Supernatural Desert Hazards

Supernatural Desert Hazards

Sandstorm presents a quite long list of supernatural hazards for D&D 3.5. Here's their re-imagining in GURPS ruleset.

WEATHER

Flamestorm: In certain locations in the waste, magical fire falls from the sky like rain—a phenomenon that waste-dwellers call a flamestorm. Flamestorms occur somewhat more frequently than rainfall does in the desert, though they are hardly an everyday occurrence.

Flamestorms are presaged by the formation of dark clouds in the sky, which the uninitiated might mistake for rain clouds (Survival (Desert) roll to determine that they are not). A Vision roll reveals that the flashes of light in the clouds are more reddish-orange than ordinary lightning.

The fiery raindrops produced by flamestorms deal 1d-4 burning each second to every creature in the area. The raindrops themselves are not magical, though the rain clouds that produce them are.

The constant crackle and low roar of the falling fire provides a –4 penalty on Hearing rolls.

A flamestorm generally lasts 5dx10 seconds.

Flaywind: The terrible flaywind usually can only be encountered on Minethys, the third layer of Carceri, but rarely can occur on its own on the Material Plane. The storm typically lasts 1dx5 hours.

Everything caught in a flaywind takes 1d-4 corrosion damage per second, as the wind abrades everything away. A barricade or enclosed space is the only sure protection.

In general, creatures in an area about to be struck by a flaywind are entitled to Survival (Desert) or Survival (Carceri) rolls to detect the approaching danger 1 minute before it strikes. This might not be enough time to get out of the storm’s path, but it could provide an opportunity to seek shelter or make other preparations.

Furnace Wind: In wastes of unearthly heat, the air itself is a lethal weapon. When the furnace wind blows, any open water dries up and flammable materials ignite. A furnace wind arises at midday, seemingly blowing from the sun itself. A typical furnace wind lasts 10d seconds. It is never below 35 mph, and in addition to the normal effects of such a strong wind, it deals burning damage, as given on the following table.

Wind Speed (mph)	Effect
35-39	1d-5 burning damage per second
40-63	1d-4 burning damage per second
64-73	1d-3 burning damage per second
74-103	1d-2 burning damage per second
104+	1d-1 burning damage per second

In general, creatures in an area about to be struck by furnace winds are entitled to Survival (Desert) rolls to detect the approaching danger 1 minute before it strikes. This might not be enough time to get out of the storm’s path, but it could provide an opportunity to seek shelter or make other preparations.

  

Necrotic Flaywind: When a flaywind (see above) arises in an area of black sand (see below), the storm is known as a necrotic flay wind. A creature killed by such a storm is reduced to bone, which the negative energy of the black sand then animates into a skeleton.

In general, creatures in an area about to be struck by a flaywind are entitled to Survival (Desert) or Survival (Carceri) rolls to detect the approaching danger 1 minute before it strikes. This might not be enough time to get out of the storm’s path, but it could provide an opportunity to seek shelter or make other preparations.

TERRAIN

Black Sand: Black sand is infused with shadowstuff and negative energy. A region of black sand literally swallows light; magical darkness rises to a height of 6 yards over the surface. Nothing short of a Flash spell can disperse this darkness, and even then only for a period of 1d hours. In addition, creatures that come in contact with the sand take 1 point of toxic damage per second from negative energy. Upon reaching -1xHP, they crumble and join the black sand.

  

Devil Dune: The fastest dunes advance only a couple hundred feet each year, but dunes made of sand under the influence of unearthly winds or particles of unusually fine material (such as ground bone or glass) might move many times faster. A “racing dune” is a mountain of grit that travels at least 1 foot per hour—often faster. It can choke an entire city in days, fill up precious waterways, and even smother sleeping creatures. These dunes, threatening as they are, pale in comparison with devil dunes.

Certain sand dunes seem to resent the disturbance caused by the passage of mortal feet across their surfaces, and seek to exact a grim vengeance for the presumption. These devil dunes move under their own magical power, rolling like great waves of sand as they pursue those who trespass against them.

