The Isle of the Sun

Our gazetteer of the world(s) of The Saga of the Ortegids is pretty much complete. Over the last few months, I've summarized every major region in the first three Dragon Quest games and explored their potential for TRPG scenarios. However, just today I started thinking about one small area I didn't pay any heed to before, but one that just might be more interesting than I thought.

In Dragon Quest III, upon crossing through the Pit of Giaga, you come out on a small island in the western gulf of Alefgard, directly across from Tantegel. This is the only location in this part of the game that has no counterpart in Dragon Quest I, likely because there's no sea travel in that game. On it is a small, unnamed port - there are no shops or inns here, so it's likely a small fishing village rather than a regional trade center. It's really just there to give you access to a ship while in Torland, and for this reason I overlooked it in my discussion of Alefgard.

However, one of the NPCs there asks the party if they've come from "the upper world," which indicates that the people of Torland are familiar with the existence of Erdland. To recap the cosmology I'm using for The Saga of the Ortegids, I have chosen - in part because it provides for more interesting gaming opportunities - to interpret Torland as literally being inside of a hollow Erdland, with the Pit of Giaga being an actual, physical pit connecting the two surfaces. Interestingly, the Western fandom tends to interpret the Pit of Giaga as being a portal and the worlds as separate universes, but the Japanese fandom is more equivocal about it. In any case, for Saga, it's a physical pit - which ties into my next point.

Torland (unlike Erdland) has no consistent day-night cycle and is shown to be in a state of constant night before the Sphere of Light is used for the first time in DQ3. Furthermore, the Dragonlord stealing the Sphere in DQ1 is sometimes said to cause an unending night, depending on what source you're reading (this could be metaphorical, but for me it's not). Under my interpretation, this implies that Torland had no natural light source until the Sphere of Light created one, being the inside of a hollow planet and all. So far, everything is interally consistent.

But then I realized that if the Pit of Giaga physically separates Erdland from Torland, if there's a big hole in the ground in Erdland, there must conversely be a big hole in the sky in Torland. And we do know that Erdland has a sun. Before the Sphere of Light was used, this island below the Pit of Giaga must have been the only place in Torland to receive natural light - that is, what was able to stream through the Pit when the sun was overhead.

Art by Vsevlod Ivanov
(Seriously, check his stuff out)

This likely wouldn't be enough light to illuminate all of Torland on a regular basis, but it would mean that this one island would receive direct sunlight for part of the day. In an otherwise lightless world, this would no doubt have a significant effect on the local culture. Perhaps the locals of this island, even if they know of the existence of an upper world, don't realize how a natural sun really works, and view this light as a divine phenomenon. This would transform the Isle of the Sun, as I've called it, into a natural choice for a holy site, with cults springing up around the light and adherents making pilgrimages to witness it.

With this in mind, perhaps the port we see in DQ3 isn't the only settlement on the island - perhaps there is another city that serves as the center of this sun cult, and we just don't see it in-game because there was nothing useful for gameplay or narrative purposes there. Given the Norse vibes of Torland in general and Alefgard in particular, let's call this city Sollenborg. While ostensibly a subject of the Alefgardic crown, it would be an autonomous power headed by a cult worshiping the sun, with the priesthood holding local positions of authority.

Art by Noah Bradley

In a campaign set in Torland before the events of DQ3, this city could be a curiosity for the party to investigate, or a regional power given its apparent blessed nature. It would also offer another religion to add to the worldbuilding of the setting. Also, one of the easiest ways to kill vampires in a pre-sun Torland. I also find it interesting to think about how even in a magical fantasy world, there would still be perfectly natural phenomena that are misinterpreted as miracles.

I also think it's interesting to consider what might happen to Sollenborg after the events of DQ3. Surely the sun cult would lose quite a bit of its authority with the Sphere of Light providing constant sunlight. This could lead to a crisis of faith for its adherents - and perhaps the more worldly of the cult's authorities, fearful of losing power, might be jealous of what the Sphere provides and covet it for themselves. You could also probably tell an interesting side-story about how the sun cult would handle the Dragonlord's theft of the Sphere. If Alefgard was suddenly deprived of its sunlight, the cult would have something unique to offer the people, who would surely grow desperate in such a time.

