Corrupted Regions

“If you go into the woods, always keep a fire burning and never let your sword leave your hand.” The look on the innkeeper’s face suggested that even those precautions wouldn’t be enough, so Sarreth had assured her that he was a strong warrior who had survived many battles. He had rolled his eyes, though. Peasants! They hid behind their village walls and trembled at every little noise from outside. Now, though, Sarreth was beginning to wish he had listened. It was afternoon, but the woods were dark as night. Even though he could normally see in the dark quite well, his eyes just couldn’t adjust; he’d been forced to light a torch. It was silent here, and suffocatingly still without even a breeze to ruffle the leaves. But then came growls and cries like nothing he’d ever heard come from the throat of any person or animal. Trembling, he drew his sword as he looked all around, trying to find the source. From out of nowhere came a wind, blasting Sarreth. His torch flickered wildly and died, plunging him back into darkness. But just before it went out, he saw the flames reflected all around him in a dozen pairs of hateful white eyes. Behind their walls, the villagers trembled when they heard his screams.

Sometimes a region is so saturated with dark influence that forbidden magic and foul monsters just aren’t enough—sometimes you need to turn the corruptive force of the very land against your players! This article presents mechanics and examples to help Narrators turn any region into a place of dread.

Corrupted Regions

This template is meant to give Narrators a simple way to introduce additional horror elements to existing regions. For higher level parties, the penalties and complications listed may be increased in accordance with their abilities. At the same time, caution is advised with Tier 0 parties, as some challenges may prove unexpectedly deadly with their current resources. Most corrupted regions are at least tier 1 and many are higher.

To begin, choose a base region and an appropriate tier for your party. You can use any region for this purpose, but Blasted Badlands, Fiery Hellscape, and Haunted Lands tend to be less effective narratively, as part of the horror of a corrupted region comes from the loss of what once was. Additionally, due to the intrinsic unpleasantness of the area, corrupted regions are often less-populated. Cursed Urban Townships are not uncommon, but their tier rarely correlates to population size, even if geographically they are quite large—the whole population of a metropolis is unlikely to stay in such an area unless magically prevented or compelled.

Next, consider the corruption’s origins—this is not merely a haunted estate or a blighted town, it’s a whole region or even several adjoining regions. Was the land cursed by a dying archmage, the place of apotheosis for a dark deity, the location of a great saint’s unjust execution, a battlefield between celestials and fiends, or something as old as a profane stain on the world from the time of creation? Is this a recent development or has the land been cursed for as long as even the elves can remember? What do the inhabitants know about the source of the curse, what stories do they tell travelers about it, and what advice, charms, or superstitions do they use to keep each other safe?

Corrupted Region Template

Any region can be used with this template. Such a region retains all its traits and encounters except those noted here.

Conflicting Mechanics. If the trait or journey activity mechanics would conflict with those of the base regions|region]] mechanically or thematically (such as a base region that serves as a haven and a new trait that limits havens), the corrupted mechanics take precedence. Their effects do not stack, however.

Difficulty Class. The DCs of effects caused by a corrupted region’s traits, including journey activities, are equal to that of the base tier’s DC +1, in addition to any other modifiers.

Traits. A corrupted region should have 2–3 new traits that reflect the way in which it has been tainted. Examples are listed below.

Encounters. To fit the theme, Narrators can re-work the flavor of the region’s existing encounters or replace them with those from other regions, such as the Haunted Lands .

Journey Activities. A corrupted region hides additional dangers—and occasionally additional opportunities. Based on the nature of the corruption, determine which certain journey activities are made with disadvantage or entirely impossible and, less frequently, which are made with advantage .

Active Corruption (Optional). Corrupted regions often have profound effects on those that travel them. The rules found in “Perverse Contamination: Corruption Mechanics ” ( Gate Pass Gazette Issue #20 ) detail how a creature might suffer corruption from a variety of sources and how that manifests. In corrupted regions this may occur from interacting with items, creatures, or even knowledge. For instance, an adventurer who discovers a strange tablet with alien writing in a Blasted Heath and decides Research (as the downtime activity), Chronicle (as per the journey activity), or cast spells such as comprehend languages or legend lore on it makes a Wisdom saving throw . On a failure, they suffer a level of corruption . This saving throw repeats at the end of each “session”—every five days for a downtime activity, the period of a journey activity, or the casting of a spell—but the Narrator may call for it more often in the case of particularly corruptive material.

Corrupted Region Encounters

Narrators can integrate the following into their existing encounter tables in addition to reskinning existing entries. For added thematic variety, the following heritages can be substituted for some of those on the Unusual NPC Heritage table: doppelganger , mycelial , motley (Dungeon Delver’s Guide), chrysalian (Issue #15), garoul (Issue #8), shadowcast (Issue #23), and trollkin (Issue #24).

Table: Corrupted Region Social Encounters

Table: Corrupted Region Scenery