The deserted or abandoned setting
Your Shadowdark or D&D players have been travelling on the old road for days when they finally see a town in the distance. It rests between two small mountain ranges, nestled on the valley floor with a winding river beside its defensive walls.
Strangely there are not working, fertile farm fields surrounding the countryside; no peasants till the soil, stopping their labors to gawk as this odd little band of adventurers passes. No fires burn and there is no smell of hearth smoke nor field fires as they step closer to the settlement. And where is the merchant traffic of oxen-drawn carts or troops of soldiers cantering past? No carts, wagons nor draft animals come and go from the town.
Inside the crumbling town gate, no guards are posted asking for a toll, tax or other palm-greasing. The town wall is devoid of anyone on watch and ivy scratches at the empty battlements. Surprisingly, the dirty streets are empty. No animals or people mill about or bustle about daily routines. The smaller hovels and the once grand two- and three-level stone and wood shops look deserted. The doors swing wide open to the squat temple, with its thick columns and garish rising spire darting from the tiled rooftop. And, for the first time, the players notice the air is unusually still, and an eerie silence is overwhelming in all directions.
What happened here? Where are the people and the animals–the birds? The mystery sinks in as players begin to feel uneasy.
The deserted or abandoned setting can present your players with perplexing mysteries to solve. Is the place safe? Is anyone still here, hiding among the vacated buildings? Could danger strike in a sudden ambush at any second? The town takes on a desolate, creepy feeling. Something very bad must have happened here.
Here are some famous abandoned cities or settings from fantasy literature:
- The Mines of Moria aka Khazad-dûm, also called the Dwarrowdelf (LOTR)
Once the great underground dwarf city of Khazad-dûm, it became a dark, ruined graveyard filled with goblins and an ancient demon after the dwarves dug too deep. - Osgiliath (LOTR)
The once-splendid capital city of Gondor on the Anduin River, left mostly empty and ruined by war between men and Mordor. - Valyria (A Song of Ice and Fire)
The smoking, ruined capital of the old Freehold, completely abandoned and cursed after a cataclysmic doom destroyed the empire. - The City of the Black Giants
An unnamed, prehistoric metropolis carved out of black stone on a remote island in “The Pool of the Black One”. The city is entirely deserted of its original creators, save for a small remnant crew of mysterious, tall black beings who use a green pool to shrink and magically paralyze human captives. - R’lyeh (The Call of Cthulhu / Mythos)
The sunken, eerie corpse-city of the Great Old Ones, abandoned beneath the Pacific Ocean except for strange geometry and sleeping monsters.
And my bonus abandoned city? Sebbei
Karl Edward Wagner’s immortal warrior Kane is featured in the short story “Cold Light”. In this tale, Sebbei is an ancient, dead city. Kane uses its dusty, deserted streets and crumbling, ghostly structures as a tactical hideout to wage brutal ambushes against a band of crusaders sent to assassinate him. This is a terrific short story!
(Image from the painting “Lone Traveler” by Ukrainian painter Vasily Yolokhov)