Devil dunes measure 30 yards long, 15 yards wide and 12 yards high. They move at Move 3, as though blown by a powerful yet undetectable wind. They relentlessly pursue trespassers to the very edge of the waste—the limit of their domain. As long as their prey travels upon the sands, devil dunes always know where to find it.

Devil dunes kill by enveloping their prey and suffocating it. When any part of a devil dune enters a square containing its quarry, the creature is allowed a DX roll. If the roll fails, the quarry is buried. Buried creatures must hold breath or begin to suffocate.

A devil dune seems almost like a living creature, except that no amount of ordinary damage can stop it. An Earthquake spell breaks apart a devil dune, which takes weeks to reform.

  

Leech Salt Flats: Ordinary salt flats found in the waste are dangerous enough simply because potable water is extremely scarce. Beyond that, in salt flat areas where the ground is suffused with arcane energy, the salt can drain moisture out of living beings.

A leech salt flat appears like any other salt flats, though it radiates a faint necromancy aura. Living creatures that travel across a leech salt flat require five times the usual daily allotment of fluids to avoid becoming dehydrated, as the environment itself steals moisture from their bodies.

  

Mirror Sand: When ordinary sand mixes with deposits of tin or silver, and the resulting granules are polished by windblown dust to a mirror finish, the sand itself can reflect light—and heat. Travelers in the waste dread mirror sand, because it is extremely unsafe to cross in the daylight. In addition to raising the temperature by 20%, mirror sand effectively blinds anyone who gazes at it—sometimes permanently.

Area above mirror sand is considered to have illumination five levels higher than normal, which means that in direct sunlight it has illumination level +5 that imposes a -5 penalty on all sight-based tasks made by creatures with a native level of illumination of 0 (almost all normal creatures). In addition, each second a creature has its eyes open while traveling over mirror sand it must make a HT+4 roll or become blinded until it spends 24 hours in darkness or with its eyes closed. This roll is made at a cumulative -1 penalty for each consecutive second the creature keeps its eyes open. To reset this penalty, the creature must keep its eyes closed for at least 10 seconds.

If, for some reason, a blinded creature continues to expose its eyes to the reflected brightness from mirror sand, it must make a HT roll each hour or become permanently blind.

  

Plains of Glass: Very high temperatures melt sand into glass. Lightning strokes from thunderstorms might produce a number of small glassy areas, and a volcano’s eruption can eject “bombs” of glass. Traveling on a plain of glass is treacherous. The surface is as slick as an ice sheet. Glass plains are often fractured, with jagged shards sticking out in all directions along huge fissures. Explosive and sonic attacks against a smooth glass plain, or the impact of a siege engine’s missile, throw up a devastating cloud of glass slivers that attacks everyone within 5 yards with a skill level of 15, dealing 1d-1 piercing damage, just like normal fragmentation attacks.

  

Red Sea: Mundane salt lakes can acquire a red hue from a combination of the dissolved minerals and microscopic creatures that thrive in this unlikely environment. However, a red sea is a far more exotic hazard. It is pure salt—not salt water—kept liquid through supernatural or magical power and given a blood-red color by the corrosion of metal in the rock it touches.

Immersion in a red sea is deadly. The salt rapidly desiccates a living creature, dealing 1d-3 fatigue per second of contact. Treat FP lost to this hazard as FP lost to dehydration. Water elementals, plant creatures, and freshwater dwellers are especially vulnerable to this effect, taking 1d fatigue damage instead. Metal objects corrode away, taking 1d-3 corrosion damage per second.

   

Shadowsand: This substance, if encountered in the daytime, appears to be ordinary sand, albeit slightly darker than normal and cool to the touch. Even in subtropical and tropical climates, the temperature in an area covered by shadowsand rises only to about 70° F during the hottest part of the day. At night, the true nature of shadowsand becomes apparent. The temperature of the sand plunges to below 0° F, catching many desert dwellers unprepared for such severe cold. Shadowsand sucks the heat out of campfires and other blazes, preventing them from providing enough warmth to significantly improve matters. A Survival (Desert) roll is required to realize that the radical drop in nighttime temperature in an area of shadowsand is not a natural occurrence.

