Ingredients are found in the wild. Nord Games tells us where: environment, climate and place. All twelve of Nord’s environments are in the vault: Aquatic, Coast, Desert, Forest, Hills, Mountains, Plains, Swamp, Tundra, Underground and Urban – plus Forsaken Realms, which replaces the normal list where the land is cursed or blighted.
How it plays at the table
- The party is somewhere – the DM opens the environment (or What’s Here) and sets the climate and season.
- The tool lists what grows there right now, grouped by kind (herbs & plants, fungi, wood & trees, stone & minerals, ore & metal, shells, other), with abundance, quantity die, DC and where exactly it grows – e.g. “Found among root systems and in the leaf litter”. Use it to describe the scene.
- A player says what they look for – “I search for herbs along the river.” Narrow the list with Looking for.
- Search check – finding. One player rolls Wisdom (Survival) or Intelligence (Nature) (not Perception – you have to know what you are looking for). The search takes 1 hour.
- Finds: the search check is compared with every grade’s DC at once. For each grade it reaches, the party finds 1 ingredient + 1 more for every 2 points over that grade’s DC. The tool picks them from what is here, weighted toward the plentiful ones.
- Quantity: each find rolls its own quantity die (below). A result of 0 means the patch was already picked clean.
- Harvest check – taking it. Everyone who gathers makes one harvest check (the ingredient’s check, usually Intelligence (Nature), or with the tool). It is compared with each find’s DC: success – you help gather that find; failure – each point below the DC ruins 1 portion, and you don’t help. See Tools and skills for what you need to gather.
- Time: gathering comes on top of the search – see Gathering time.
| Grade | DC |
|---|---|
| Low (and Raw) | 10 |
| Medium | 15 |
| High | 20 |
| Supreme | 25 |
The same DCs are used for the search check and the harvest check. High and Supreme can be found anywhere.
Example: a search check of 17 reaches Low (DC 10) and Medium (DC 15). Low: 1 + 3 (7 over) = 4 Low finds. Medium: 1 + 1 (2 over) = 2 Medium finds. Each of the 6 finds rolls its quantity die. Then the gatherers roll their harvest checks: you 17, a friend 16, a helper 12. On a Medium find (DC 15) with 11 portions the helper is 3 short – 3 portions ruined, 8 left, gathered by the two who made it.
Prefer real dice? Each environment page also has our own d100 tables, built from the ingredient notes.
Seasons
Every ingredient lists how it does in each season: 🟢 plentiful, 🔵 some, 🟡 scarce or ⚪ absent. Abundance decides the quantity die – each step down the list is one die smaller, and each grade starts one die smaller than the one below it. Roll it and subtract 1.
Loading tool …
- Estimated: Nord gives no seasons, so they are set from what the ingredient is – flowers bloom in spring and summer, berries ripen in summer and autumn, fungi peak in autumn, wood, stone and metal are there all year, and cold-loving plants (snowdrop, winterberry …) peak in winter. Edit
seasonsin an ingredient’s frontmatter if you disagree. - Tropical climates: nothing is fully absent – absent counts as scarce.
- Climate: an ingredient only appears if it grows in the chosen climate (or in any climate).
- Absent ingredients can’t be found at all that season.
Tools and skills
Searching needs no tool. To gather (the harvest check) you need the tool for that kind of find, and proficiency in Nature, Survival or that tool. The 2024 rule still applies: proficiency with both the skill and the tool gives advantage.
| Kind of find | Tool you need |
|---|---|
| Flowers, herbs, plants, fungi | Herbalism Kit |
| Foliage, shrubs and trees | Woodcarver’s Tools, Carpenter’s Tools or Herbalism Kit |
| Rock | Mason’s Tools |
| Sand | Mason’s or Glassblower’s Tools |
| Shells, coral and gemstones | Jeweler’s Tools |
| Metal | Smith’s Tools (precious metal: also Jeweler’s Tools) |
| Water | a container – flask, vial or waterskin |
| Other finds | the tool that fits (GM’s call) |
Gathering time
Everything is gathered at the same pace: 1 minute per portion per grade step – an hour gives as many portions of iron as of flowers, if there are that many. But each ingredient has a minimum work time (Nord’s time, shown on the ingredient as Min. work): before that, nothing is taken. Herbs take minutes, wood and ore take hours.
| Low | Medium | High | Supreme | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Per portion (everything) | 1 min | 2 min | 3 min | 4 min |
| Portions per hour, per gatherer | 60 | 30 | 20 | 15 |
| Min. work – herbs, fungi, shells (Nord: 1 min × step) | 1 min | 2 min | 3 min | 4 min |
| Min. work – sand, leaves, coral (Nord: 10 min × step) | 10 min | 20 min | 30 min | 40 min |
| Min. work – wood, ore, stone, gems (Nord: 1 h × step) | 1 h | 2 h | 3 h | 4 h |
Time for N portions = the longer of the minimum work and N × time per portion – divided by the number of gatherers. Never more portions than the find has.
- Gatherers are everyone who made the find’s harvest DC. They share the work – both the minimum work and the portions. Those who failed don’t help (and ruined 1 portion per point they were short).
- Example (Medium, 11 portions, DC 15): one gatherer – herbs all 11 in 22 min; iron nothing before 2 hours, then all 11. Two who made it – iron in 1 hour, herbs in 11 min.
- If nobody makes the DC, nothing is taken; they can try again with a new harvest check.
- The What’s Here tool shows this for every find; type in the work time to see how many they take.
In a hurry
- Rush search: the search takes ½ hour, and the search check gets DC +5 for every grade.
- Rush harvest: minimum work and time per portion are halved, and the harvest checks get DC +5.
- Both can be used at once.
Special places
- Special places – Power Sites, places touched by the Feywild, craters left by falling stars, temple ruins – are where the rarest finds are described, but High and Supreme can be found anywhere at their normal DC.
- There is no way to raise a grade. 10 portions don’t become 1 better portion. High and Supreme materials are found, harvested from strong creatures (CR 7+) or bought.
- Some ingredients name their special place (e.g. “near shrines or temples”). Then the place must fit the description.
Specialty ingredients
Every environment has a table of ingredients only artisans recognise.
- Requirement: proficiency with the tool.
- DC 25. Once one is found, further searches in the same place have disadvantage.
- If the check fails by 5 or less, or once a second one is found, no more can be found there for 4d4 days (the GM rolls).
- They are always unique parts and can fill a special slot.
What you find
A gathered portion is empty and has its grade’s capacity (Grades and Capacity). Nord’s crafting-time reductions are not used. Instead every unique ingredient and creature part says what it is good for, with a fit rating – see Fit. A unique ingredient with the right theme can fill a special slot or give a small boon at the GM’s discretion.