Haunted Temperate Conifer Forest

The dead do not rest here. Voices carry where nobody stands, cold spots drift across the camp, and old battles or old crimes play out again at night. Dark woods of pine, spruce and cedar on mountainsides and rainy coasts, green all year. The ground is soft with needles, the trees are tall, and the light rarely reaches the floor.

Over the year it averages 8 °C.

Hear it

Haunted: Haunted Forest (In the album RPG Ambiences Vol. 1)
In the wind: Haunting Wind (On Patreon, Guardian tier)
On foot: Walking in a Haunted Landscape (On Patreon, Guardian tier)
By day: Calm Forest (On Patreon, Guardian tier)
In the fog: Shrouded Forest (In the album RPG Ambiences Vol. 7)
On foot at night: Walking in a Forest At Night (On Patreon, Guardian tier)
In the wind: Windy Forest (On Patreon, Guardian tier)
Getting lost: Enclosed Forest (In the album RPG Ambiences Vol. 7)
Downpours: Forest Heavy Rain (On Patreon, Guardian tier)

For the table

Ground: rough, about 20 km a day on foot
Seasons: 2 °C in the heart of winter, 15 °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.
Downpours. Rain for days soaks gear, swells streams into torrents and turns paths to mud.
Grave chill. A cold that comes from nowhere and passes through cloaks and fires alike. Breath smokes in summer.
Ghost voices. Voices at the edge of hearing, sometimes calling a traveller by name, sometimes in a voice he knows. Some follow them.
Dead hands. The ground is full of the dead, and in places it does not let go. A boot sinks, and something holds it.

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

Downpours. Heavy rain makes the area Lightly Obscured, gives Disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks and puts out open flames.
Grave chill. (House rule) When a cold spot crosses the camp, each creature in it makes a DC 11 Constitution save or takes 2d6 necrotic damage. A fire does not keep it away; holy water sprinkled around the camp does.
Ghost voices. (House rule) Once a night, the creature on watch makes a DC 13 Wisdom save or has the Charmed condition for 1 hour and walks toward the voice. Any damage or a shake from a companion ends it.
Dead hands. (House rule) The first creature to cross such a spot makes a DC 12 Dexterity save or has the Prone condition and takes 1d6 cold damage; the spot is Difficult Terrain until sunrise.

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 15 · 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.
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 30 km a day
By river boat: about 40 km a day
By dog sled: about 45 km a day
By train: about 400 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 snowmobile: 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

The ghosts of a battle fight it again every night, and a historian wants to watch, to finally learn who won. Both sides will try to recruit the living.
A ghost asks the party to deliver a confession to its murderer, who is still alive and has since become a respected judge. The ghost would like the judge to be gently surprised.
The land’s ghosts are all frightened of one thing, and they whisper about it whenever the party camps. Nobody has ever seen it, and the ghosts insist it is alive.
A lonely ghost has started following the party, doing small helpful things: finding firewood, warning of a cliff. It will be very hurt if they try to lay it to rest, and it knows where the bones are.
A shipwright has bought the right to fell the tallest cedar on the mountain for a king’s mainmast. The hill folk say that tree holds up their corner of the sky, and they have started rolling boulders onto the logging road.
Resin tappers score the pines and catch the pitch in clay cups. One tapper’s cups have started filling with something red and warm, and the guild wants it hushed up before the price of pitch collapses.
On the rainy coast, a hermit lives inside a fallen giant tree and trades smoked salmon for news. He knows which way a missing courier went, and will tell it only for a story he has never heard.
A black bear has learned to open the woodcutters’ shutters and steals their bread, and nothing else. The woodcutters want it gone; the village priest has decided it is a saint come back, and goes up every Sunday to bless it.

