30 Fantastic Locations

({Hellfire + Random Name Generator} x Me)/Genre Fantasy = This List

1. Aetherian Highlands

The Aetherian Highlands are noted for many towering stone monolith in varying states of decrepitude, punctuated by constantly flowing waters that cascade down the stark cliff faces and sundered valleys of the highlands. There are some lakes, and while their surfaces may seem still, they can be very deep, feeding into underground riversheds, spongy limestone karsts, and dumping out into unexpected places.

2. The Ruined City of Yith-Kakra

Millenia ago, the twin cities of Yith and Kakra ended their centuries of bitter civil war and merged into one massive fortress city. The Yith-Kakran Triumvirate spread, dominating other cities, toppling kings, exterminating goblinoids, and even driving the great dragons from it's borders. The city eventually fell from the inside. Necromancy and demon summoning became vogue in the halls of the decadent, and in short order the city was consumed from within by hellish tortures, and necromantic plagues. The fortress remains standing, perpetually in a shroud of it's own filth. It is inhabited by ghosts, half demon wretches and a great number of mindless corpses, skeletons and other undead. There is no leader, no heirarchy, just death, and death staved off for another day.

3. Ksaijira Badlands

The Badlands of Ksaijira, an ancient word meaning the 'morning after breath of a dragon' is a rocky broken expanse of land, constantly being shaped by geothermal and tectonic activity. The bedrock is splintered, forced up into jagged raw features. Fumaroles, volcanic vents, steam gushing fissures, and geysers are well represented in the valleys between the buttresses of stone thrown into the air. The most captivating feature of Ksaijira are the mineral pools, rainbow hued waters heated to just below boiling temperatures. Rumor says these waters are charged with magical energy and if someone could survive the swim, they would be granted new youth and vitality, and cleansing of all diseases. There are lots of bones in the bottom of some of these pools that argue otherwise.

4. Yinare's Temple

Yinare was a potent pryomancer, rumored to have become a thermoclastic liche. Her fortress remains, a temple built on top of an active volcano, black clouds of ash spew from it's vent towers, and the gates open, pouring out flows of scintillating magma. The fortess projects magical protections for dozens of miles around it, covering hundreds of square miles of terrain, which is a mix of badland, scrub, and the spent shells of dead and dormant volcanoes. There are ruins of older fortresses built on these mountains, leading some to wonder if Yinare is copying these older designs, or if the legend of the fire witch is much much older than most people think.

5. Zyeworrod Lament

Zyeworrod Lament, or the Lament is a formerly arable swath of plateaus and valleys, scattered with the corpses of towns and the mausoleums of cities. The Lament was the former heart of the nation of Zyecholor, a warlike people given for religious extremism and mercenary operations. A powerful entity captured the religious wonder of the Zye people, and they fell to worshipping it as it guided them to major genocidal victories over several of their hated enemies. The Lament formed after the unnamed deity passed a curse into the Zye people, and within a fortnight nine out of ten Zye were dead, almost all by their own hand. The sprawling nation was effectively turning into first a militant police state and then into a massive suicide cult. A few descendents of the Zye remain, scattered from their desolated homeland. None dare to return, for the few that have feel the deities curse and open their own veins to offer homage to their ancestral god.

The disturbing part is that prior to the suicide pact, the Zye built massive necropoli and mausoleums to house themselves. They knew they were going to do it.

6. Ecceru Steppe

The Ecceru steppe is a southernly location, with extremes of seasons, brutally dry, hot summers, and equally hard cold winters. While this sort of weather isn't uncommon on massive expanses of flat land in the right location, the burning lakes are not. The steppe is marked by constant fires, and these fires are the worst around the lakes, where under the right conditions, the water itself steams, boils, and belches out pillars of flame. The creatures of the Eccure steppe are hardy, flame and drought resistant, and typically aggressive.

