Few places are as evocative as a temple, particularly an ancient one. Whether large or small, ornate or spartan, these timeworn edifices are monuments to religion, faith, and dedication. Temples can be a refuge for the hunted and the lost, and a bastion against tyranny. Bur tl1ey can also be the source of tyranny, d1e headquarters of a religion determined to conquer and rule.
Tag Archives: wilderness encounter
Spaceship
Traversing the vase depths of interstellar space, a spaceship is many things co its passengers and crew: safety, transportation, convenience, home. Available in a myriad of shapes and sizes constrained only by style, technology, and budget, the spaceship might house the foes of the players’ characters or serves them as a base of operations from which to explore the w1known. When used as an adventure location instead of a vehicle, the spaceship provides many exciting adventure possibilities. It might be the object of a search – buried under arctic ice, crash-landed in the jungle, or hidden in the depths of the sea. Or, it can serve as a means of bringing the adventure to the characters, with its alien crew contacting or abducting them.
Secret headquarters
Some organizations and individuals can operate openly, like the police, licensed private detectives, or a law firm. But others must conceal their identity and operations, for whatever reasons. And those who need concealment need a place where they can do their work in secret, without anyone suspecting. That requires a secret headquarters.
Island Stronghold
The island stronghold is a mainstay of action stories and pulp adventures. Villains often own an entire island, its exact location unknown to any but the villain’s closest associates, and there he plots on how to take over the world. On the other hand, heroes sometimes have such locations as well, and use them as retreats, safehouses, and training grounds. The best thing about an island stronghold is its dominance. Often the island is so small or so uninhabited that it has no other structures beyond the stronghold. This is particularly true of inhospitable rocks chosen for their defensibility and perhaps their natural resources. Even on inhabited islands, the stronghold is the largest and most well- constructed building. This means that the stronghold’s owner dominates the island in general and can control the activities of its other occupants. It is difficult to sneak up on someone who owns an island stronghold, knows every islander by name and face, and has them trained to report intruders immediately.
Forest Meadow
The forest and meadow might seem like an unusual place for adventure and danger. The words bring to mind the images of bucolic places ranging from the glens in Sleeping Beauty to the alpine meadows in The Sound of Music. But remember the forest and meadow (an interface wne between two vastly different kinds of terrain) is one of the most common areas in the natural world, and much possibility arises.
Farm
The family farm is one of the classic American settings in fiction depicted with sentimental aura of naivete, an iconic example of wholesome family values. This upright persona of clean living is precisely the reason the setting of the farm is excellent for twisting into the fabric of a good adventure. Whether it involves a busload of teenagers being stalked by a psychopathic killer or a facade masking the secret base of a super genius bent on world domination, the benign and deceivingly boring country farm can hold many surprises. Even in a more family-oriented adventure, it is a good stalking ground for a talking animal and its crime- fighting buddies.
Cemetery
In Western cultures, the dead are most often buried, but there are alternatives. Some undergo cremation, while others are enshrouded and placed in crypts. A relative few are left exposed to the elements, in obeisance to traditions spanning thousands of years, and fewer still are those who undergo preservation (or mummification in the Egyptian style) in order to be put on display, sometimes in the name of science, sometimes not. A very few are cryogenically frozen and sealed in large cylinders, awaiting the day that science might find a cure for their various conditions and revive them.
Cavern System
A cavern system is a series of interconnected caves formed from running water or lava flows, often reaching deep into the earth or side of a mountain. Cavern systems are the quintessential “dungeon,” seeing use by humanity over tens of thousands of years as shelters, places of worship, living quarters, refuges in time of war and storage areas.