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.
Douglas Fir (tree). The tallest tree of the pine family, 20 to 100 m, and the dominant tree west of the Cascades in the Pacific Northwest, growing from British Columbia to California and inland through the Rocky Mountains, from sea level to 1,500 m or more. It yields more timber than any other North American tree, strong and durable wood for beams and floors. Native American peoples made remedies of its bark, resin and needles, and the needles make a tea. Gives: Douglas Fir Wood, Douglas Fir Resin, Douglas Fir Needles.
Norway Spruce (tree). A tall evergreen conifer of 35 to 55 m with hanging branchlets and the longest cones of any spruce, growing in the boreal forest of northern Europe and in the mountains further south. It is one of Europe's chief timber trees and the violin maker's tonewood; its young shoots flavour drinks and food, and its resin served in Nordic folk medicine for wounds. Gives: Norway Spruce Wood, Norway Spruce Resin, Norway Spruce Shoots.
Pinyon Pine (tree). A small, slow-growing, drought-hardy pine forming open woods with junipers on the dry uplands of Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Arizona, mostly 1,500 to 2,100 m up and sometimes to 2,700 m. Its large wingless seeds, pine nuts, are gathered after the first frost; they are a traditional food of the Western Apache, Hopi and Tewa, and the Navajo and the Hispanos of New Mexico still gather them in quantity. A heavy crop comes about every six years, and the tree depends on the pinyon jay, which carries off its seeds. Gives: Pinyon Nuts, Pinyon Pitch.
Scots Pine (tree). A pine of up to 35 m with short blue-green needles and orange-red upper bark, ranging from western Europe to eastern Siberia and past the Arctic Circle, on poor sandy soils, rock outcrops and peat bogs. It gave building timber, rosin and turpentine, and in Scandinavia its stumps and roots were burnt down into tar. Gives: Scots Pine Wood, Scots Pine Resin.
Silver Fir (tree). A tall evergreen fir of 40 to 50 m, the tallest tree of Europe at up to 60 m, growing in rainy mountains from the Pyrenees through the Alps, Vosges, Jura and Carpathians to the Balkans, mostly between 500 and 1,700 m. Its light, fine-grained wood builds houses and furniture and once made Roman wine casks. It was the first Christmas tree, and bees make fir honey from the honeydew aphids leave on it. Gives: Silver Fir Wood, Silver Fir Oil, Silver Fir Sprigs.
Swiss Stone Pine (tree). A slow-growing five-needled pine of 25 to 35 m that lives 500 to 1,000 years in the Alps and Carpathians, from about 1,200 to 2,400 m, often forming the last forest belt at the tree line with larch. Its cones fall without opening; nutcrackers break them and bury the seeds, and the forgotten caches grow into new trees. Its edible nuts are sold as pine nuts, and its soft honey-coloured wood is carved. Gives: Swiss Stone Pine Nuts, Swiss Stone Pine Wood.
Western Red Cedar (tree). A huge conifer of the Pacific Northwest of North America, up to seventy metres tall, which grows with Douglas-fir and western hemlock in wet maritime forests and is not a true cedar. Its light, aromatic, rot-resistant wood gave the peoples of the coast their dugout canoes, house planks split from living trees, totem poles and tools. Its bark, pulled off in long strips, was woven into baskets, mats, rope, rain hats and clothing. Gives: Red Cedar Wood, Red Cedar Bark.
Bilberry (shrub). A low deciduous shrub of 10 to 50 cm with blue-black berries ripening from July to September, found across the northern lands on acid soils of heaths, boggy barrens and open pine and spruce forests. The berries are eaten fresh or in pies, jams and syrups, and in Britain they once dyed food and cloth. Gives: Bilberry.
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.
Devil's Club (shrub). An understory shrub of 1 to 1.5 m, up to 5 m in wet gullies, with palmate leaves 20 to 40 cm across, of the old-growth rainforests of the Pacific Northwest from Alaska to Oregon. Stems and leaf veins bristle with spines that irritate the skin, and its small red berries are inedible to people, though bears eat them. Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian use it as medicine and in ceremony; a piece hung over a door is said to ward off evil. Gives: Devil's Club Bark.
Salal (shrub). An evergreen shrub of the heather family, 0.4 to 3 m, that carpets the understory of the coastal conifer forests from Alaska to California and forms near impenetrable thickets on dunes, bluffs and forested peat. Its dark blue berries were a major food of coastal peoples, eaten fresh or dried into cakes. Deer and elk browse it in winter, and bears, grouse and squirrels eat the berries. Food of: American Black Bear. Food of: Wapiti. Gives: Salal Berries, Salal Leaves.
Thinleaf Huckleberry (shrub). A deciduous shrub up to 1.5 m of the high mountains of western North America, from Alaska to California and the Rockies, in subalpine pine and spruce forests and open meadows. It bears so heavily from late summer to early autumn that stories tell of mountainsides turned purple. It is a key food of black bears and grizzlies, and Native peoples burned the patches to keep them fruiting. Food of: American Black Bear. Food of: Brown Bear. Food of: Wapiti. Food of: Moose. Gives: Huckleberries.
Common Morel (fungus). A yellow-brown, honeycombed spring mushroom on a hollow white stem, found in Europe (and reported from China) under hardwoods and conifers, in old orchards, on disturbed ground and on recent burns, often on limestone soils. It fruits only for a short spell in spring and is one of the most prized edible mushrooms. Beware Gyromitra esculenta, a poisonous lookalike. Gives: Morels.
Fly Agaric (fungus). The red, white-warted toadstool of the fairy tales, found in conifer and broadleaf woods across the temperate and boreal Northern Hemisphere, living in partnership with pine, oak, spruce, fir and birch. It is poisonous and hallucinogenic: one cap holds about an active dose, with nausea, twitching, delirium and hallucinations starting after 30 to 90 minutes, though deaths are extremely rare. Its name comes from its use, recorded by Albertus Magnus before 1256, as a fly poison powdered into milk. The peoples of Siberia took it as an inebriant, and among the Koryak the poor drank the urine of the rich who could afford the mushrooms. Gives: Fly Agaric.
Golden Chanterelle (fungus). An egg-yellow, funnel-shaped mushroom 3 to 15 cm wide with forked ridges instead of true gills and a smell of apricot, found across Europe from Scandinavia to the Mediterranean under conifers and broadleaves on acid soil, from early summer to late autumn. A choice edible, but beware the poisonous jack-o'-lantern mushroom and the false chanterelle that look like it. The golden chanterelles of the American Pacific coast are now counted as related species. Gives: Chanterelle.
Matsutake (fungus). A white-fleshed mushroom with a cap up to 40 cm and a ring on its stem, hidden under the litter of fir and pine forests in Japan, Korea, China, northern Europe and northern North America. Its name means "pine mushroom", and its spicy, cinnamon scent makes it the most prized mushroom in Japan, above the truffle. Hard to find, it must be raced fresh to market; a small poisonous lookalike exists. Gives: Matsutake.
Porcini (fungus). A big brown-capped bolete, the cap up to 30 cm, that lives bound to the roots of pine, spruce, hemlock and fir, and also chestnut, beech and oak, across Europe, North America and Asia. It comes up in summer and autumn, in rafts after warm rain. One of the safest wild mushrooms to pick: its worst lookalikes are the devil's bolete (red stem, bruises blue) and the very bitter bitter bolete. Gives: Porcini Cap.

