Dungeon Scrawler

A sweet smell drifts on the breeze. The trees part to reveal a red stained scar across the forest, spreading far in either direction: tall grass--bobbing lazily in the breeze. All is quiet until a wild goat ventures forth from the tree-line to graze. One step, then two, into the tall grass. It bleats in satisfaction, lowers it's head to feed, and for a moment all is well.  A struggle, and a cry. The goat is pulled to the ground, writhing, bleating in fear. Then silence. This is no ordinary grass. It is the grasping-grass, the choking-weed, blood-barley--dyed red with the life of it's victims. It draws them in, and it feeds.  Commentary Science-fiction art is full of depictions of planets with wild and unnatural colors. Most recently, I think it was a piece for No Man's Sky that stuck in my mind. Red grass is just so delightfully alien. I wanted to infuse a fantasy world with a dash of that strangeness. On another occasion, I was thinking about Forestcrawls and was ponderin...

Towering above the waves, encrusted with barnacles, a bridge spans the sea, high enough for ships to sail under it, and long enough to disappear into the horizon in either direction. Once a great trade route, now, the tower outposts--stationed every twelve miles or so--are mostly abandoned. The only living evidence of its former grandeur are a few fishing villages built right on the bridge and scaffolded haphazardly onto its columns. They still cheerfully charge a petty toll to those who seek to cross. Inspiration I'm basically ripping this straight from One Piece, but it's a great idea! Back to Wilderness Crawl Index

At regular intervals, white steam billows from the earth. In calm weather, the cloud piles higher and higher in a towering column. Far away they call it the "Cloud Spire", not knowing what it is, or whence it comes and goes. As you approach, the forest turns oppressively humid, shrouded in a sweltering fog, before the ground gives way to a sudden drop and a massive sink hole, hundreds of feet wide and of uncertain depth. Commentary I like the idea that there are known places that connect the surface world to the place below. But I also like places like those to be more  than just a simple cave. (Like, if it is  just a cave, I'd like to be a pretty dang cool one at least.) I imagine this particular place leads to an underground, boiling lake, and I imagine a party making their way down with dedicated climbing equipment, absolutely soaked to the bone in sweat, unable to see how much farther they have to travel. What they find next is, of course, up to you and your own perso...

Deep in the woods there is a great gnarled tree, branches snaking wide, blocking the sun.  Between it's thick, tangled roots is a gaping hole. Peering far into the dark reveals this is no simple animal's den, and footprints in the heavy mud tell you that you won't be alone deep among the roots. Commentary Some trees are just really dramatic, in particular their thick winding roots. Sometimes I've imagined shrinking down and looking between roots like an arch. Whether this be a mini-dungeon or just Level 1 of something bigger, I think it's awesome to stumble into a dungeon in a hexcrawl. In most cases, it's probably ideal for a rumor or hook to point  to that location, but just stumbling into one is pretty sweet, too. (Though if that's really how it's going to be, you might want to go with something smaller or steal from more creative people to save yourself prepping a bunch of stuff that your players may never see.) Or maybe you just needed an idea for a...

Deep in the woods there is a wall. If not for the trees, you would probably see it long before you reach it, for it towers above their boughs, and its depth is that of longboat. The stones are weathered, but large as boulders. Once, the wall might have spanned a hundred miles, but now it's crumbling remnants snake across a measly six, with ruined gaps every mile or so. Perhaps the stones have long since been carried off for other projects. Elsewhere, the stones are tumbled to the earth and overgrown--certainly in places moss and tree have reclaimed the wall so successfully that you could be forgiven for thinking it was only a natural cliff or rise blocking your path. It is inadvisable to linger near this wall, however. Bandits have been known to claim it's heights for their own purposes, and lurking predators can be found from time to time lairing in barely preserved tunnels along the wall's base. Inspiration There are two here: First, I'm sure everyone knows the Great ...