Places
A kingdom to explore
The kingdom rules its villages from castles of stone. Its guards keep the roads and its outposts the borders, and where the guards are not, bandits camp in the woods, dig into the hills and anchor their ships off the coast.
Villages
Eight styles of village
Every village has its households, its trades and its guards. Villagers work by day, gather on the square, go home at dusk and raise families when there is food and a free bed. Hamlets have a dozen buildings, towns up to forty.
Houses, workshops, farms, an inn and a church
Ten trades with their own workshops
Three to five guards, and stray cats
Chests and barrels full of supplies
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Meadow
Half-timbered houses, a church with a spire, an inn, and a fountain or a well on the square.
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Desert
Flat roofs and domes in sandstone and lime, courtyards with palms, a caravanserai and an oasis.
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Savanna
Round huts under stepped thatch, family compounds, granaries on stilts and a council house round the fire.
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Taiga
Log cabins with stone chimneys, a longhouse with horns on its gables and a great hall.
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Snowy
Stone and board chalets under snowy roofs, igloos, and greenhouses kept warm by a furnace.
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Jungle
Houses on stilts under roofs of leaves, bridges between huts, a mossy shrine and groves of cocoa.
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Swamp
Dark houses on piles over the water, boardwalks instead of roads and a fishing dock.
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Canyon
A mining town of false fronts and plank sidewalks, a saloon, a white church and a water tower.
Castles
Castles of the kingdom
Rare and very large: a fort, a castle or a citadel, walled in stone with towers and a gatehouse. Guards walk its walls, the lord sits on his throne in the keep, and under the great hall lies the vault.
Barracks, an armoury, a stable and a kitchen
A library, a council room and a treasury
Banners bearing the castle's arms
A vault of gold, gems and fine gear
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Walls and towers
Walls three blocks thick with a walk on top, towers under spires and a vaulted gate.
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The great hall
Two arcades of pillars lead up to the dais and the lord's throne under the castle's banners.
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The vault
Down the spiral stair, behind an iron door: the castle's hoard and its finest arms.
Along the roads
The kingdom's places
The kingdom keeps its borders with outposts and its roads with bridges and inns. Its army drills behind palisades, merchants halt for the night by the road and on the mountain tops the watchfires still burn.
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Border outpost
A watchtower with a beacon burning on its battlements, three guards and a fenced yard.
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Roadside inn
A timbered inn with a taproom, rooms upstairs and a stable; the innkeeper trades with travellers.
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Hermit's hut
An old knight's log hut in the woods, with a garden of carrots and potatoes round a pool.
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The King's Bridge
A stone deck on arches from bank to bank, steps down to the road on either side and a gatehouse where the king's guards keep the way.
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Watchfire tower
A stone tower on a mountain's summit, its great fire still burning over the slopes. Inside: its storeroom and the last watchman's words.
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The scholars' monastery
Behind a gate of jungle wood in the bamboo forest: a hall of books round an enchanting altar, a pond, a bell and a rice field. One monk trades in books.
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Army camp
A palisade round the parade ground: the commander's pavilion, rows of tents, a mess fire, a training yard, a forge and a horse line.
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Caravan camp
Merchants halted for the night by their road: covered wagons full of goods, tents round a fire and pack donkeys. Guards keep watch while the merchant trades.
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The old king's tomb
A mausoleum over a crypt of niches and monster cages. The king's chamber waits behind a riddle of three seals.
Bandit hideouts
Where the bandits hide
Every hideout has its captain and its loot, and often a captive villager waiting to be set free. The rarest of all is the Black Keep.
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Camps
Tents round a fire in the woods, the captain's tent, a watchtower, a stash and a captive in a cage.
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Hideouts
Dug into a hillside: a hall, cells behind iron bars, the captain's room and a hoard behind an iron door.
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Treetop nests
Platforms high in four great trees, joined by rope bridges, with archers in the crow's nest.
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Ruined castle
An old fort of the kingdom, its walls breached and its keep roofless, where bandits have made their camp.
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Robbed caravan
Wrecked carts by a road and a warning sign. Sometimes the bandits are still lying in wait.
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Canyon town
A gorge dug into a badlands plateau: dwellings in both walls on two levels, rope bridges across and the captain's hall at its far end.
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The Black Keep
The bandits' stronghold on a hilltop, as rare as a castle: towers, the captain's hall, a dungeon of captives and the hoard behind an iron door.
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Pirate ships
Anchored far out at sea under a black flag: a captain's cabin, a dry hold full of loot and archers aloft.
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Icebound ship
A pirate ship the frozen sea took: ice heaped against its hull, a broken mast and snow on deck. Its crew is long gone, but its hold is not empty.
Under the ground
Mines and dungeons
Deep in the rock lie the works of the past: mines the miners left and the dungeons of the dead.
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Abandoned mines
A headframe with its hoist wheel stands over the shaft. Climb down its ladders to two or three levels of timbered tunnels, rails and lanterns.
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The great gallery
Stores, a forge, the foreman's office and stopes rich in ore; and on the lowest level a hall over a chasm worked for ore, a bridge across it.
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Dungeons
Mossy cobblestone rooms with a monster cage in the middle and two chests against the walls.