Animals

Brown Bear (man-killer, alone, at dawn and dusk)
Cougar (man-killer, alone, by night)
Leopard (man-killer, alone, by night)
Tiger (man-killer, alone, by night)
American Black Bear (can wound or kill, alone, at dawn and dusk)
Grey Wolf (can wound or kill, in packs, by night)
Red Deer (can wound or kill, in herds, at dawn and dusk)
Wapiti (can wound or kill, in herds, at dawn and dusk)
Alpine Ibex (dangerous if cornered, in herds, by day)
Eurasian Eagle-Owl (dangerous if cornered, alone, by night)
Eurasian Lynx (dangerous if cornered, alone, at dawn and dusk)
European Badger (dangerous if cornered, in families, by night)
Golden Eagle (dangerous if cornered, in pairs, by day)
Japanese Macaque (dangerous if cornered, in families, by day)
Snow Leopard (dangerous if cornered, alone, at dawn and dusk)
Black grouse (harmless, in flocks, by day)
Bushy-tailed Woodrat (harmless, alone, by night)
Chamois (harmless, in herds, by day)
Common Raven (harmless, in pairs, by day)
European Pine Marten (harmless, alone, by night)
Red Squirrel (harmless, alone, by day)
Roe Deer (harmless, in families, at dawn and dusk)
Western Capercaillie (harmless, alone, by day)
Wild Turkey (harmless, in flocks, by day)

