Adding Flavour: Landmark Inspiration and Advice

 

When you think of a location in real life, often your mind brings to mind popular, famous locations, iconic natural wonders, the marks of days gone by. It helps us compartmentalise different places, and gives our brain a handhold when reaching for information, and also draws our attention to them as places to go.

 

In that same vein, landmarks are incredibly useful resources for game masters to employ in their fantasy worlds for those same reasons.

 

Corville, a local village is perhaps not something that sticks in the mind of a player. Mentioning on arrival that there is a obscenely large stone crow in the centre of the village, that likely will. Especially if locals have stories to tell about its creation, complaints on tourism etc. A tavern nearby called the Crows Nest. It separates the town from others in a simplistic format.

 

Below are some roll tables to help you employ this to your world building. With all of these ideas, consider their purpose or their impact on the locals.

City

Landmarks in cities are not just pretty markers, often they are of historic note, tourist destinations or have some function to them, as space in cities is highly coveted and hard to come by. Big Ben for instance is all of these.

D8	Landmark
1	A city wall filled completely with a long library.
2	A petrified giant holding up a bridge.
3	A crater from a dragon attack, now a bustling mining district.
4	A tower that tells the time with a magically enchanted hourglass at the top. A loud noise sounds when it turns over.
5	A large glass orb that shows the moon's phases.
6	4 gardens that are magicked to display the beauties of the 4 seasons.
7	A large temple with a stained-glass dome.
8	A column of water that acts as a well for the locals.

 

Forest

 

Landmarks here can often serve no purpose, and often are created naturally. They often become notable for their odd shape, or the curiosity they instil, more than anything else.

D8	Landmark
1	A clearing with a giant tree in the centre. Carved into it is a smiling face.
2	A silent waterfall, that seems by all other investigations to be normal.
3	A lit lamp post in the middle of nowhere.
4	A cairn decorated in feathers, teeth and other hunting trophies. There’s always something new.
5	The bones of a gigantic creature that has been there for years.
6	A great crevasse with no bridge across.
7	An area of the forest where all the trees seems to have been uprooted and left.
8	An ancient statue garden, perhaps warning of a basilisk or medusa nearby.

 

Ocean

Signs from past sailors marking safe passage, remnants of underwater cities or leftovers of powerful magic. There are a lot of weird landmarks that can be placed in the sea. Furthermore, unlike with other areas of the world, size is less of an issue.

D8	Landmark
1	Glass spires that sing when the wind picks up.
2	A lighthouse long since detached from any continent, and never lit.
3	A shipwreck wedged between two sharp rocks that locals have left to the ghosts.
4	A small island that sinks beneath the tide every full moon. The plants that grow on it are often black and rotten.
5	A lone bridge, its supports reach all the way to the sea floor.
6	A golden tower of stairs that seems to go up for miles.
7	A collection of geysers, on closer inspection the steam and water are cold rather than hot.
8	A crystal castle that still pokes out of the waves at low tide.

Mountains

Mountains can be landmarks in themselves, their height, shape, being a good point of direction. This roll table then instead gives ideas of how to make landmark mountains unique.

D8	Landmark
1	The top of the mountain seems as if it's been cleanly sliced off. Leaving it with a flat top.
2	The ruins of a keep or walled city can be seen at the peak. A piece of metal from it catching the light.
3	The bones of a giant creature lay across the mountain, splayed out as if left where it was killed.
4	Geodes can be seen littering the mountain, glittering in bright shades.
5	This mountain is snow covered regardless of the season, even getting blizzards higher up.
6	A huge sword sticks out the tip.
7	Smoke pours from the top of the mountain at all points in time.
8	A set of old stone stairs snake across the mountain, lit with braziers every 10ft.