A dry, sandy, wasteland, filled only with the bones of those unwary travellers who attempted to cross it? Oh, and a few cactuses (or is it cacti)?

Not quite. Yes, the desert is hot, and yes, the desert is dry. However, there's lots of things alive there, if you just care to look, and if you're running an adventure there, you'd best have the characters encounter some of them, lest the gaming session be long and boring: "Oh! You find some more cattle skeletons, under this drift of sand!"

These notes are an amalgamation of several desert sub-biomes. Deserts actually vary quite a bit amongst themselves. However, for brevity, I've amalgamated. Future revisions may have more details on various sorts of deserts.

Well, hot. Hot and dry. In fact, the "dry" part is what makes a desert a desert. A desert is defined as a place which gets less than 10 inches or so of precipitation per year.

It's really hot and dry in the desert, and so everything adapts. Plants tend to be ground hugging, have small leaves and thick skin, all to prevent moisture loss. Many plants store water inside of themselves and/or have deep roots to reach the water. Spines and barbs are not uncommon, to prevent unwary creatures from stealing away the hard-earned water.

One intriguing form of plant, known by the apt moniker of "ephemeral", survive the dry by not being plants. They live in drought-resistant seeds, and complete their entire life cycle in a couple of weeks, if rain happens to fall.

Note: The division between common/uncommon/rare species here is perhaps wrong.

Note that common species doesn't mean they're all over the place, thick on the ground. It just means that there's typically one or two in sight. That's common, for the desert.

• yuccas, ocotillo, turpentine bush, prickly pears, false mesquite, sotol, ephedras, agaves and brittlebush, mesquite

• Creosote bush, bur sage (Franseria dumosa or F. deltoidea), white thorn, cat claw, brittle bushes (Encelia farinosa), lyciums, and jujube

• salt bush, buckwheat bush, black bush, rice grass, little leaf horsebrush, black sage, and chrysothamnus.

Animals typically come out when the desert becomes cool, particularly at night.

In a tribute to the variety and tenacity of life, animals are out in the desert even during the heat of the day. Insects live in the shade of cactus spines, and jackrabbits follow the shade of rocks and plants. thanks to Blake Wondrasch for this information

Note: The division between common/uncommon/rare species here is perhaps wrong.

• small nocturnal carnivores

• kangaroo rats

• insects, arachnids, reptiles and birds

• rabbits, skunks, grasshoppers, ants, lizards, snakes, burrowing owls, California thrasher.

• fairy shrimps, insects, coyote, badger, toads, great horned owl, golden eagle, bald eagle, lizards and snakes