Imaginative Locations

[CheddarChampion]

So any D&D player can tell you about the cool monster they fought or the crazy shenanigans they got into, but rare is the tale of the zany location.

At worst it's mundane, at best it's mundane with a magical aspect. A "Path with rocks and there's trees in the distance" or a "City but instead of people there's demons."

Giant traversable mushrooms that fill the mile-wide canyon!
A space station long out of power that has been overrun with alien animals and plants!
A demiplane that is a glass Rubik's cube operated by the disembodied hands of a Titan!
What are your best ideas for fantastical locations?

[Tiadoppler]

A mining/metalworking-focused city built around stalactites hanging from the ceiling of a massive cave.

Large "buildings" are tunneled into the stalactites themselves, while smaller shops and most homes are build of crudely forged iron bars stuck into the sides, or even dangled from ropes or cables. Roads are usually thin walkways along the edges of stalactites, or suspended between them on cables.

Occasional gusts of wind through the cave systems tend to knock down buildings and shake bridges.

Garbage disposal is handled by simply dropping debris down to the cave floor, far below, where it is 'recycled' by the strange and deadly subterranean beasts that live there.

The danger of living on the unstable platforms is outweighed only by the rewards for miners who discover a rich vein of a precious metal, or a source of precious gems. Cruel and powerful beasts regularly crawl their way up into the mines, necessitating a regular supply of naive adventurers.

(this is the rough outline of a setting that will shortly be appearing in my main campaign)

[Segev]

Cities are built atop barren pillars that rise for miles out of the misty abyss, whose tops are on level with the top of the cloud layer. Willow-like trees convert the mist to water that pools around them, hanging in mid-air, over the abyss below. Terraces extending from the pillars are moist farmlands, manned by people who dwell in carved-out homes in the sides of the pillars. The best-connected have access to underground tunnels that lead back up to the cities up top; others have to brave climbing steep and narrow walkways painstakingly carved out.

Ships made of wood from the weeping willows turn the mist to water around their hulls, allowing them to float between city-pillars. Nobody knows how far down the abyss goes, nor if there's a bottom, nor what might be down there. Monsters are presumed. Go down too far, and the mists thicken to twilight, then darkness broken only by an unremitting gray overhead during the day...and by nothing at night.



A dwarven city of rusting iron built not underground, but on the ocean floor, with water-locks and constant repair and maintenance needed to keep it from springing fatal leaks. But the mineral vents and the rare sea creatures are so valuable in trade to surface wizards, and the proprietary paths that connect to the surface make it a trading hub with aquatic races.



A nation of giantoids and humanoids that live in reasonable harmony, with everything from humans and orcs to ogres and hill giants to stone, cloud, and storm giants dwelling together, ruled by a royal family of mixed Titan and Storm Giant blood. The harmoniousness of it isn't idyllic, but is still only broken by mostly-normal levels of civil unrest and crime. For the most part, people of all sizes live side-by-side. Enormous houses for giants have window-box farms maintained by halfling neighbors. Streets for humans and ogres overlook railings that mark walkways for giants. Public-serving buildings (government, commercial, etc.) have accommodations for people of all sizes. Mixed-breeds are common, further blurring the scales at which things are built. Nobility and wealthy merchants of all races can be found here, as can peasants of all races.

[Trustypeaches]

Kazaak-an underground shantytown built into the stalactites hanging over a glowing lake of acid.

Nestled in the heart of a toxic swamp lies a shimmering bayou draped in perpetual moonlight; a forest of floating mangroves whose cool, clear waters mask untold depths. Legend says the bayou sits atop a forgotten gateway to the Feywild, guarded by a trio of ancient nymph matrons

[Prince Vine]

A hole in the ground that leads to an area with reversed gravity where you have to climb up the edges to decend to a stronghold.

[lunaticfringe]

The Dryscar: a massive rend in the ocean reaching the sea floor, basically forming a type of canyon who's walls are sea water. No water can be found within the Dryscar and any water brought into it will flow towards the walls. There is no apparent physical force keeping the sea at bay and it is possible to pass through the 'walls' of the canyon with strangely little resistance. The floor of the Scar is littered with shipwrecks and bones from unfortunate crews who went over the edge.

[Man_Over_Game]

Mine: The Thundering Wastes. A different kind of desert, not plagued by heat, sun, or cold, but of lightning. Lightning is constant here, and shrines devoted to gods of Thunder are plentiful in this region, often using lightning rods in their designs to serve as both sources of worship and safety. Inns in this region are often underground, to help stifle the constant noise, and halflings and gnomes live here more than anything else, due to their stubbornness, ingenuity, and their desire to live under the surface. A few villages exist above the surface, who usually rely on the shelter of one of the thunder shrines. These villages usually make their living harvesting special plants and fungi that grow from this unique environment, as these plants usually come with special properties, including being things that can harvest lightning, work as temporary weapons, or can even be converted into magical brews for wizards.

Metal weapons are generally frowned upon, unless you happen to have a Lightning Guide, which is a person who is specifically designed to know how to redirect the lightning away from mortal life. Some are Storm Sorcerers, others are well-equipped inventors, and some are just wandering Warforged.

[Misterwhisper]

One major room in a dungeon I designed was a 100x100x100 foot cube where chains were all hanging from the ceiling and anchored to the floor, at odd angles but roughly every 2 feet.

The floor was actually not attached to the walls at all, it was hanging from the ceiling by all the chains.

The group thought it was a very odd room meant to make sure they made plenty of noise and moved really slowly until the 3 kytons came out of hiding.

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Another was an entire island that was one huge city. Buildings, and markets, and homes, everything... except people.
There was not a single living creature on the island.
As a matter of fact, there was no evidence that anyone or anything had ever lived there.
All the building were built and set up like a massive city with streets and sewers and everything but there were no personal belongings, no wear and tear of use, nothing.
Just a perfectly built and absolutely pristine city on an island.

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In a large in with 24 rooms, if you turn the doorknob to the right as you open the door you enter the room normally.
If you turn it to the left as you open it, it goes into a different room of the same Inn.

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A mine which has a strange new stoneore inside, Mutestone. A stone ore that while not of high enough quality to make a weapon out of, it cancels all sound within a range proportional to the mass.

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[effenhoog]

A random bit I've been thinking about:

A legendary city called the City of Glass, but once the PCs finally find it they just see an otherwise normal city. Eventually it would be revealed that the inhabitants of the city are all constructs whose glass bodies crack and shatter when damaged. The significance of this is TBD, though obviously it is the true origin of the city's name

[Iceyknight]

>What about a giant sand castle that pops out of nowhere? It can be a huge dungeon ( or a trap) and there's a gem in the middle. IF a player grabs the gem, they would be transported to a labyrinth of sand, where it will slowly start to pour in sand, and the players must get out or they would die? And when they get out, they are in the middle of the ocean, as the castle suddenly appears on a small island. They then find a magician cult that has been luring in adventurers to sacrifice to their god. Once they kill the cult members, they gain control of the giant Sandcastle, which is like a mech, but they can not go far into land because its lifeline is on a beach or in water.


>Another idea for a location is a collection of ruins that have mirrors. If you touch the mirrors, you will become shadows and can walk through certain obstacles. You turn from normal to shadow and back again in order to progress. You cant walk through light as a normal being, and you cant walk through darkness as a shadow. There can even be a village in the ruins that you can only talk to by turning into shadows.


> A giant mushroom forest where the mushrooms give the players hallucinations and try to figure out which is real and not real.

Those are my ideas for locations and dungeons.