Leiamland

The middle third of Dragon Quest III is centered around collecting a series of six orbs found throughout the world, some of which require more elaborate quests to obtain than others. Once all six orbs are found, they can be used for a ritual to summon Ramia the God-Bird, who can then be ridden to previously inaccessible areas. And this ritual takes place in Leiamland, a frozen island in the far southwest corner of the map.

Leiamland doesn't give us a lot to work with, but I think there's definitely something there for The Saga of the Ortegids. Most of the island is covered by ice, with the one feature being a temple taking the form of a giant tower, at the top of which is kept the God-Bird's egg. The only inhabitants of Leiamland seem to be two priestesses who stand as guardians and tend to the egg, and the island seems too inhospitable to support any major settlements.

Art by Alayna Danner

There's definitely an otherworldly character to the two priestesses. They speak in unison, and they're living alone in a frozen wasteland. The question of "what do they eat?" obviously comes into play here. This video, incidentally, is one of my favorites on all of YouTube, and encapsulates my philosophy as a DM - I want my settings to feel like living, breathing, Shandified worlds, and a goal with this project is to reinterpret the setting of the Erdrick Trilogy as something recognizable to its source material, but with a minimum of video game conceits. It's possible that a more realistic Leiamland would be more arable, and the priestesses would grow crops to sustain themselves. But I don't think I'd go with that approach.

I think it's more likely that the priestesses are themselves immortal god-like beings - handmaidens of the God-Bird, and tasked with safeguarding her cycle of death and rebirth in the mortal world. We do see earthbound but divine beings elsewhere in the same game, like Aurhea, who appears to be the spirit of a particular lake. It would explain why the priestesses can survive in such an isolated, inhospitable environment, and why they would have such a close connection to a god incarnate, something that goes even beyond what we see at other temples, where the gods are more distant and metaphysical.

The orb ritual is not the only time we see gods being summoned into the physical world in the Erdrick Trilogy, and I think that's quite relevant. It seems that this is a setting that has particular rules about how gods work - even if they do not ordinarily exist on the same plane as mortals, there are rituals that can give them physical bodies that can be directly interacted with. This is pretty consistent throughout the first three games of the series, and for my purposes with the project, the similarities between the numerous instances we see will not be treated as a coincidence.

The existence of Leiamland presents some interesting implications for worldbuilding - through it, we can posit that there is a class of lesser gods native to the mortal realm, and another class of divine beings that must be summoned. But I think there's other things such a location could add to a campaign, too. Certainly one could lift the questline from DQ3 wholesale and have the PCs collect artifacts needed for the ritual because they need to ride the God-Bird to an otherwise inaccessible destination.

But it could be just as compelling to have the party tasked with stealing Ramia's egg. It'd make for an interesting heist scenario - they'd have to prepare for a journey to the remote island, braving the elements just to reach the temple in the first place, and then find a way to get past the immortal guardians tirelessly watching over the egg. It's entirely possible that the temple is located in Leiamland because the icy wastes would deter anyone seeking to claim the sacred egg for their own purposes. 

Going off this idea, you could expand the temple into a dungeon if you wanted to. There's precedent for this - the Game Boy version of DQ3 added a post-game dungeon underneath Leiamland, inhabited by a sleeping golden dragon guarding a holy sword that can call lightning. The first floor of this dungeon is even shaped like the phoenix icon used to represent Ramia, so it seems like the place is connected to her cult. It's one of the largest in the game (and features some of the best spritework on the Game Boy Color), and could well be used as the basis for a megadungeon.