Areas of shadowsand are rarely more than a mile across. They are hardly a danger to those who are prepared for them, or who have the luxury of moving after night falls.

What makes shadowsand especially dangerous—and what might explain why it exists—is that certain types of undead (particularly vampires, spectres, and wraiths) are drawn to it, and they dwell under it during daylight hours.

Shapesand: Shapesand shares many properties with the stuff of uncontrolled Limbo—raw energy that can be molded into any form desired, according to the will of the shaper. The new shape is still composed of sand, but it has the qualities of the object it mimics.

Even someone without that mastery can attempt to manipulate shapesand or take control of a shapesand item that was created by someone else. Shapesand can be reshaped as if every character had Control Shapesand 1 advantage, but based on Will instead of IQ.

  

Slipsand: Tiny nodules of glass can form in the splash of a meteorite impact or as the result of a supernatural collision. Such particles have extraordinarily smooth, slippery surfaces. For this reason, a field of slipsand is far more deadly than the quicksand of the Prime Material Plane, or even supernatural softsand (see below). The surface gives way readily under the slightest weight, swallowing up anything unfortunate enough to step on it. It is impossible to swim through or tread water in slipsand; a creature caught in it sinks to the bottom and begins to suffocate when it can no longer hold its breath.

Even creatures with Tunneling or Permeation (Sand) are subject to this effect of slipsand, despite their ability to swim through normal sand. Slipsand looks no different from ordinary sand or dust from a distance, and a Survival (Desert) roll is necessary to notice it. If a creature steps in, it must roll vs. Swimming-5 (or HT-9) every second, at double encumbrance penalties. Any success lets it flop to safety. Each failure costs 1 FP – and at 0 FP, each FP costs 1 HP. Rescuers must win a Quick Contest of their highest ST plus (others’ total ST)/5 against twice the victim’s ST to pull him out. Rescue attempts take one second apiece. The rescuee decides whether to cooperate or attempt Swimming – he can’t do both.

Slumber Sand: Appearing in patches up to 1dx20 yards across, slumber sand is deceptively ordinary-looking sand. However, when characters walk or ride over it for 8d seconds, the passage of their feet (or their mounts’ feet) kicks up a soporific dust. Those who inhale this dust must make an HT roll or fall asleep for margin of failure minutes.

Unless characters can fly or otherwise leave without disturbing the sand again, they might find exiting an area of slumber sand to be a tedious process of walk, sleep, wake, and walk again. Areas of slumber sand can be identified as such from a safe distance with a Survival (Desert) check.

  

Softsand: Though actual quicksand (GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 16 – Wilderness Adventures, page 33) cannot exist in dry environments, softsand can provide a similar effect in completely dry terrain. Not nearly so deadly as slipsand, softsand is not actual sand, but extremely light, powdery dust. Generally scattered harmlessly about by desert winds, it can sometimes collect in pits shielded from the wind, where it looks like ordinary sand.

Wailing Waste: Where the winds blow constantly across the dunes, thin streams of sand pour from the dune tops with an eerie hum. Sometimes these singing sands are infused with a malevolent presence. Some claim that the spirits resent the presence of the living in their waste. Others believe the unearthly moans come directly from the planes—perhaps a howling wind from Pandemonium, or cries from souls tortured in the red-hot vaults of Dis. Whatever the source, an area of wailing waste is detrimental to those who hear it.

A creature within the area affected by a wailing waste’s sound must make a Will roll or begin to hallucinate for as long as the victim is able to hear the sound.

HAZARDS

Fey Oasis: Every so often, a normal oasis is the domain of fey—and some fey, particularly mirage mullahs, delight in tormenting mortals who fall into their hands.

