Harpy Halloween again! Last year, I posted about 6 cursed lands. Here are several more examples of strange lands where intrepid adventurers might venture or hear about. Rather than being singular unique places, some may be found in various pockets here and there.

The Wild Hunt

One eternal huntsman (ranger lich) at a time is chosen by the gods to be the Master of the Wild Hunt, who leads infernal hunters, hellhounds, and fae creatures on a race thru the wildwood and over the moors on special nights, hunting lingering spirits and delivering them to the Underworld. Sometimes they mistakenly catch up living persons as well, and these they hand over to fairies in a fae kingdom or an elder-of-the-wildwood (druid lich) in a gloomwood or some other strange place.

1. Glimmerwild

A glimmerwild is an area of wild magic. These places are crossover points where the seams of the Material plane and that of the Ethereal plan cross or are areas that have worn thin between the planes. In these places, often quite small, the casting of spells and use of other magic can cause strange effects.

They occur naturally around ancient portals, where their magic “leaks”. But aside from the effects of magic, all things tend to be stranger in a glimmerwild. Indeed, it is likely the name comes from the tendency of glimmering mosses and funguses to grow in the vicinity (a clue to its nature).

Glimmerwilds may appear anywhere, particularly wherever powerful magic was misused or ended in disaster. They are usually in remote areas, where wizards go on purpose to experiment. But they are also found at the site of magical battles, where the fabric of reality was worn thin.

For this reason, they can even appear in a city but almost always in the eldest cities and in the poorest neighborhoods. This is because powerful sorcery has been outlawed in cities for centuries; and wherever a glimmerwild once got created, that part of town was left to the poor by the magic-using wealthy. So that part of town would be run-down, dingy, and dangerous, since the footpads could be confident that only a very foolish wizard would defy their daggers there.

2. Gloomwood

A gloomwood is a forest area of dark magic influence, often due to the presence of a powerful nature spirit or elder-of-the-wildwood (druid lich). It is overgrown and unnaturally fertile, as if this where creatures come to die and enrich the soil. The thick growth leaves the forest floor dark and gloomy, often covered in decaying leaves, sour fruit, rotting logs, carcasses, and old bones. The nature spirit may feed on the psychic energy of fear and despair and feed it back into the landscape to produce weird results, such as undead stags, wild boars, or wolves.

Bogs and swamps abound in these areas and seem more likely to entrap unwary beasts and travelers. If caused by a nature spirit, the spirit itself may roam the place, showing up as shadows, a phantom, or a dark figure that turns out to be a weird growth of branches, weeds, and worm webs that, viewed from another angle, bears no resemblance to a creature.

Here, the darkest and strangest of creatures live: bat-winged creatures, giant centipedes and spiders, grasping carnivorous plants, and such. Vampires and lycanthropes thrive. Ghouls, wights, wraiths, and such may roam a gloomwood, if some lost graveyard, battlefield, or execution spot is incorporated within it.

3. Haunted Place

Haunted places are similar to gloomwood forests but can be any structure made by people and the grounds around it. Ghosts and other spirits that were once living persons are bound to these places for their own particular reasons (unfinished business, murder, wrongful execution, tragic accident) having to do with the extreme psychic trauma of their deaths trapping their spirits on the Material plane.

Such beings are less powerful than nature spirits, tho, and so exert less influence over their surroundings. The place may give off an air of sadness and despair in quiet moments but seem perfectly benign when folk gather there in large enough numbers to overcome it with good cheer. This allows haunted places to seem normal much of the time but gloomy when nearly empty.

There is always a threshold around such places, such as a river, woods, or curtain of fog.

4. The Shadow Realm

This is a foreboding land shrouded in perpetual twilight, twisted and corrupt. The dense, misty forests and abandoned cities teem with dark versions of animals from the fair world and nightmarish beasts that defy description. The sky is a swirl of deep purples and grays filled with colored stars and multiple moons.

Long ago, the Shadow Realm was a fair land known as the Kingdom of Ingor. But the Council of Mages’ forbidden ritual went terribly wrong, spreading darkness that twisted everything it touched into a shadowy reflection of its former self. The people no longer tend fields and instead eat char and ashes; animals no longer bear offspring.

From time to time, some of these wretched creatures cross over to the fair realms by means of the old portals to wreak havoc or are summoned do the bidding of the summoner.

5. The Savage Lands

This is a primeval island beyond the southern sea dominated by steamy jungles, volcanic mountains, and great, dry plains, where roam creatures not seen in the fair realms since long before ancient times. Dinosaurs of all shapes and sizes rule the wilderness. The skies are filled with soaring pterosaurs, and the rivers teem with aquatic reptiles.

Thickly forested hills and mountains hide ancient cavern complexes rich with gems and rare minerals. These are mined by savages who never learned the riddle of steel or the sowing of wheat. Towering cliffs and murky swamps hide sites sacred to these cavemen, where powerful spirits bestow blessings or curses depending on the blood sacrifices made to them.

The Savage Lands are ruled by warlords who command fierce caveman tribes. Their territories are marked by the bones of their enemies and totems of their victories. They ride into battle on tamed cave bears or dinosaurs and wield weapons made from wood, bone, and stone. And they take time away from their skirmishes only to unite against some rampaging mammoth or tyrant lizard or to fight the troglodytes, who have their own primitive tribes.

6. The Underworld

In the deep recesses of the earth, beneath the halls of the gray dwarves and the kingdom of the dark elves, lie passageways to Underworld. The Underworld is a series of great and small caverns where the souls of the dead find their final rest until they are eventually called forth to be reincarnated as a new person. In their final repose, they occasionally awaken when their descendants bring dishonor to their names; they return to sleep by drinking from the River of Forgetfulness.

The souls of those who die on the surface world sink deep into ground until they enter the upper caverns of the Underworld. Then they walk deeper to the vast cavern of the gates of the Underworld, where they are bid sad welcome onto the shores of the River of Departure by spirit guides. Then, depending on the nature of their death…

• Most are ferried across by the Grim Ferryman.
• Those who die during travel are guided over the bridge by the Final Guide.
• Those who fell to their deaths are flown across on the wings of the Great Eagle.
• Those who die in battle are carried across on flying horses by Shield Maidens.
• Those who drown arrive in the river and are plucked out by the Old Fisher Woman.
• Those who die in captivity find their own way thru the labyrinth of passages under the river. When a soul is summoned back by Resurrection magic, it must navigate these passages, which some fail to do.

The Underworld is managed by a hierarchy of infernal fiends, who treat the dead poorly and occasionally cause them suffering to fit their wickedness in life. These fiends are sometimes summoned to the surface world to do the bidding of the summoner (mortal or divine) or find their way by accident when a rift occurs or a portal is opened.

Once a year, at the time of the autumnal observance of the time when the boundary between the living and the dead is thin, passages to the upper caverns of the Underworld open in various caverns around the realm. This is when fiends and spirits can escape and when the living can most easily reach the Underworld.