Cool mysterious names of places (desert)

[Warrior Poet]

The Maze of Death while functional is a bit obvious. Going for the bling factor here.

The Maze of Death and Bling?




I'll stop.

 

[lgburton]

the painted desert
the petrified forest

hmmm.... i'd also actually suggest looking at some of the names used for features on mars - translated into english, they might make really neet names..

for example:

the peacock mountain (pavonious mons)

etc...


but a trap filled maze leading adventurers to their death... (in a desert)... howbout
the Labyrinth of Whispiring Salt?

 

[nakia]

I've always liked the word "wadi". It just sounds fun.

In deserts, springs, wells, and oasis (what the plural of "oasis"?) are vital and often claimed or contested. So you could have "Tayschren's Springs" or somthing similar, where the name of the spring indicated it's owner or a previous owner. What if the owner was a dragon?

I've also been to the Valley of Meggedo, in Israel. It's the place where the battle that ends the the world is supposed to happen -- the battle of Armageddon. So, you could take a proper name or name of some big event, change it around, use it for the name of a landform or place, then see if your players notice.

 

[amazingshafeman]

I used to live in Tucumcari, NM. That town used to be named Six Shooter Sighting until they decided it was better to be named after a local Native American "Princess" of legend than an image of lawlessness. The town also claims to be the only place in the desert that a 6 foot "tidal" wave swept through mainstreet, complete with fatalities. Early water tower ingenuity and all of that...

All of the local features there followed the naming trend of using words from the indeginous language describing the feature, so "Eagle Peak", the aviary version of Camel Rock was actually whatever "eagle peak" is in that particular Native American tongue. Unfortunately, since I haven't been there in over ten years, I can't remember what that is. Regardless, that's a naming pattern I follow in my own desert campaign. Things have a native name and a common name. Since the native writing was geometrically based, I've been tempted to have a few translations from the old tongue be "Five Pointed Star With Squiggly Line" or "Geometrical Representation For Calculating an Arc". Haven't tried it, though.

 

[Hand of Evil]

I always say take from real life places...

Hellhole Bay, South Carolina
Cut and Shoot, Texas
Chugwater Wyoming
Devil's Ice Box, Ohio
East Due West, South Carolina
Gizzard's Cove, Tennesse
Jerk Trail, Missouri
Nob Noster, Missouri
Number Nine, Maryland
Pee Pee, Ohio
Sleepy Eye, Minnesota
Superior Bottom, West Virginia
Toad Suck, Arkansas
Who'd A Thought It, Alabama
Zook Spur, Iowa

 

[DungeonmasterCal]

I always say take from real life places...
Toad Suck, Arkansas

Toad Suck isn't a town, actually, but is the name of a site where a ferry used to run back and forth across the Arkansas River. I live in Conway, which is where Toad Suck is located. Every spring we have Toad Suck Daze, a big 3 day weekend festival with carnival rides and the whole bit. Ya'll come see us!

I'm darned impressed that someone mentioned it!

 

[Bloodstone Press]

I sometimes use names from maps. Some of my favorites are:
Hell's Kitchen
Grave's End
Leaper's fork
Driftwood
Skull Bone (here in TN, actually)

I also like to mix and match names and words to come up with my own colorful names such as
the Hammer Downs
River Wall
Wyvern Dale
the Troll Fens
Helm Hill
Ravenwood
The Shade Lands
Littlebrook
Dagger Falls

I also like to mix and match syllables of real-world places to come up with flavorful fictional names like
Golanam (an-GOLA + viet-NAM)

Of course if you are just looking for weird names, you can't forget:
Buck Snort, TN

 

[JollieRoger]

How about these:

White Tank Mnts
Animas River (Spanish for River of lost souls I believe) in Colorado
Silverton
Camelback Mnt (Mnt in Phoenix, Arizona that looks like a Camel)
Viper Flats
New River(town and a dry river bottom)
Salt River
Great Salt Lake
Bloody Basin
Table Mesa
Show Low(Town named after a card game)
Quartz Site
Black Canyon
Pikes Peak, Mnt
Iron Mnt, various states
Sun City, various states
Cholla "jumping cactus", Cactus plant
Barrell Cactus, plant
Prickly Pear Cactus, plant
Painted Rock
Red Rock
Mule Mnts, Mnt range in Southern Arizona
Sierra Mnts(Snow is Spanish), Nevada (they are in part in the desert but high enough to get snow)
Desert Springs
Palm Springs
Hells Gate

Most of the names above are from the American Southwest.

Besides maps another area to look for interesting names would be Hiking guide books. Some of the trail names are quit interesting. The histories of the various trails could be interesting back stories in and of themselves.

You can also try travel guides and books on plants and animals.

 

[haakon1]

Desert place names

Indian Hill is a name all over, so Orc Hill?

Some other good desert names:
The Anvil of the Sun (translation from Lawrence of Arabia)
The Empty Quarter
Rourk's Drift (famous South African battle site)
Alice Springs (Australia)
Nullarbor Plain (Australia, Latin for "no trees")
x Pan
x Flats
Death or Salt anything
Grand Coulee (coulee = gulch = arroyo = wadi = drift)

To me, Southwestern and Arab desert names are a bit played . . . try look at the map of the Outback in Australia, or the Namib and Kalahari Deserts in Namibia and Botswana, or western China. Of course, that'd be cooler if you could translate what the heck they were calling places -- "Empty Quarter" is cool; the Arabic version if you don't understand what it means is less interesting, I think.

 

[Jupp]

In an online game session a DM once gave a dungeon/crypt in a desert the name "Anodar Dundshoon" which I found pretty cool

Anyway, here are some of my ideas:

Plateau of Wandering Dreams
Sea of Glittering Dust
Temple of the Wailing Sun
Pillars of Lost Hope
Valley of the Bones
The Efreet Canyon
The Oasis at the end of the World
The mighty and completely different pyramid if Ni