A fey oasis seems like any other oasis, except that a rich merchant caravan appears to be encamped there. Every member of the caravan is a fey creature. The magic of the oasis makes them appear to be mortals, just as it makes an actually barren stretch of desert appear to be a verdant glen filled with fresh water and date trees.

A fey oasis always appears at dusk and disappears at dawn—taking with it anyone foolish enough to remain in the camp that long. When it reappears at some point in the future (and, in all likelihood, somewhere else in the world), the “abducted” individual returns as well. That individual has now become a mirage mullah, and is bound to the oasis like the rest of the fey.

Furnace Zone: A furnace zone is an area of constant, intense magical or supernatural heat that constantly deals the damage of a normal furnace wind. Furnace zones vary in intensity just as furnace winds do, even though no wind actually blows in a furnace zone.

  

Moondust: “Moondust” need not occur literally on a moon, although the airless lunar surface is certainly a waste environment. Meteorites, many of them microscopically small, constantly bombard a world that lacks a thick atmosphere. The clashing cubes of Acheron or the grinding of the Elemental Plane of Earth can also produce moondust. This action pounds rock into a mixture of fine, jagged fragments and tiny droplets of glass created by impact.

Without wind or water, the normal forces of erosion are not present. The tiny fragments remain jagged rather than becoming smooth (as ordinary sand does), and thus they stick together tightly. Their extremely small size allows the particles to float readily with only a slight disturbance and then to stick to any surface with incredible tenacity. The dust penetrates almost any fabric, coats respiratory passages, and clogs machinery. Even covering the nose and mouth is no protection against suffocation from moondust. Only an impermeable barrier or an appropriate spell can prevent the suffocation.

  

Phantom Cities: Most mirages vanish when a viewer approaches them closely, but certain mirages persist even after the viewer has fully entered them. The most common of these are phantom cities—cities that appear completely real, but vanish as soon as the viewer departs the city’s border. Phantom cities always appear as fantastic edifices with luxurious buildings and happy citizens that might tell how great and safe the city is from the forces of evil.

Lending some credence to such tales is the fact that only those of good ethical category (priests of metaphysically good deities, meldshapers with an appropriate moral focus, good outsiders, etc.) are capable of perceiving these cities. It might be that they exist in pocket dimensions, or that they are planar gates to some unknown location. To those who visit them, they seem real. Though a visitor might stay for many years in a phantom city, when he emerges he is generally well fed and in good health, as though he had spent his time lounging in a palace, rather than wandering in the desert.

A phantom city does not magically fade from view once a visitor departs from it; the city does not disappear any more mysteriously than any ordinary city would in the eyes of someone journeying away from it. The same cannot be said of characters who enter a phantom city; those who cannot perceive the city see the visitor fade from sight, though the visitor can still see and hear those outside.

Phantom Voices: When the winds blow in the desert, it is easy to imagine that one can hear voices calling across the sands. This is a natural phenomenon. However, when the voices carry on conversations with a traveler, magic is at work.

Phantom voices are sometimes known as the spirits of the sand, because they seem to know a great deal about the wastes from which they emanate. They are able to point out dangerous areas and provide information about monsters that might be encountered. Unfortunately, they only answer direct questions, and only if the questioner makes a small sacrifice to them first by pouring onto the dry ground the contents of a full waterskin (or about one-third of the daily water requirement for a SM+0 creature).

Properly propitiated, the phantom voices answer with complete accuracy—provided they actually know the answer. The voices are not omniscient and cannot foretell the future. Consider the voices to have Survival (Desert)-14, but keep in mind that it has no concepts of anything outside the desert. Answers other than a simple yes or no are expressed in vague terms.

These voices never rise above the level of a whisper, as though they were originating from some distance away. Some travelers find them extremely disturbing despite their helpfulness because, once the voices are provided with water, they continually clamor for more. The voices depart after several hours, but in the meantime those attempting to rest find it nearly impossible with phantom voices whispering “Water? Water?” all around them.