Torland Maps

Following on the same format from my Erdland maps, now that we've completed our look at Torland, we can now present a complete map of my interpretation of the inner world for The Saga of the Ortegids.

Click here to enlarge

Click here to enlarge

Rhone

The setting for the climactic confrontation of Dragon Quest II is Rhone, a highland region in the center of Torland's Southern Continent under the control of Hargon, high priest of a cult that worships Malroth, the god of chaos and destruction. There's a few things that make this area unique and interesting, and they deserve a closer look - in no small part because they raise questions that might elucidate further worldbuilding in The Saga of the Ortegids.

Rhone appears to be coterminous and/or synonymous with the Plateau of Rendarak, suggesting this is the predominant geographical feature of the realm. That's certainly supported by the geography - it's ringed by high mountains, so high that in the game it can only be reached through a complex system of caves winding up the mountains to the south. I'd likely add other means to access Rhone for a more open-ended campaign, but the Road to Rhone, as it's been dubbed, is infamously a long, circuitous maze-like dungeon, with corridors that loop back on each other and pits that force players to backtrack from a lower floor. In a video game, this is tiresome and frustrating, but it would be easy to translate to a megadungeon if one was so inclined. Thanks to the pits, it's even Jacquayed! Check out the maps at Dragon's Den for an in-depth explanation.

The Plateau itself, notably, is the only snowy area in the game (and, indeed, in the entire Erdrick Trilogy), likely due to its position high in the mountains. We can then surmise that Rendarak is a high tableland, and the elevation leaves it notably colder than the lowlands at its feet. Perhaps it would look something like the Tibetan Plateau in terms of geography and climate, or at least parts of it would. Since there are no other areas with such wintery terrain, it's reasonable to assume that the Plateau of Rendarak is the highest point of Torland.

And with that in mind, we must confront the implications this has on the metaphysics of our setting. On a conventional globe, it makes sense that a high-altitude tableland would be so cold, as the atmosphere is thinner the higher off the ground you get, and thus doesn't distribute heat as well. But remember, we're working off the conceit that, since Alefgard is accessed through a pit in Dragon Quest III and the Trilogy consistently shows it to have no day-night cycle, Torland is located on the hollow interior of the planet, with a central inner sun. If this sun works the way ours does, you'd expect that it would be warmer at high elevations, since these would be closer to the innermost part of the planet, and thus the sun.

In order for Rhone to make sense, we must assume that the inner sun gives off light, but not heat - which makes sense, because it seems to be connected in some way to the Sphere of Light. Furthermore, the physics of Torland don't appear to work by conventional means, as in DQ3 it's shown to be capable of supporting life and vegetation even when it has no sun at all. Torlandic physics, then, may simply hold that plants are capable of growing without photosynthesis and higher altitudes are colder just because.

Look, it's a pulpy sword and sorcery setting. Scientific accuracy takes a backseat to what makes for fantastic adventure.

With all that out of the way, I'd like to address the sociological and political situation in Rhone, because that is also quite interesting. In later Dragon Quest games, and much of the broader canon of Japanese fantasy they inspired, "monsters" are something of a race, or a category of races; despite their heterogenous appearances and abilities, they all share a vaguely-defined nature, and are uniformly aligned with the game's villain. They seem to be contrasted in this way against humans, who are almost always on the side of good - criminals tend to be background characters or roguish antiheroes. This is quite different from D&D, where the idea of a "monster" does not exist outside of game mechanics, and there is not much in common between, say, a skeleton and a gryphon.

