I need locations!

[Pinjata]

Descriptive or pictures. My lvl 1 team will as a test one-shot engage dangerous goblins, kobolds, commoners ... I have a bit a brainfart regarding locations and I'd appreciate any ideas/art along this alley.

Thanks :)

[The Jack]

Descriptive or pictures. My lvl 1 team will as a test one-shot engage dangerous goblins, kobolds, commoners ... I have a bit a brainfart regarding locations and I'd appreciate any ideas/art along this alley.

Thanks :)

I Think you could put it all in a cave system, since it works with the monsters. If you don't go with "just a cave" and flesh it out, y'know, make it beautiful. Specifying a limestone cave and making it wonderous and would go a long way, but there's also opportunity for certain game mechanics; the caves surfaces might be covered in a thin layer of wet mud, which presents tracking opportunities, or you could present clostrophic crawls (more terrifying when goblins are around) or dangerous (but maybe not deadly) climbs or drops. It also lets you play with darkness.

..And of course, there's the fantasy opportunities of caves; glowing mushrooms/crystals, underground lakes with mysterios monsters.

It's a good exercise to flex your GM muscles. don't be satisfied with just "a cave".

[ProphetSword]

A terrible tribe of tree dwelling goblins in the swamp has built huts among the towering tree tops that require players to navigate rickety bridges and slippery wooden platforms where one trip could mean a fall to certain death.

[Kaptin Keen]

I have a thing about very vertical cave systems. There always seems to be an underground waterfall thundering down through a black, near-bottomless abyss. Collecting here and there in deep pools, before plunging down again.

One such cave was a series of three chambers, through which an ancient stone staircase wound, with many platforms, bridges to cross the river, and pathways snaking along the cave walls. Everywhere a mist of water droplets from the waterfalls, slippery surfaces - and spiders and driders who could easily dodge beneath the staircases and walkways.

Another was where an orc tribe had built their way up from undergrond - and constructed a fortress atop the cliff above. It had similar winding platforms. However, the cave had since been taken over by a wyvern. I love the moment when, halfway down, the party found broken, very large egg shells, moments before being jumped by a swarm of wyvernlings. These they fought off easily, but the cries of wounded young brought the mother - swooping down through the shaft, pushing the air in front of her, huge black wings descending the darkness.

So, yea. Vertical caves =)

[jayem]

My lvl 1 team will as a test one-shot
What are you testing?

Caves (or indeed swamps) seem like a good excuse to have a linear section to keep monster based tests in order.

Perhaps a dwarf underground city is under attack by Goblins/Kobalds. The way to get behind enemy lines to rescue something (without directly alerting the enemy) takes you through the edges of Kobald/Goblin village cave (ugly and boring) over a short woody/marshy overland section and then into the back tunnels of the dwarves and possibly then on into the blingy sections.
On the way back you then have unprepared weak Goblins ahead of you, and strong Goblins chasing you (at an appropriate distance behind).

[Pinjata]

@Jayem

Just introducing people to combat. They are noobs. And to iconic monsters.

[jayem]

@Jayem

Just introducing people to combat. They are noobs. And to iconic monsters.

Ah, so you can have a bit more freedom. To through another suggestion perhaps a sherwood themed area, where near the towns and road you have more or less pacified people living there and then further in the forest you get slightly dubious characters living on their own and in the deep forest you have the proper outlaw and bandit camps.

[Knaight]

Deep in the Fog Forest, a temperate rainforest forever mired in thick fog is an ancient crater several miles wide. Every night the crater fills to the brim with fog, and every sunny day the fog burns away, revealing the village and formerly underground river at the bottom of it.

One of the oddities of an area defined by an active supervolcano is a lake of boiling mud, peppered through with a bunch of large boulders that are relatively close together.

In the high plains is a single massive chasm that runs all the way to the coast, a tiny sea level outlet emerging from high cliffs. Throughout this chasm are a bunch of large pools in low lying areas, separated by dry land, and split between these pools are tribes of aquatic humanoids, deeply hostile but unable to reach each other. Then, when the PCs are there, it floods.

[LibraryOgre]

I can't access it on my work computer, but you might try dragonsfoot.org. They have a lot of free adventures that you can cannibalize for maps and such.