What unusual geography exists in your world?

[blackshirt5]

MY world is greatly influenced by fantasy literature, and I've noticed that in some settings that I've seen on the net(as well as Kingdoms of Kalamar and the Forgotten Realms), there seems to be an effort to make it that there isn't any truly unusualk, unreal geography.

So, do you have any unusual features to your world? So far, I've only got down that the grass of the Plains of Leeds(named after the insane archmage who ruled over the Plains 2000 years ago) is silver, and can actually be harvested and made into coinage; there is a desert of black glass which separates Consoltian(the west) from the Land of An-Aru(my middle-eastern setting) which is said to be filled with the ruins of a great civilization, and none have ever passed through the desert unharmed; and the Kingdom of Night, where they say that every 30 days the kingdom is plunged into darkness for a day, with the sun being blotted out during that day, although no outsider has ever substantiated these rumors, thanks to the Kingdom's xenophobia.

 

[DreamChaser]

in my current game, Land's End, there is a city (with the aforementioned name) that sits at a cliff at the edge of the word. The problem is, the world is actually a sphere but it has a number of sub-planes within it. Land's End is in one such sub-plane where the sphere "ends"

Past the cliff is the Sea of Stars. It is (seemingly) endless area of sky with occasional rock islands floating in it. Some of the island are inhabited.

DC

 

[carpedavid]

In my campaign world, half the planet was cast into eternal night by the goddess of the moon. It's been a dark, icy wasteland for 4000+ years, and has developed it's own arctic, night-based ecosystem.

The god of chaos created a giant, magical underground maze called the Evershifting Labrynth. Seemingly any underground structure can be swallowed by it, and it's main characteristic is that the underground structures continuously and randomly move to different parts of the world. A cottage indstry has sprung up around warding people's basements against the labrynth.

 

[BlackMoria]

There is area in my game world referred to as 'The Cursed Earth'.

It is an area in which the dimensional interface between multiple planes are severely weakened. The result is a area in which the terrain and environmental conditions can change abruptly without warning as one dimension or plane gains temporary dominance over another. The changes can occur every few minutes in the most severe case or every few days at best.

It is an extreme hazard to travel (you can find yourself shifted off into another dimension) and to travellers (the plain you are travelling could suddenly become ocean, or an elemental plane like the plane of fire - with the usual consequences)

A very small group of specially gifted individuals have the ability to predict when and where 'interphases' occur and usually can avoid the unexpected surprise of having your surroundings completely change during an 'interphase'.

 

[willpax]

There is a 500 mile diameter blast crater (complete with jagged mountains along the edge) caused by a major summoing gone awry several hundred yers before campaign time. Otherwise, most of the magical effects are more subtle and local.

I've planted a few rumors about a city untouched in the middle of this waste of powdered ash, but no one has wanted to explore it yet.

 

[Darth Shoju]

geography

This isn't really geography I guess, but I have this huge tower that holds a city. The middle and upper class neighborhoods are in the top part that is open to the sky (but it has huge crenalations). The lower class neighborhood is on the next level down and receives sunlight from huge windows in the side of the tower. The next level has no windows and is not directly accessible from the upper levels (at least to most people's knowledge). It contains the remains of an ancient city and a necropolis. The final level down also doesn't contain windows and features the citadel of the BBEG.

 

[Aeris Winterood]

Well....

In my homebrew about 2500 years ago the world was abruptly brougth into an ice age (took less than ten years for the ice to manifest southerly) The ice and snow was a deep blue in color. It lasted for almost 1800 years and it retreated as rapidly as it came. An elvish realm in the path of the ice sheet used very powerful ritual magic to divert the sheet around their forest realm. The odd thing about the retreating ice sheet is that the land areas became fertile for growth in a rapid amount of time. (something that whould take about 10,000 years happened in about 5 years)

On the continent in the last 30 years a rift has occurred that part of the plane of the Abyss/Nine Hells (same place, different ethos) has encroached on the planet which is called th Veil. In the 30 years it has grown about 10 feet per day, already overtaking a kingdon, displacing many refugees of all races... Natives from the prime plane can travel at will into the Veil but outsiders in the Veil still need to be summoned or use powerful magic to enter the prime plane. Unknown to the players, the world itself is the body of a dead god.... so... more they will find out about.

 

[Chimera]

Roughly 4500 years previous to my first five campaigns on my Homebrew world, but about six months into the 'deep dark past' campaign that was the sixth (and 22 years before what will eventually be the seventh)...

There was a huge battle on the slopes of Mount Kemensereg, between the Calaseans (powerful natural magic-users and rulers of most of the world - as slave lords) and their ancient enemies, the Elorhim. It involved the Calasean's God (DR 20) and one million Calaseans against the Elorhim's "Prince" (DR 20), one million Elorhim, 600k Rana, two Human gods (DR 12, 1) and several million Humans.