But this distinction does not appear to be present in the Erdrick Trilogy - we don't really see the idea of monsters as a monolith come up in the games themselves until IV. And Hargon's forces seem to consist mainly of humans. Many of DQ2's enemies, and almost all of those who are explicitly tied to Hargon's cult, are various forms of cultists and magicians. Furthermore, Rhone is far more civilized than you'd expect from a land of monsters. Hargon has a castle, and there's a temple there staffed by a human priest that functions much like the temples in towns. Consider also that the plot of DQ2 is kicked off when Rhone invades Moonbrooke and destroys its capital. If Rhone is able to wage open war against a powerful kingdom, it must have an army.

To control a cult as large and powerful as his is, Hargon must be a charismatic leader indeed, but I feel like that wouldn't explain all the resources Rhone has at its disposal. What seems more likely to me is that Rhone is, or was, itself a kingdom, but was usurped and taken control of by the Children of Hargon. Hargon is, then, a political leader, not just a spiritual one.

If one wishes to run a more gritty and realistic take on the setting, Rhone would likely have legitimate grievances that the Children of Hargon looked like a solution to. An entire country wouldn't start openly serving a world-devouring god that easily (there are some hilarious jokes I could be making right now, but I don't discuss real-world politics on this blog). And I think there's something we could look at with the fact that Moonbrooke is Rhone's first target.

It could just be a matter of proximity, since Moonbrooke is directly to the north of Rhone. But there may have been some existing tension between the two kingdoms. Given Rhone's more inhospitable climate and inaccessibility, it's likely it wouldn't have been as rich, fertile, or influential as its northern neighbor. The Rhonesmen may have been Moonbrooker vassals at some point in history, and this could have led to resentment among the populace, who felt they were forced to answer to foreign crowns (especially considering that the ruling house of Moonbrooke is of Alefgardic and Aliahanian descent, not anything native to the region). Hargon offered the people the possibility of self-determination and independence - a chance to be powerful enough to throw off the yoke of Ortegid oppression. And that made his ultimate goal of summoning Malroth an easier pill to swallow. Since my Moonbrooke is based on Sweden, I think it works quite nicely to have Rhone culturally analogous to Finland in this scenario, fitting the terrain and the fact that they're neighbors of the Ortegid kingdoms but lack a common heritage.

I'm not doing this to pull a Wicked and portray Hargon as a misunderstood well-intentioned extremist. He still wants to summon a god of destruction to destroy existence as we know it. But he needed a base of power in order to do so, and - as cult leaders are wont to do - he could tell the people what they wanted to hear so that they would give that power to him.

A final note on Hargon: he has blue skin and fangs, and this is never really explained. The game never gives any indication as to what he is. For that reason, I would run him as a tiefling. The proper tieflings with non-standardized appearances and randomized demonic traits, thank you very much. I'm very much a proponent that demons in general should be Boschian creatures of chaos that come in all shapes and sizes, with no two being alike. That should go for tieflings too.

This concept opens up some fun prospects for campaigns. If Hargon was holding the people of Rhone together, we are presented with the question of what would happen after his death at the end of DQ2. There would be a power vacuum, and all manner of factions would have reasons to get involved. Who is next in line to lead the Children of Hargon - and would they really believe in the cult's dogma, or merely go through the motions as a way to hold power over the people already in its thrall? If the latter, is this motivated by self-interest, or a genuine desire to uplift the people of Rhone through the only means anyone knows how? Would a resurgent Moonbrooke set its sights again on Rhone, especially after it nearly brought the kingdom to its end? What do the Rhonesmen think of that? There's a lot of fascinating questions here, just begging to throw the PCs into head-first.

Beran

The southwestern corner of Dragon Quest II's overworld features a large island off the coast of Tuhn, on which is the city of Beran. There's no major quests or dungeons here, but it is an evocative area that deserves a closer look for The Saga of the Ortegids.

Beran is located at the center of a lake, and much of the town appears to be built on top of a series of bridges and platforms. The first thing that comes to my mind here is Laketown from The Hobbit, which I've always found to be an intriguing setting. Helpfully, I have the Middle-Earth Roleplaying sourcebook on Laketown, and though I've used it for a similar floating city in the Lunar Lands, it could just as easily be reskinned as Beran.

