The OSRegon Trail: Save vs Dysentery

I have a somewhat macabre tradition of re-watching the Ric Burns documentary American Experience: The Donner Party to celebrate the first snowfall of the year. It's an excellent example of the genre, and I could go on and on about it, but I won't. I can say with little doubt that it has influenced the way I have been running the food scarcity in the 'miserycrawl' module Deep Carbon Observatory. During this year's viewing I couldn't help but think of the Oregon Trail as a prototypical example not only of the miserycrawl, but of the 0-level 'funnel' adventures used by Dungeon Crawl Classics, and the resource-management and lethality of early-edition D&D.

Now, suitably inspired, I'm working on The OSRegon Trail, a D&D setting hack that intends to capture the pioneer experience during the westward expansion across North America.