D&D General How would you do a fantasy mall?

[Shades of Eternity]

Been going through Pratchett again, and honestly, I want to do a fantasy mall.

In your opinion.

1. How would you do a fantasy mall?
2. What would you see there?
3. How would you use it to drive stories?
4. Where would you put it? Is it like a mega dungeon or is it a location like a massive store complex in waterdeep?

If nothing else, let's build stores and/or locations with in this mall?

 

[bedir than]

Been going through Pratchett again, and honestly, I want to do a fantasy mall.

In your opinion.

1. How would you do a fantasy mall?
2. What would you see there?
3. How would you use it to drive stories?
4. Where would you put it? Is it like a mega dungeon or is it a location like a massive store complex in waterdeep?

If nothing else, let's build stores and/or locations withinthis mall?

I treated the interior of a Dwarven city's market place like a massive mall.

The scenes involved dragons and magic users doing violence, chasing the heroes and crushing everything they could (similar to Star Mall in Hawkins).
When a character died the mall-like features really shown as the living characters rushed store-to-store to retrieve the needed spell component for Revivify that they were out of.

 

[Shades of Eternity]

plus you could do an interplanar mall that reaches as stretches out across time and space.
perhaps put it on the astral and make it like nowhere from guardians in the galaxy.

 

[Tonguez]

The Planar Trade Consortium is already a thing in Planescape, so I could see a Great Atrium of Doors as the grand entrance to a multiplanar shopping mall- a central courtyard surrounded by spiraling promenades linking to floating portals and runic signs displaying “SALES” in 123 different languages. Mercanes, aasimars and traders from across the multiverse gather because if anything can be traded, it can be found here - if youre willing to look for it.

I could see it being handled like the Radiant Citadel but with a strong mercantile focus

 

[MarkB]

"Fantasy mall" makes me think "bazaar" and there are plenty of historical examples of those.

Set it up as a large plaza or promenade, with the buildings bordering it containing the most prestigious and long-standing shops. But what used to be the open ground between them has gradually been inundated with stalls, wagons and other ostensibly-temporary vendors, many of whom have now been there nearly as long as the ones in actual buildings. It's built up into a maze of 'streets' composed only of the gaps between stalls, complete with specialised 'districts' of particular types of goods, though newcomers will be baffled trying to navigate it.

 

[Stormonu]

I'd probably start with something like this:

To me, a mall is essentially a collection of (indoor) shops, most of which also offer a sense of community and entertainment. As @MarkB noted, the historical version is probably a Bazaar. Taking that, placing it indoors, adding entertainers, concessions and gangs of toughs.

 

[Yaarel]

I visualize the Lawful by Lawful Good alignment plane, Arcadea, as an infinite shopping mall. People live in apartment buildings whose lower floors are part of the mall.

 

[Yaarel]

The medieval markets are a little bit like a modern flea market.

 

[Minigiant]

How would you do a fantasy mall?

A Mall Demiplane
Fantasy wares in high volume would have to be quarantined to another plane and be above level 5

What would you see there?

Sall of fantasy items as well as traditional mall stores.

And a food court

How would you use it to drive stories?

Traditional economic quests.



Finding thieves.
Quelling arguments between shop owners
Dealing with mall cops
Escorting product

Where would you put it? Is it like a mega dungeon or is it a location like a massive store complex in waterdeep?

A Demiplane created by enterprising mages. People travel there via guarded teleportation circles and trusted casters across multiple planes.

Parts of the mall would be abandoned or unfinished and serve as a dungeon. Possibly as sink into another plane as the way the mall creator got around Demiplane restrictions. Like It seeps into the Plane of Earth into natural tunnel of purple worms which are renovated and reclaimed as stores.

Possibly the mall playing is actually a bubble within the Plane of Earth, a dead Wealth god's plane, or some Lawful plane.

 

[Yaarel]

A permanent Mordenkainans Magnificent Mansion can be a marketplace that travels town to town seasonally.