Creatures

Skeleton (a threat to the unwary, Challenge 1/4-2)
Swarm of Ravens (a threat to the unwary, Challenge 1/4)
Zombie (a threat to the unwary, Challenge 1/4)
Shadow (a threat to the unwary, Challenge 1/2)
Ghoul (a fight to fear, Challenge 1)
Specter (a fight to fear, Challenge 1)
Ghast (a fight to fear, Challenge 2)
Ogre Zombie (a fight to fear, Challenge 2)
Swarm of Crawling Claws (a fight to fear, Challenge 3)
Ghost (a fight to fear, Challenge 4)
Vampire (deadly, Challenge 5-13)
Wraith (deadly, Challenge 5)

Also met here

Giant Owl (harmless, Challenge 1/4)
Scout (a threat to the unwary, Challenge 1/2)
Troll (deadly, Challenge 1/2-5)
Worg (a threat to the unwary, Challenge 1/2)
Bugbear (a fight to fear, Challenge 1-3)
Dire Wolf (a fight to fear, Challenge 1)
Druid (a threat to the unwary, Challenge 2)
Ettercap (a fight to fear, Challenge 2)
Giant Boar (a fight to fear, Challenge 2)
Giant Elk (a threat to the unwary, Challenge 2)
Green Dragon (deadly, Challenge 2-22)
Ogre (a fight to fear, Challenge 2)
Owlbear (a fight to fear, Challenge 3)
Phase Spider (a fight to fear, Challenge 3)
Werewolf (a fight to fear, Challenge 3)
Werebear (a fight to fear, Challenge 5)
Oni (deadly, Challenge 7)
Treant (a fight to fear, Challenge 9)

To gather

Ghoul Bile, Zombie Ichor, Crawling Claw Nail, Ghost Light, Ghoul Tongue, Death Hound Skin, Deathlock Heart, Ectoplasm Portion, Fog of the Veil, Meenlock Claw, Vampiric Dust, Bodak Eye, Revenant Soul, Skullfire Essence, Banshee Dust, Death Knight Ashes, Lich Dust, Vampire Dust, Black Bear Fat, Black Bear Hide, Black Bear Meat, Beeswax Block, Bilberry, Chamois Meat, Heather Tops, Douglas Fir Needles, Douglas Fir Resin, Douglas Fir Wood, European Badger Hair, European Badger Skin, Chanterelle, Grey Wolf Pelt, Honey Comb, Norway Spruce Shoots, Norway Spruce Resin, Norway Spruce Wood, Pinyon Pitch, Pinyon Nuts, Porcini Cap, Red Deer Antler, Red Deer Hide, Roe Venison, Salal Berries, Salal Leaves, Scots Pine Resin, Scots Pine Wood, Silver Fir Sprigs, Silver Fir Oil, Silver Fir Wood, Swiss Stone Pine Nuts, Huckleberries, Wapiti Antler, Wapiti Hide, Wapiti Meat, Red Cedar Bark, Wild Turkey Egg, Wild Turkey Feathers, Wild Turkey Meat, Alpine Ibex Blood, Alpine Ibex Horn, Black Grouse Meat, Brown Bear Bile, Brown Bear Hide, Chamois Gamsbart, Chamois Hide, Morels, Yew Needles, Yew Bowstave, Cougar Pelt, Crystallized Honey, Devil's Club Bark, Eurasian Lynx Pelt, Pine Marten Pelt, Golden Eagle Feather, Squirrel Fur, Swiss Stone Pine Wood, Capercaillie Meat, Red Cedar Wood, Leopard Pelt, Matsutake, Snow Leopard Bone, Snow Leopard Pelt, Tiger Bone, Tiger Pelt, Activated Charcoal, Beetle Wing, Holly Leaf, Snake Venom, Alchemical Resin, Potassium Powder, Barghest Fang, Concentrated Venom, First Morning Dew, Lightning Strike Ash, Oni Liver, Adult Dragon Tonsils, Dragon Tongue, Lycanthrope Fur

Beneath

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

At the surface: 8 °C
100 m: 11 °C
500 m: 22 °C
1 km: 36 °C
3 km: 91 °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 Conifer Forest, Cursed Temperate Conifer Forest, Crystalline Temperate Conifer Forest, Primeval Temperate Conifer Forest, Eldritch Temperate Conifer Forest, Frozen Temperate Conifer Forest, Burning Temperate Conifer Forest

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