Beran is a rather large town, with multiple shops and facilities, so it would seem to be a major economic center for the region. Perhaps its location on the lake may play a role in this, as it would be easy for ships to transport goods from the shore - but, at the same time, it also provides a natural defense that would allow Beran to become a citadel in times of war.

We don't see a king in Beran - there is a save point, which in Dragon Quest is usually the function of a king, but here it's located at the house of a hermit living in an island to the northwest of town. It would've been easy to make this a king if the developers so wanted, but for whatever reason they didn't. For this reason, I think it's safe to say that Beran is not a capital city. However, unlike Tuhn, I think it's a reasonable assumption that the city would in fact be part of a greater kingdom. The geography of the island seems conducive to large-scale settlement, with a long accessible coast in the south, wide open plains, and access to freshwater sources. I'd argue that it makes sense for there to be other settlements on the island, all answering to the same monarch - we just don't see them, or the capital, because they doesn't offer anything of value to the characters' journey.

Art by John Hodgson

Much like Hanguo, this offers me the chance to flex my creative muscles a bit. I've chosen to invent the Kingdom of Escar - yes, as in Esgaroth - occupying this southwestern island, much like Dirkandor in the east. It's likely a prominent regional power, as it's quite distant from any other kingdom (and thus would lack competition) and has enough land and resources to be self-sufficient. Escar might send ships to trade with ports in the Tuhn region and the Southern Archipelago, but any other kingdoms that could match it in power and wealth are quite far away.

Beran is bounded by a large desert and mountains, which would make communication with the northern half of the kingdom difficult. Either the capital is near the coast, and of a similarly mercantile nature, or it's in the northern part of the island. The northern part certainly has enough plains to support agriculture and settlement, but I feel it would be hard for a kingdom to control territory if its capital was in an inaccessible region. Thus, I'd argue that the capital of Escar is likely quite close to Beran, which would give it access to seafaring trade routes.

In fact, that might explain why Beran is built on a lake - perhaps it was originally intended as a citadel that people from the capital could retreat to if attacked. It may have developed into a separate city over time, or we may be seeing it in such a function. Maybe the reason we don't see the capital is because it's been evacuated. Note that the capital of Moonbrooke is razed at the start of DQ2, and a martime power like Escar would likely catch wind of this through traders and sailors. It's possible that the people of the capital fled here when they heard the news in case they were targeted next.

If the Escarian capital is located in the north, then Beran would likely exert a considerable amount of power due to its wealth and its distance from the capital. It may be a de facto independent city, even if it formally answers to a king who has no way of controlling it. This could lead to a rivalry between the cities, which could allow for faction play.

A third option is that the northern half of the island is controlled by a separate kingdom than the one that controls Beran. As I said beforehand, both halves could support a state, and the mountains and desert form a believable natural boundary. As the northern half is more mountainous and has little access to the sea, it's likely not as wealthy or powerful as the southern half. It's noteworthy that the random encounter list for the island includes both orcs and orc chieftains - the northern part, whether a separate kingdom or a wild frontier, may be populated by beastmen.

The main function Beran serves in the game is the portal there, which serves as the only point of entrance to Rhone, the endgame area. It's a bit interesting why Beran would have this. Perhaps it maintained relations with Rhone at one point - it would make communication easier, given how mountainous and inhospitable the path to Rhone is. Or maybe Beran is built over the ruins of a portal shrine that once linked Escar and Rhone.

Tuhn

South of Moonbrooke and the Lianport region, the Southern Continent of Dragon Quest II's overworld is highly mountainous. The central region forms the Plateau of Rendarak, a high snow-capped tableland that appears to be even higher in elevation than the surrounding mountains that make it inaccessible until the end of the game. But even if we look around the Plateau, we can see several mountains surrounding Wellgarth to the south, and a complex system of mountain ranges to the northwest, where we find the city of Tuhn.

