This article contains affiliate links. If you’d like to support us, feel free to use these links 🛒 to buy books, dice, or similar products. Thank you 🙂
Every Dungeon Master knows this situation: The party has decided to explore an area that you as DM haven’t prepared. The Dungeon Master must therefore improvise and come up with exciting locations and NPCs so that the adventure can continue. Ideally, these interactions also somehow guide the party back to the main storyline.
To help Dungeon Masters with this task, we’ve compiled three locations that can easily be integrated into any fantasy setting. We hope these locations will enrich your game worlds and pen-&-paper sessions alike.
- The Storm House
- The Valley of a Thousand Doors
- The Rust Field
Fantasy Location 1: The Storm House
The Storm House is the old ruin of a once magnificent noble estate. The imposing villa stands on a cliff on the coast amid a lashing ocean. After years of rain, wind, and waves, it is only a shadow of its former grandeur. In our campaign, monks of the storm god had settled here. They willingly exposed themselves to the weather to prove their loyalty and resilience. In pouring rain and howling storms, the monks trained their martial arts, as the storm god Talos in Dungeons and Dragons is also the god of competition. Access to the Storm House was only possible via a narrow suspension bridge, so players could only step onto the bridge one at a time. Since the monks highly valued strength and endurance, they only allowed entry to the Storm House to those who defeated one of them in single combat on the bridge. Victory also went to whoever threw their opponent from the bridge into the ocean.
The Storm House offers a variety of uses. You can perfectly incorporate a dungeon here or let villains and monsters dwell there. Water monsters (Aboleth, sea folk, Kuo Toa) are particularly suitable for this. The pelting rain and stormy sky provide a perfect backdrop for dramatic battles.
Fantasy Location 2: The Valley of a Thousand Doors
During any campaign, you reach the point where players learn or want to learn fast travel. With rising levels, the threats to be fought also become increasingly global. A solution for a fast travel system in roleplaying is the Valley of a Thousand Doors. It exists in an interdimensional space and from there, every door in the multiverse is reachable. Players who enter the valley find themselves in infinitely long corridors from which countless doors in all shapes and colors branch off. The corridors are never the same and constantly changing. Time and distance behave differently in the Valley of a Thousand Doors than in other dimensions. Therefore, it’s possible to cover great distances in just a few moments. Provided you know and find the right door. It’s in the nature of the valley that travelers gradually become more insane the longer they linger in the space between dimensions. The temptation to simply try doors becomes ever greater. Countless travelers have been lost in the multiverse. Additionally, there’s the danger that you forget your own place in reality, or can no longer find it. Only the Portal Smiths travel safely through this space. A guild whose craft it is to construct access to the valley and safely guide paying travelers through it. But there are only few Portal Smiths and the training is long. A single mistake in the Valley of a Thousand Doors can lead to the end of a character.
The Valley of a Thousand Doors is perfect for providing a retreat for monsters and villains. Those who live between dimensions can hardly be caught, and those who know the right doors can strike exactly where it pays off. You can also develop exciting characters who specialize in movement spells and use the valley for this purpose.
Furthermore, the valley is a fun addition to campaigns where Dungeon Masters want to bring a little randomness into the game. Which doors will the players open? Where will they come out?
Fantasy Location 3: The Rust Field
The Rust Field is a legendary place similar to our Bermuda Triangle. It’s a stormy location on the high seas where disproportionately many ships sink and disproportionately few remains can be recovered. Sunken ships decompose unusually quickly here and leave behind only a forest of their iron anchors. Like graves in a cemetery, they are the last remains of the numerous ships that met their end here. Due to accelerated erosion, the anchors rust and make the water murky and brown.
The reason for this is a demon, kraken, or god of the tritons trapped in a magical artifact. Due to the waning magic of the prison, which was sunk here long ago, corrupting magic seeps from the artifact, causes ships to sink, makes the water poisonous, and makes sea creatures aggressive.
The Rust Field is a great underwater location for fantasy campaigns. You can incorporate exotic enemies like rust monsters, mimics, or sharks here. If desired, you can place a cursed ship complete with dungeon in the center of the Rust Field. Additionally, you can incorporate mechanics for the “poisonous” water: Either players become exhausted if they stay in the water too long, they become poisoned, or they take damage. This forces players to resort to creative solution approaches if they want to retrieve the artifact. Furthermore, the Rust Field provides a reason to try out the mechanics for underwater combat. This creates variety in otherwise monotonous combat.
