Taiga

The great northern forest of spruce, pine, larch and birch, broken by bogs, lakes and slow rivers. Winters are long and bitter, summers short and full of mosquitoes, and people live from furs, fish and the reindeer.

Over the year it averages -2 °C.

Hear it

By day: Taiga (In the album RPG Ambiences Vol. 2)
In winter: Winter Forest with Wolves (On Patreon, Raven tier)
Wolves: Wolves in the Snow (On Patreon, Guardian tier)
In a storm: Thundering Taiga (On Patreon, Raven tier)
Bitter cold: Strong Snowy Wind (On Patreon, Guardian tier)
Deep snow: Snowing (In the album RPG Ambiences Vol. 6)
Biting insects: Tundra with Insect Swarm (On Patreon, Guardian tier)
Thin ice: Winter River (In the album RPG Ambiences Vol. 6)
Getting lost: Enclosed Forest (In the album RPG Ambiences Vol. 7)

For the table

Ground: rough, about 20 km a day on foot
Seasons: -18 °C in the heart of winter, 15 °C in the heart of summer
Water: plentiful
Foraging: fair

Hazards

Bitter cold. Without furs, a fire and shelter at night, the cold numbs, then kills. Frostbite takes fingers and toes first.
Deep snow. Without snowshoes or skis, every step sinks to the knee and a day's march shrinks to a few kilometres.
Biting insects. In the warm season, clouds of mosquitoes and flies bite day and night. Sleep and tempers wear thin.
Thin ice. Frozen lakes and rivers are the easy road in winter, until the ice gives way. The water beneath kills in minutes.
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.

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

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.
Deep snow. Heavy snow is difficult terrain. On arctic ground a group keeps a fast pace only with gear such as skis or snowshoes.
Thin ice. A 3 m (10 ft) square of thin ice holds 3d10 × 5 kg (× 10 lb); past that it breaks and drops everyone on it into frigid water. In frigid water a creature lasts as many minutes as its Constitution score, then makes a DC 10 Constitution save each minute or gains 1 Exhaustion. Slippery ice is difficult terrain: a DC 10 Dexterity save on entering it or fall Prone.

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 20
Random encounters: flat check DC 14 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.
Deep snow. Snow is difficult terrain, or greater difficult terrain when deep (GM Core pp. 90-91): a day's travel is halved, or cut to a third.
Thin ice. Ice is difficult terrain and uneven ground (GM Core p. 90): moving across it can call for Acrobatics to Balance.
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

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 fur trader is ten days late at the trading post, and his sled dogs came back alone with their traces chewed through. The sable pelts he carried were promised to a prince, who has sent a man to ask about them.
In high summer, the mosquitoes drive a reindeer herd mad and it scatters across the bogs. The herder’s daughter offers a share of the calves to anyone who helps gather them before the wolves do.
A fishing village moves onto the frozen lake every winter in huts on runners. This year something knocks under the ice at night, three times, always beneath the headman’s hut.
A trapper swears one wolverine has robbed his traps for eleven winters and has lately started leaving him small gifts in exchange. He wants a witness, so that the other trappers will stop laughing at him.

What grows here

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.
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.
Siberian Larch (tree). A deciduous conifer of 20 to 50 m whose soft needles turn bright yellow and fall each autumn, native to western Russia from the Finnish border to the Yenisei valley. Its rot-resistant wood made posts, railway sleepers and mine props, and its resin is chewed as a natural gum in Russia. Gives: Siberian Larch Wood, Siberian Larch Resin.
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.
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 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.
Cloudberry (herb). A low herb of 10 to 25 cm with palmate leaves and white flowers, growing on acid bogs, wet meadows and tundra around the North Pole. Its amber berries, rich in vitamin C, kept scurvy away from Arctic peoples and are made into jams and liqueurs in the Nordic countries. Gives: Cloudberry.
Peat Moss (moss). The bog mosses of the genus Sphagnum, whose spongy cells hold many times their dry weight in water; they build the peat bogs of the north, and grow in conifer forests and moist tundra. Dried, they dressed wounds in place of cotton up to the First World War, and the peat they lay down was burnt as fuel. Gives: Peat Moss.
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.
Chaga (fungus). A fungus of the circumboreal forests that grows mostly on birch, where it bursts from the trunk as a black, cracked mass like burnt charcoal and slowly rots the heartwood. Russian and Siberian folk medicine brewed it as a tea, and northern peoples used it as tinder that holds an ember; it is very rich in oxalates. Grows on: Silver Birch. Gives: Chaga Conk.