Tuhn is the only settlement in this area detailed in the game, and it does not have any king or other local authority. I don't suspect that it's part of a larger kingdom, either - it's likely an independent city-state. The area around it is a maze of cliffs and valleys, which would make it quite difficult to project power from any capital. Rather, I would imagine this is Torland's "points of light" region. The difficult terrain makes it difficult to establish any major states, so the area is a patchwork of free cities, petty duchies, and tribes of barbarians, bandits, and beastmen (funnily enough, enemies in this area do indeed include orcs and hostile warriors). Every valley may well have a distinct culture quite unlike its neighbors. There's shades of Vance in this, and it could easily provide fodder for an exploration-driven campaign if the party travels from one valley to another, encountering new and strange discoveries in each. It would also provide an easy way into domain play, since the lack of major regional powers would mean the PCs would face little resistance if they wished to carve out their own.

The other major geographical feature of the Tuhn region is an extensive system of waterways - no doubt fed by the mountains. Most of these can be navigated by boat, which may be the most efficient way to travel from one valley to another if the mountains block overland travel. See Death on the Reik from Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay if you want to see how a campaign could be structured around river travel. Because Tuhn itself is located on a river, it's likely a prominent trade center, and may be wealthier than other towns in the area, since it has access to other ports along the water. Those villages more inland, however, may be forced to live a self-sufficient existence.

Notably, in the game, the stretch of the river by Tuhn is dried up because a thief has stolen the key to the town floodgate. This is mostly an issue because it blocks your access to the Tower of the Moon, a tower where a wizard guards a fragment of the moon. It's interesting how this got here, given that Torland is a hollow earth with no day and night, and presumably no moon - perhaps it's for that reason why it's such a rare and prized artifact.

However, you would think that the people would be more concerned about the river drying up. Not only would it limit Tuhn's access to other towns along the river system, it would also deprive people of fresh water, seafood (fish was a reliable source of food for many medieval cities), and irrigation. If I was running a similar scenario, I would likely emphasize the effects of being cut off from the river on the town, with the people risking drought and economic ruin. This would give such a quest more urgency.

Also in Tuhn is the workshop of Don Mohame, a legendary weaver; if provided with the right tools, he can sew a robe made of water, protecting the wearer against fire, ice, and magic. This is an optional sidequest, but I love the folkloric feel of a craftsman so skilled he can create items that are physically impossible. Also, he's a good example of how you can throw a unique NPC with special skills and services unavailable anywhere else somewhere in the campaign world to serve as a resource.

Art by Scott Pelico

Culturally, I would imagine the Tuhn region as being something like Switzerland, befitting its nature as a decentralized region of small scattered settlements separated by mountains. With that in mind, my previous writing on the Freikantons might provide some inspiration.

Wellgarth

Wellgarth is one of the more unique towns in Dragon Quest II. Located in the southern peninsula of the Southern Continent, just across the sea from the Southern Archipelago, the majority of the town is located underground. Why this is is never really explained. It's far away from any other settlement, and none of the townspeople comment on the unusual circumstances of the town. A lot of sources I've found online suggest that the people moved underground to defend against attacks, but nothing in the game actually says this. It certainly would be a viable option to make Wellgarth something like the Cappadocian underground cities, which exist as citadels for the people to retreat into in times of siege. It's an evocative setting with fascinating implications on worldbuilding, and it provides a useful justification to give megadungeons some versimilitude - especially when it's directly based on something from real life.

However, there aren't any structures on the surface of Wellgarth besides a small fortress. You would think that if the town is a temporary institution that exists to house refugees, there would be something above ground. But there aren't even ruins, which the destroyed city of Moonbrooke has. My personal answer to the dilemma? Just make it a city of dwarves.

