Geek out (le geek, c'est chic)

I've been working recently on expanding my D&D campaign setting world to help give it a more epic feel - I'm reasonably satisfied with what I've had previously, but although the setting is still very fanciful, the action and storylines have been surprisingly "low fantasy" and I really want to kick things up a notch from "land of adventure and peril" to "land of mysical secrets and peril".

...Or something like that.

My first thought on how to do this was to create several locations of high mystical or historical significance. These will hopefully serve as the basis of several adventures individually, and I've toyed with the idea of having my players discover some sort of "connection" between the sites as they progress in levels. I've done some work to this effect, and come up with some pretty neat places, I like to think (although the naming conventions of the people in my setting aren't very creative. I mean, sure you've got places with names like Janurilia and Elenath, but when the second largest population in the Empire lives next to the Deep River in a city called Cotswold-on-Deep River, and important landmarks and geographical features have names like The Peak and the Easter Sea, then you've got to wonder what's going on...). I've also tried to add some spice by introducing some elements of real-world mythology into the setting.

One example of both of these attempts put together is the Huntsman's Lodge. The Lodge is an ancient 6-story tower (yes, I know that's not very practical dimensions for a hunting lodge ~_^) that legend says was once the home of the mightiest hunter of them all, known largely (creatively enough) as The Huntsman (for real-world parallels, see information about the Wild Hunt and Herne the Hunter). The Huntsman, as a sort of creature of spirit, has lain dormant for ages, but the key to his awakening lies at the top of the tower - a magical hunting horn. If the person who sounds the horn has passed the challenges of the tower in order to sound the horn, then it awakens the Huntsman and his pack, and the Huntsman will offer the awakener the favor of a single hunt. If the horn is sounded by someone who has bypassed the challenges, or used trickery and deception to gain the horn, they awaken Herne and they become the quarry of the Hunt.

There are some other ideas I'm toying with, too. A lot of them have to do with powerful artifacts or important locations. I'm not as clever as I probably come across sometimes, and I haven't made up many of them on my own - most of them are derived in some form or another from song lyrics that I like. Ideas I'm currently playing with include The World Bell and La Cifra Sigils. Perhaps I'll put up some more teasers when I've got things better hammered out.

...And then there's The Red World. ( :

PLUR!