7. Uvero-Sluk Forest

A common misnomer, uvero and sluk are goblinoid words for 'the seduction displayed by animals that mate and then the female eats the male' and 'don't go there'. Uvero-Sluk is a deep, old forest, and it is surprisingly uninhabited. There are no resident sentient species, no large animals, medium animals are rare, and even small animals are uncommon. The only thing in abundance are plants, sprites, and insects. The forest is densely populated by forest spirits, almost all of which are embodiments of predatory or poisonous plants. Anything that walks into the forest is going to be either seduced or just plain murdered and turned into plantfood by the green things that live there.

8. Ice Mountains of Cedia

Cedia is technically an ocean, and what little land there is to be found is either the ice ground remains of islands, or massive chunks of stone being lifted and carried by the ice. The ice here is thick and old enough that rather than acting like frozen water, it behaves like stone. There are mountains that have been lifted up thousands of feet where massive plates of ice hundreds of miles wide have collided with each other, filled with treacherous crevices, deadfalls, and the almost constant rumble of an ice avalanche somewhere. Cedia is inhabited by ice and water spirits, as well as other creatures that live in extreme cold conditions. Rumor says that there is an ancient ice god, or frozen demon at the bottom of Cedia, and it's cold turned the ocean into a prison, but it's rage breaks the ice and pushes it around.

9. Tinquabarre

The coast of Tinquabarre is a mess, destroyed and littered with the wreckage of an unknown number of ships and the corpses of great sea beasts. Some are little more than rotten timbers and bleached bone while others are almost salvageable, or still warm but not bleeding anymore. A few people have been unlucky enough to see Tinquabarre, and lucky enough to escape. They speak of miles of wreckage, piles of great corpses, and greasy fires and hairy savages shouting and screaming from the spires, with hovels made from sail, and bone. To sail to Tinquabarre is a euphemism for a ship lost at sea, or a sailor given into sea madness, or a fools errand.

10. Morundian Reverse Mountains

Morundia is a vast stinking badlands, but rather than mountains rising up from the earth, there are massive jagged pits that vanish down into the earth, and rather than valleys, there are narrow ridges that one can traverse to cross the Morund wastes. This is a deadly voyage as the pits are host to a variety of wildlife, most all suited either for vigorous climbing or being capable of flight. Elementals are also common among the pits. The most common danger is the wind, as buffeting winds can reach close to 100 miles per hour, and can readily blow unwary travelers from the path down the long bloody fall into one of the yawning holes in the earth. There are plenty of crawling things that are waiting to consume the bloody gibbets that are left when a body stops moving.

11. Strait of Querilaughtest

The Strait of Querilaughtest was discovered by the elven explorer of the same long name, but far from being straight, the strait is a torturous winding affair littered with ice floes, icebergs, treacherous oceanic currents, and it is bordered by hull biting fjord rocks and studded with equally rocky islands. The waters are cold and deep, and many things live in them, ancient things steeped in hoary magics. The straits are a primal and perilous place where a few ships have tried to rechart Querilaughtest's path to find more exotic distant lands beyond the ice.

12. Ghamdan Canopy

The Ghamdan Canopy was a dense ancient forest once, but the trees that remain are so massive and so old that they have blotted out the sun, and almost no light worth mentioning makes it to the ground around their roots. The real 'forest' doesn't start growing until sixty to eighty feet in the air, with parasitic plants thriving in the broad road wide branches of the ancient trees. The canopy is filled with small animals, with a preponderance of small birds, insects, and animals suited to leaping and living their entire lives in the trees. The Ghamdan Shadow is the twilight realm of darkness and wooden pillars the size of castle towers. In this darkness dwell creatures that would seem more suited to caves that forests.

13. The Vaults of Serroth

The Kingdom of Serroth rose and fell long before the appearance of man, and while it was alive, the cities were above ground, with elaborate covered walkways and stone pavilions providing shade to the sun-sensitive Serrothian people. With the long passage of time, the kingdom was covered with dust and mud, and was forgotten, and now exists as nothing more than a dozen cities all buried in the earth, but easily accessible due to the preponderance of promenades, arcades, pavilions, and other stonework that created the twilight conditions for those now extinct peoples to survive. These cities are haunted by the ghosts of the last generations, who fought the inevitable decline, and where their ancestors once were magnificent builders and explorers, their last offspring were reduced to animalistic behaviour, madness, and autocannibalism.

