is Difficult Terrain. A creature that moves onto it for the first time on a turn, or starts its turn there, makes a DC 10 Dexterity save or has the Prone condition.
Frostbite. (House rule) A creature that ends a day of travel with wet hands or feet makes a DC 12 Constitution save. On a failure it has Disadvantage on Dexterity checks and on attack rolls with weapons until it finishes a long rest beside a fire.

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): mountain, greater difficult terrain, about 11 km a day at Speed 25
Checks: Subsist: Survival DC 20 · Sense Direction: Survival DC 15
Random encounters: flat check DC 16 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.
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).
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.

A scene

Snowing. The wind shrieks and it’s snowing in a harsh, driving storm. Beneath the temptest’s roar is a rhythmic crunch. Footsteps, perhaps. What hides in this grey? The full generator on the blog

Adventure hooks

A smith whose forge no longer grows hot enough to work iron offers her best blade to whoever finds where the heat of her fire goes. It goes to a hollow nearby where, in the middle of the ice, a patch of grass grows green around a cradle someone has built there.
A merchant has noticed that nothing kept here ever spoils and has opened a cold store for rich clients from the south. Business is splendid until a young lord comes to collect a crate laid down by his grandfather and finds the grandfather inside, alive and furious about the delay.
Every evening an old woman walks out to talk to her son, who stands frozen in the ice where the winter caught him. She does not want him freed; she wants someone to promise to keep talking to him once she is gone.
The village draws lots each year to choose who walks out into the cold to feed the winter. This year the lot fell on the headman’s son, and the headman has quietly decided that a passing stranger will do just as well.
A herdsman took the cows up to the high pasture in spring and brought every one of them down in autumn, but not his voice. He writes on a slate that he traded it, and will not say to whom.
The cheese from one hut wins every fair in the valley, and a rival is sure it is witchcraft. It is a herb that grows on a single ledge above a sheer drop, and its owner will defend the secret with a pitchfork.
A late snowstorm has trapped a party of pilgrims in a stone hut below the pass. The shepherd who found them counted eleven in the morning, and there are twelve now.
A collector from the city pays a silver piece for every rare flower dug up with its roots. The herders are stripping the slopes bare, the turf has started to slide, and the village sits right below.

What grows here

Arctic Willow (shrub). A creeping willow rarely over 15 cm tall with round glossy leaves, the woody plant that reaches furthest north, on tundra and rocky moorland around the Arctic and on high mountains further south. Muskoxen and caribou browse its bark and twigs; Inuit and Gwich'in burnt the twigs, used the flowers as lamp wicks and treated wounds, toothache and diarrhoea with it. Food of: Muskox. Food of: Reindeer. Gives: Arctic Willow Leaf.
Great Yellow Gentian (herb). A robust perennial herb of the mountains of central and southern Europe, about one and a half metres tall, with broad ribbed opposite leaves and yellow flowers clustered up the stem; it can live fifty years and takes about ten to flower. It grows in montane and subalpine grassland in the Alps, Jura, Pyrenees, Massif Central and Balkans. Its thick, intensely bitter root is dug for herbal bitters, remedies and liqueurs, and the plant is now protected in parts of its range. Gives: Gentian Root.
Reindeer Lichen (lichen). A pale grey, much-branched lichen that forms mats up to 10 cm deep on the ground of boreal pine forests, tundra and low alpine slopes across the Northern Hemisphere. It is a chief food of reindeer; people soaked it in wood ash to take away its bitterness and ate it, and some northern peoples boiled it as a remedy. Food of: Reindeer. Gives: Reindeer Lichen.

Animals

Brown Bear (man-killer, alone, at dawn and dusk)
Alpine Ibex (dangerous if cornered, in herds, by day)
Snow Leopard (dangerous if cornered, alone, at dawn and dusk)
Wolverine (dangerous if cornered, alone, by night)
Alpine Marmot (harmless, in families, by day)
Bearded Vulture (harmless, alone, by day)

Kept here

Domestic Yak (dangerous if cornered, in herds, by day)
Llama (dangerous if cornered, in herds, by day)

Creatures

Ice Mephit (a threat to the unwary, Challenge 1/2)
White Dragon (deadly, Challenge 2-20)
Winter Wolf (a fight to fear, Challenge 3)
Frost Giant (deadly, Challenge 8)
Remorhaz (deadly, Challenge 11)

Also met here

Giant Goat (a threat to the unwary, Challenge 1/2)
Giant Eagle (a threat to the unwary, Challenge 1)
Hippogriff (a threat to the unwary, Challenge 1)
Giant Elk (a threat to the unwary, Challenge 2)
Griffon (a fight to fear, Challenge 2)
Pegasus (a threat to the unwary, Challenge 2)
Chimera (deadly, Challenge 6)
Wyvern (deadly, Challenge 6)

To gather

Winter Wolf Eye, Yeti Glands, Remorhaz Flame, Alpine Marmot Fat, Alpine Marmot Tooth, Arctic Willow Leaf, Beeswax Block, Yak Hair, Yak Milk, Honey Comb, Llama Wool, Reindeer Lichen, Alpine Ibex Blood, Alpine Ibex Horn, Brown Bear Bile, Brown Bear Hide, Crystallized Honey, Gentian Root, Wolverine Pelt, Snow Leopard Bone, Snow Leopard Pelt, Beetle Wing, Four-Leaf Clover, 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: 2 °C
100 m: 5 °C
500 m: 16 °C
1 km: 30 °C
3 km: 85 °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

Alpine Meadow, Blessed Alpine Meadow, Crystalline Alpine Meadow, Enchanted Alpine Meadow, Burning Alpine Meadow

Open it in Biomes — MGS Toolbox