Et in Arcadia Ego

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RPGBlogCarnivalLogoSmallAugust came and went in a breeze (even here in the Southern Hemisphere in mid winter) and with it came a new topic for the RPG Blog Carnival, which I had the pleasure and honor to host. I left some ideas for players and DMs to spark creativity around locations in their games and how more important than just background they were. Before heading into the few participating articles, let me share a nice niche of ideas I found while browsing around the internet.

In «Roll for Fantasy», I found some ideas based on locations that exist in real life, but that can easily be used in your favorite action-packed RPG. Head on to «RPG Locations Ideas» for the full list, which includes the Abandoned Ghost Town, the Invisible Lake and the Tides of Time, among others.

My favorite (and official) d100 site, DnDSpeak, has also many articles on places and locations, one of which caught my eye for this topic. In the appropriately titled «100 Unique Towns & Villages» you’ll find (as the title teases) a whooping one hundred ideas for places your players will want to explore.


After that not-so-short introduction, let me share with you what this month’s participants gladly left in the comments for me to find.

Wormys Welten

After warning us he’s in the middle of adapting Paizo‘s Ironfang Invasion to Abeir-Toril in the Forgotten Realms with a short introduction, Wormys left us with a two-part article about how to convert your campaigns for them to fit a established setting.

In Part One, he deals with the goals of transferring your own campaign to a different world, quickly departing from just «plug and play» to accomplish a more elaborated feel of belonging that works both for the Adventure Path and the target Campaign Setting.

In Part Two, he delves deeper into how to convert power factions, geography and even historic events via foreshadowing. A Part Three was hinted at, in my opinion, so if there is a new entry on this mini series, I’ll update this article for you to find out.

Pitfalls and Pixies

A regular participant of the Carnival in her own right, Our Beloved Lady of the Pitfalls and Pixies shared some details about Faustus Kil, a world she has both played in and DMed herself. Far from just giving us a glimpse at the world itself, she invited us to enroll in the Avehi Arcana Magitorioum, a very particular magic academy. Even if, as she says, it resembles Hogwarts, its particularities quickly will be noticed by fans of the Harry Potter books, particularly the dryad headmaster and dragon companion (which shares the name with Hogwarts Headmistress after Dumbledore as a homage, I guess) and a very D&D-like quest available for 3rd year students.


And then it’s me, of course.

This time I managed to finish two articles with the topic in mind. The first, «A Rose by any other name» re-imagines the famous library from Umberto Eco’s «The Name of the Rose» as the Library of Robideur, in which a murder mystery made my players to be part of the academic organization running it. The second, «Brave the Unknown» describes Orazca, the grandest ruin a world has seen with a metaphorical meaning of goals and destiny instead of just a dungeons to be explored and scavenged.

Even if this month’s Carnival is over, please leave a link if you have an article related to the topic, or check September’s brand new topic: «Visions of Exotic Reality«, brought by Campaign Mastery.

Until next time, may your dice roll always in your favor.

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