The Calaseans being highly magical and the Elorhim highly Psionic, combined with the presence of some major godhood and a stupid idea by the Calasean High Council, caused a major explosion that utterly destroyed everything within 600 miles and rendered the entire region uninhabitable for millenia. (In the +4500 year era, this region is still some 5-600 miles in diameter)

All of the combatants were wiped out, plus an additional two million Calaseans and nearly 60 million slaves. (Nearly 20% of their people and slaves, plus their most valuable slave territory, gone in a flash.) The Human demigod was destroyed. The three other gods were each rendered 'unavailable' for several hundred years (Their Clerics can only do spells of up to 4th level until they 'return').

Just east of this (formerly rich) region are The Shards, a range of very steep and inhospitable mountains. The range runs north-south, about 1000 miles long and 1-200 miles wide. They end abruptly on the east side, where great cliffs plunge into the deep and dangerous Straights of Elorhia, a 50-100 mile wide, 1500 mile long separation between two continents.

A hot current flows up from the Boiling Sea in the south (where thermal vents and volcanos literally boil the sea in one large, equatorial region) through the straights, over the top of a deep, very cold current from the north.

On the east side of the straights are the Mountains of Elorhia, a one million square mile expanse of mountains that includes three great valleys (where most of the Elorhim and Rana live) and the highest peaks in the world.

These mountains again end in great cliffs at the Inner sea, a freshwater 'lake/sea' about 2000 miles east of the Straights. Here the cliffs are undercut by thousands of sea level caves, through which many mountain rivers find their exit. (One large river, coming from the largest of the great valleys, flows straight into the ground about 400 miles from the Inner Sea.)

 

[MerakSpielman]

My world has locations where magical energy wells up from the depths in incredible amounts ("Power Nodes"). Spells cast in these areas have their power magnified by an incredible factor - producing sometimes unpredictibe results. These Power Nodes are invisible unless you cast a spell near oneren't so much "geography" per se, more of a static magical feature of the world.
-but-
they did lead to an apparently permenant reorganization of the world's geography.

Last campaign (a scripted ending): The party destroys a lens focussing the magic of a Node into a Doomsday Device made up of a few dozen Spheres of Anhililation. Without their containment field, the spheres were mysteriously drawn to the Node.

The previously undocumented reaction between a SoA and a Node has produced an explosion so great that it slowed down the rotation of the world. (The following statements were not verified by anything remotely resembling "science") The world now takes a full year to rotate once on it's axis. That's six months of day followed by six months of night. The entire surface has been laid waste. The heat of "summer" is too great for any mortal magic to allow survival. Ditto for the cold of "winter." The only people who survived fled into the Underdark. Normally, deep caves maintain the same temperature year round, but with the temperature extremes on the surface the air temperature in the underdark has begun to change, much like the seasons on the surface.

The oceans have all boiled away (among other side effects, this has eliminated such luxuries as fish and pearls.)

Now, I was thinking about this, and there should be a sort of Dawn/Twilight time lasting about a month each where the temperature of the surface is bearable. But then I thought... what would the weather systems be like, in the narrow strip that could sustain liquid water? I've decided that this time will be characterized by such severe weather that only the insane would venture forth. Also, these storms refresh the lakes and reservoirs that the civilizations of the Underdark need to survive.

Also, I thought, there should be small "islands" of near normal temperatures near each pole. Perhaps the weather is bad there as well? Have some civilizations managed to survive there? I haven't decided.

Interestingly enough, the unit of time known as a "day" is now defined only as the time between when a cleric recieves his spells and the next time he can recieve his spells.

And mineral wealth has become meaningless. The only unit of currency is the Wooden Piece (wp).
One WP has the equivalent value of one gold piece before the disaster. Gems are still valuable. Oddly enough, the most valuable magical item has suddenly become the previously innocuous Qual's Feather Token (Tree). Though without natural trees such items can no longer be created, rumors of one in some long forgotten temple or stronghold have spurred desperate Wood Rushes and, occasionally, all-out wars. Some people mutter darkly that the Druids have figured out how to grow trees in their cultivated caverns, but so far nobody has had the guts to try to invade them to find out.

 

[Salad Shooter]

in my setting we have a giant cleft...

About 5 human generations ago, the humans seriously ticked off the gods, and one of them decided to do something about it...took his axe and clove this giant trench the bredth of the continent, obliterating part of a forest and demolishing the humans capital city...now it is charged with energy and all kinds of fun creatures live there, it has basically eliminated trade between the north and south ends of the continent, and only a brave few dare travel across the rift.....