14. Dehon Cavelands

The Dehon Cavelands are a unique form of badlands. The earth is porous in the extreme, and rather than piles of broken stone, splintered mountains and such, Dehon looks more like stone pipes of massive size, in varying states of decay, all piled into each other, forming networks of tubes, tunnels, and caverns. The pipes all radiate fierce heat, piping it up from some deep dark place in the earth, though a rare few show marks inside that they once had water running through them. A wise observer might notice that these look like the discarded remnants of the giant sewer and heating system, but only for a city where the residents were at least 100 feet tall.

15. Thorang

Also known as Thorangia, Pyromancia, and the Land of the Eternal Flame, Thorang is mountainous land with a single dominating feature, a volcano easily twice as tall as any of the other mountains around it. This monster has been producing a pillar of flame, magma, ash and smoke for nearly 2500 years, and it can be seen from all four corners of Thorang. The rocky and ash strewn realm is inhabited by elementals, dragons and dragon-kin, demons, devils, and all sorts of thermophilic plants and animals. According to those who have seen it, the volcano is a terrestrial god, and it's voice can be heard in the clouds and in jags of thunder, and the rumbles through the ground.

16. The Hidden City of Nabethys

Nabethys is a myth, a rumor, it doesn't exist, like Atlantis, Rodinia, Mu, any of the other lost and forgotten places. It cant be found on a map. According to those rare souls who have found that non-existent city, you have to be first lost, hopelessly lost, and you must be close to despair, and then you must be close to madness, and then, if you are lucky, you will find the Hidden City. Inside, the city is ruled over by the High Queen of Madness, an avatar and demi-goddess of chaos, magic, madness, and necromancy. Rather than being a place overrun by the undead, dead and undead mingle, enemies are allies, friends are monsters, and the rules fall apart, but violence is very rare. It is a city of insane philosophers, sadistic physicians, cunning thieves, and honest criminals. Those who escape are not the same person they arrived as. Cruel men leave soft hearted heroes, honest men leave despots, the wise leave insane, and the broken of spirit leave healed.

17. Rakhat Jungle

The Rakhat is known for one thing, and one thing only, bats. Through a bizarre set of circumstances, bats have evolved to fill all the major ecological rolls in the Rakhat jungle. There are large predatory stalking bats that have given up wings to exist as leopard like hunters, there are fruit eating bats, long necked carrion eating bats, and the worst of the worst are the packs of wolf-bats. They move and hunt like wolves, but hunt at night, in absolute darkness and communicate perfectly with each other through their echolocation. The only safety in the Rakhat is the bright light of day, when the night hunters sleep.

There are sentient bats in the Rakhat, with a primitive hunter gatherer culture, and a non-vocal language. They are shy, dislike outsiders, and will guide packs of night hunters to flush out intruders. The 'Rakhati' are tool users, with poison arrows and blowguns being their favorite tools.

18. Cold Plain of Belenth

Belenth is constantly cold, the sun has no warmth, and the winds are constant and sap both body heat and will from those it catches. The plain is large and dry, with scant plant life, and even less animal life. What things dwell on the plain are made of flame and light, ghosts, and the rare creature covered in thorns and dripping with venom. There are at the heart of the plains, monolithic ruins and temples raised to forgotten gods.

19. The Cyclopean Ruins of Voddor

The people of Voddor were mighty in the ways of magic, skillful in the application of warfare, and unrivaled for their studies into the arcane and divine. They took upon themselves the unimaginable task of hunting down the gods of death and capturing them, destroying them, and those that were too strong to destroy, they creating massive fetishes, and bound the gods to them so that they could no longer spread death and misery. The Voddori were rather successful at this task, toppling and capturing many devils, demons, neutral gods, and goddesses. They raised monuments to their victory, effigies of the divine entities and spirited they defeated. Their city became a statue garden of death spirits. Death no longer came to Voddor, and the city was faced with over-population, and their resources were strained, criminals could not be executed, and it all came apart. The gods of death could not be destroyed, and the Voddori had gathered dozens of them into their city. The city is empty now, but the ghosts remain, forever captured and tortured by the Death gods that they trapped in the city.

