Dangerous Mountain Survival

[Bromley20]

I was recently trying to come up with a quest that would only take a session or two to complete. Since we recently had Halloween and it is going to start getting cold outside, I was thinking about running something similar to the Dyatlov Pass incident, the Donner Party, or the Shining. A spooky quest revolving around cold survival. After looking into various hazards of the mountains, I have found:
Cabin Fever
Hypothermia
Frostbite
High Altitude hazards
Cold Exposure
Wendigo


My party (level 6) is currently heading to kill a mini bbeg on top of a mountain. I would like the environment to be a bigger threat than the creatures inside the base. My current idea is to have a snowstorm hit as they hit the enemies base. After they kill the target, I could have an avalanche bury most of the ground floor in snow the only exit would be on higher floors. Food or the cold would eventually become a problem if they chose to stay in the base. The base is about a week from any town so they would have to find a way to survive during the travel. I may have a wendigo harass them as they travel back to town. It would slowly wear down their wisdom until they finally kill it.

Any ideas or suggestions for dangerous weather and environments?

[Cirtona Pox]

Good list but D&D offers so many magical ways around freezing/starving to death that there isn't much cause for concern at level six. A priest in the party sort of munsons any chance of either of those things.


Other stuff you can throw at them to make the weather seem mind:

A greater mimic that makes itself appear as an abandoned (but dry and warm) cabin.

A dryad who's tree was buried in the avalanche and needs them to dig it out.

The frozen body of the wendigo after it had been harassing them for a few days. It was slain by something more sinister that will now stalk the party after the DM realized that they were not going to kill the wendigo.

[Bromley20]

Good list but D&D offers so many magical ways around freezing/starving to death that there isn't much cause for concern at level six. A priest in the party sort of munsons any chance of either of those things.


Other stuff you can throw at them to make the weather seem mind:

A greater mimic that makes itself appear as an abandoned (but dry and warm) cabin.

A dryad who's tree was buried in the avalanche and needs them to dig it out.

The frozen body of the wendigo after it had been harassing them for a few days. It was slain by something more sinister that will now stalk the party after the DM realized that they were not going to kill the wendigo.

The party does not have a true caster. They have a crusader that they use for healing and a ranger with 1 spell a day. Everyone else is mundane. At the moment they have a Crusader, 2 handed Fighter, disguise focused Rogue, and a Ranger using a bow. The ranger could cast endure elements 1/day so 1 person in the party could be immune but everyone else would be effected. It could lead to an interesting situation where the ranger has to choose who gets protection each day.

I will definitely look for more things to add like the dryad's tree and mimic too.