What Tundale Saw in Hell
The Vision of Tundale is a 12th-century vision of Hell and purgatory reported by the Irish knight Tundale. Unlike in other visions of Hell, Tundale actually experiences many of Hell’s torments rather than simply witnessing them. Because Tundale isn’t just a spectator, his vision is better fodder for RPGs than, say, Dante’s Inferno. Much of […]
Deception Island
The high black walls of Deception island rise above the storm-tossed waters off the Antarctic peninsula. It’s a volcano, its rim broken in a single spot, permitting ships to sail into the flooded caldera. Its history, remote location, and strange features make Deception Island a great adventure site for RPGs! The horseshoe-shaped island is 9 […]
Beehive Tombs
Beehive tombs were a distinctive burial structure used by the Mycenaean Greeks, and they’re a cool setting for a combat encounter. The tomb itself is underground. It may be built into the side of a hill, excavated into the flat earth, or even have an artificial hill built up over it. To enter the tomb, […]
Hidden Places From Native American Legends
Every good quest needs a destination. The best destinations are often hidden or secret. Here, then, are four secret places from four Native American myths. (Taken from American Indian Myths and Legends, collected and edited by Richard Erdoes and Alfonso Ortiz.) Our first secret place comes from a Slavey story about a terrible winter. Once, […]
What Aeneas Saw in Hell (pt. 2)
Last month, we looked at four memorable things the Trojan hero Aeneas saw in the Underworld, and we turned them into encounters fit for dungeons and extraplanar adventures. Let’s look at four more! After Aeneas enters the cave to the Underworld, he encounters a cluster of minor Roman deities. Most fall into the standard Roman […]
What Aeneas Saw in Hell
Virgil’s Aeneid was Rome’s sequel to the Iliad and the Odyssey. Written almost a thousand years after the first two works, it continues the story of Trojan hero Aeneas after the end of the Trojan War. At one point, his wanderings take him down into the Underworld. Much of what he saw there makes great […]
Chelm, the City of Fools
In Jewish folklore, the city of Chelm, Poland, is a city of fools. The ‘wise men of Chelm’ overlook laws of nature, fail to perform basic tasks, and just generally make silly and inappropriate decisions. There are many stories explaining why Chelmers are so foolish. One says that the angel responsible for seeding the world […]
Abandoning Saint-Octave-de-l’Avenir
The abandoned village of Saint-Octave-de-l’Avenir in Quebec, Canada, makes great inspiration for the site of a haunting in your campaign. A rural village near the mouth of the St. Lawrence River, its declining, aging population led the government to forcibly resettle the village in the 1970s. Later, the area was opened to tourism. At your […]
A Most Peculiar Cottage
Mankby is an archaeological site in Finland, not far from Helsinki. In the 14th and 15th centuries, it was a fairly typical medieval village in what was then part of the kingdom of Sweden. There is one structure in Mankby, though, that has raised some eyebrows: a most peculiar cottage. The cottage consisted of three […]