20. The Island of Toriz-Raque

The Island of Toriz-Raque is mobile, enchanted generations ago by a cabal of powerful arch-magi. They combined their powers to make the island as mobile as a ship, so that it could move where it needed to be, south in the cold winter, north in the hot summer, away from hostile coastlines, and into friendly waters. It was intended to be a island paradise, a place of peace and pleasure, decadence and extravagance. Toriz-Raque is now a massive pirate nation, moving close to a soft shore, and for several days to several weeks the Torizi raid inland, killing, raping, and pillaging their way as long as they can, and then retreating to the island for sanctuary. The island is controlled from a magic amphitheatre in the center of the island, and the residents all pay homage and tithe to the ruler of the pirate island, a one eyed dragon named Zohungrodst the Red.

21. Etzenzende Forest

The Etzenzende Forest is a large forest, akin to the Tanwar forest in it's exotic flora. Many of the plants in Etzenzende display a very common yellow based leaf, rather than the traditional green. This has bled over into the animal life as well, with many of the local species being much lighter in color, or moving towards the color yellow. This is most prominent in the insect life, but the birds and other small animals show the same trend. The most interesting aspect of this are the deer or Etzenzende who are both golden coated as well as being intelligent. The deer are cunning, understand human speech, and a few are capable of generating low level magic effects, with their specialities being confusion, misdirection, and summoning predatory animals and stinging insects.

22. Xynex Xad

The realm of Xynex Xad is a tumultuous and violent place, as it is largely populated by dragonkin. The largest and most dangerous of the kin live in the massive lake/small sea in the area, where there are leviathanesque half fish half dragons that swim in the waters. The shores of the lake are populated by similar creatures, sharing the draconic spark that are obviously too small to mate with a dragon, such as draconic rats, draconic snakes, and even draconic bats. This once populated and fertile land was the unfortunate site of a mating dance between several desolations of dragons that reached such a frenzied state several deities of love and lust were drawn to the site and became involved. Several demi-god dragons were spawned, as well as a great number of eggs were fertilized. The resultant 'mess' showered the ground with a mixture of dragon fluids mixed with divine fluids, which generated an entire generation of self propagating dragonkin pretty much everything.

23. Nakrubo Fields

The Nakrubo Fields are nothing more than mile after mile of serene rolling hills, with scattered shallow creeks, wearing a blanket of grass and small flowers. The fields are unique in that there are no large trees, no large boulders, or anything else other than the gently rolling and swelling hills. The fields are scattered with lava seeps, and the lava pushes its way to the surface and then runs out across the ground, creating the gently rolling terrain. The mild, but constant activity doesn't discourage fast growing grasses, but large things like cities, trees, and the like are consumed by the lava. Attempts at civilization have been attempted here in the past, and very little remains, as most people find it easier to move somewhere else than to attempt to control the flow of molten stone. Otherwise, a very peaceful and tranquil location.

24. The City of Mmim

The City of Mmim exists as one of the most foul places one can find this side of the nether realms. Mmim is a kakocracy, a form of government and society ruled by evil. As such, the powerful members of the city are demons, devils, and manifested outer beings, and business as usual is murder, mayhem, sadism, drug addiction, displays of decadence and general wicked behavior. The city itself was build thousands of years ago and is a trap for evil beings, drawing them in, and preventing them from leaving, containing their evil in one location, or at least that was the plan. Instead, Mmim is a metropolis of misery, selling dark sorcery, human and sentient being trafficking, infernal magics, and some of the best mercenaries in the world. There is a legend, a prophecy, that a good man will redeem Mmim, and destroy it, and he will do so with tears as he will be a man of Mmim and will destroy the city he grew up in and loved.

