100 Fantasy Islands to Encounter

This is a collection of 100 different islands that characters could encounter when travelling by water, to make voyages more interesting. They are most suited to a fantasy setting, but some could be adapted to others. The islands are assumed to be in the sea, but most only have general descriptions of their sizes, so some could be dropped into smaller bodies of water suck as lakes.

Many of the islands have oddities and peculiarities that look significant in some way. Whether or not they actually do is up to the GameMaster.

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Here are some sample results:

• This island is low-lying -a dull grey in colour where the land shows between the ground vegetation. The island is made from gravel that has been piled on the sea bed until it reached the surface. The vegetation is a ground-dwelling creeper that grows amongst the gravel, binding it together, and this vegetation descends into the ocean, binding together all the gravel into its current form. If the plants were to be removed, the gravel island would start to slump back into the water. Which may annoy whoever created the island in the first place.
• From a distance, this island appears to be a undistinguished clump of rock with a number of birds flying around and nesting on it. As the rock is approached, it becomes clearer that the island is both further away and larger than it appeared; a lack of other objects to put it into perspective resulted in the mind making certain assumptions about its size, to a degree based on the birds that could be seen. These birds are also far larger than they originally appeared to be and are not birds. Instead, the island is the home of a lot of pteranodons, which will consider those approaching to be simply a mobile food source.
• This island looks like a single hillock, roughly oval in shape and rising and descending in a fairly smooth curve. A number of small plants are growing on the island and a number of birds and crabs live amongst the vegetation. If the island is examined underwater, it can be seen that the ends of the oval that descend into the water are simply the above water part of something that stretches off into the distance. This island is simply part of an immense sea monster that curves above the water level before descending again. Legend says that this creature sleeps and should it ever awake, or be awoken, it would signal the end of the world.
• This small, craggy piece of rock is completely taken up by a lighthouse that has been built on top of it. There is no dock at the lighthouse’s base, nor is there any door to enter it there. The light is functioning, coming on at night and off during the day, and would appear to be magical in nature. Should a creature fly up to the balcony that runs around the light, there is a door that allows access to the building. The light is indeed magical in nature, and there are rooms inside the lighthouse, but it would appear, by the amount of dust, that nobody has lived there in a very long time. Even stranger, the lighthouse is built on the only piece of rock for many miles around, and is even further from the nearest shore, so it is not entirely clear what purpose it serves.
• This small rocky island has a single pebbled beach and limited vegetation; a few hardy plants grow on the rocks. Leading away from the beach is a pebbled path that leads to a cave that appears to be artificial in nature. Inside the cave are a number of paintings on the wall, depicting what looks like everyday life. The back of the cave descends into the earth in a tunnel that spirals down a long, long way. As the tunnel is descended, more paintings can be seen on the walls with a suitable light source. The further down a character goes, the more disturbing the paintings become, gradually changing from everyday life to scenes of violence, torture and horror, as more and more demonic-looking creatures appear in them, apparently preying on the people depicted as well as encouraging them to prey on each other. A sullen red glow starts filling the air as the tunnel gets deeper, making the paintings easier to see and also appear to be moving. This all gives the impression that the tunnel leads to some type of hell.

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