25. Narugog

The land of Narugog was once a wealthy and thriving land of merchants and peddlers of magic. Their great art was the summoning of magical spirits, beings they named Gogs. The Naru people were not warlike, and were timid by nature, and they measured wealth among themselves by the number and appearance of the Gogs they commanded. The nature of Narugog changed, and friendly competition turned into rivalry and eventually grew into civil war. The wealthy and the elite commanded thousands of magical Gogs and drove them, and hordes of mercenaries and peasant conscripts into violent bloody battles. The schism ended after both sides ended up creating Gogs of tremendous power which annihilated both sides in the conflict. Narugog is now a ghostland, riddled with ruined cities being stalked by the strange offspring of gogs and animals, and the six demi-god Gogs still lurk, challenging anything that draws their attention.

26. Gorcandet Valley

The Gorcandet Valley is a massive swath of land between two large mountain ranges, covering tens of thousands of square miles. The Gorcandet river carves a path through the middle, and the terrain is a mixture of river flood plain, rolling hills, and moderate to heavy forest. In other words, it is the sort of place that should be scattered with dozens or hundreds of settlements. Instead there is one city, again, named Gorcandet. The city is large, well defended, but in crumbling repair. It has been under siege for decades, as the wildlife outside of the city has grown to excessive size. Wolves are the size of bulls, rats are the size of large dogs, and bears are the size of elephants, and they all come beating at the walls, hunting farmers and foragers around the city. All wild animals, especially predatory ones, are at a minimum twice as large as normal, and some are as much as 8 times larger.

27. Caulamaelth Hinterlands

The Caulamaelth Hinterlands are broken. Not in the terrain sense, but in the natural sense. The forests are unhealthy, with growth being haphazard, and many of the trees are afflicted with blights and woody tumors. The waters are turbulent and muddy with strange things flowing in them. The hills and the mountains are cratered and pock marked with holes and fissures full of strange debris, and there are a few cities, overgrown and forgotten, but crawling with strange creatures, stunted, sickly and pale. The elementals and spirits of the land are far fewer in number than they should be (+75% difficulty to summoning) and those that are present are twisted, tainted and contaminated. The Hinterlands were once part of a magical country that destroyed itself with a very powerful exchange of magical weapons, leaving behind nothing but their ruins and magical fallout.

28. Ralorhim Desert

The Ralorhim was once a magical place, a place where shamen and magi would venture for spirit quests, seeking answers and enlightment by communing with the astral plane and the dream realms, both of which were very close to the waking world. Common folk feared Ralorhim because in that place nightmares could become true and stalk the unwary. This all changed when the folk hero and possible demigod Vorgon Etomer attempted a vision quest spoken of in prophecy. Neurotic and half divine Vorgon died in the wastes, but the nightmares he generated stole his divine essence and now haunt Ralorhim as a chimera of all the terrible foes that Vorgon defeated. No two survivors ever describe the same being, but they all call it Vorgon's Bane.

29. Tordelhorn

The Tordelhorn is a massive expanse of land that is both boggy and cold. The largest portion of Tordelhorn is a vast chilly plain, punctured by shallow streams that flow into fens miles across but only a few feet deep at the most. The only feature is a massive but crumbling statue, or perhaps dormant golem dedicated to a long forgotten likely death deity. Beyond the flatlands, there is a sharp ridge of ice and broken stone several thousand feet tall, running the width of the Torderhorn region, and splitting it in uneven halves. Crossing this ridge can be a challenge from the strong winds, sharp rocks, and stamagasts that roost here. The only reason people continue to try to defeat this wasteland is that according to a few legends, the Isle of Mnemosyne is not far from the northern shore, and a chance to find the rainbow hued island of dreams is more of a lure than some can resist.

30. Ardban Yardang

The Ardban Yardang is a large steppe made remarkable by it's wind and time sculpted stone features. Some of the rocks rising from the Ardban have been shaped into shapes that are entirely too familiar to simply be accidents. Featured among the stone arches, boulders perched on pillars, and other more common features, there are sculptures of stone that are obvious representations of the gods, mythical creatures, and sorcerous runes made in stone tens of feet tall. The yardang is rich with leylines and geomantic energy.