Sure, the people in Wellgarth use the same graphics as those of any other town. But then, those sprites are generic townsfolk shared between all the towns anyway. And there's nothing that would indicate that they aren't dwarves. The Erdrick Trilogy features appearances by elves and hobbits, but no dwarves, so making Wellgarth a dwarven city is an easy way to complete the triad. For that matter, Wellgarth is where some of the best equipment in the game can be purchased, which fits with the trope of dwarves being expert craftsmen. In a setting like The Saga of the Ortegids, which tries to reframe the setting of the Dragon Quest games in a way that isn't reliant on game mechanics, Wellgarth could still be a place to buy powerful magic items - not because it's a late-game location, but because it's home to dwarven smiths with the knowledge to create such things. Getting there could be a quest in itself. And winning the favor of the dwarves might be necessary to win such a reward.

Besides, as any Dwarf Fortress player would know, the lower reaches of a dwarven city - the abandoned mineshafts, ruins of previous settlements, and sealed-off tunnels of those who dug too deep - are great fodder for megadungeons anyway. You even have a safe town for rest, recovery, and restocking at the top.

Wellgarth may not be a wholly dwarven city. It's located near the mountainous region of Rhone, which is certainly a point in support of it being predominately inhabited by dwarves, but it's in a relatively open area surrounded by plains and near the coast. There may be other dwarven citadels in the mountains, but Wellgarth might be a trading post in an area easily accessible by humans to facilitate communication between the dwarves of the Southern Continent and the outside world. We don't see a king or other authority figure in Wellgarth, so it may be a vassal of a larger dwarven kingdom we never see the capital of.

If Wellgarth is a trade center, it may well have a population of humans as well. And that ties into another feature of the city we see - there seems to be a criminal underworld (no pun intended). One of the shopkeepers sells a key that can open the cells of the town jail, suggesting that there is contraband being passed around on the black market, even in seemingly reputable businesses. Furthermore, in order to buy the key, you have to specifically ask for it, represented by picking a blank item on the shop menu. Another citizen alludes to this, so it seems the existence of this black market is a secret known to some select people that can be trusted with the knowledge. There may be a thriving thieves' guild in Wellgarth, and getting involved with the right people might open a new world of resources and opportunities.

Torlandic Topology

So this is probably the single nerdiest thing I've ever done.

The setting for The Saga of the Ortegids, extrapolating from the worldbuilding details we get in the first three Dragon Quest games, is a hollow planet, with Erdland (the world map of Dragon Quest III) on the outside, and Torland (that of Dragon Quest II, which includes that of I) on the inside. Thinking about how both 3 and 2 feature an area where you can obtain a leaf of the Worldtree, I began to ponder how exactly the maps would line up if modeled on a three-dimensional sphere.

So I got a free trial of SketchUp and did exactly that. Look under the cut for more.

The Southern Archipelago

At the tip of the southern continent in the overworld of

Dragon Quest II is a series of islands, several of which have interesting features. As someone whose gateway drug to fantasy was Greek mythology, and who lists The Odyssey as one of my major influences, it should come as no surprise that I like the concept of strange and enchanted islands with all matter of unusual encounters to be found. For The Saga of the Ortegids, I'd like to treat this region as something like that.

You could easily run a seafaring campaign going from island to island, encountering strange and unique phenomena on each. The islands detailed in the game are listed below.

I'd likely add a few more islands for a campaign of this sort, to give more material. Ideally, each island should have a distinct hook or gimmick, such as a tribe of locals with some peculiar culture or a unique and powerful monster. Here is a post with some ideas. Helpful hint: if you think of islands in this sort of campaign the way Star Trek writers think of planets, you're pretty much there.

Art by DylanvdLinde

• Zahan: The easternmost of the islands, home to a village where all able-bodied men live as fishermen. They are often away at sea, leaving the village populated by their wives, children, and elders. There is also a wizard who lives here. His mansion is warded by traps, but he is in the possession of a loom that can be used to weave a robe from water, giving the wearer protection against fire.
• The island directly west of Zahan has a shrine with a portal that links to the castle in Midenhall. This is one of a few teleportation shrines in the game, serving as a fast travel system.
• The Shrine of Fire is located on an island to the northwest of Zahan. There are portals here that lead to shrines near Lianport, Beran, and Alefgard. These portal shrines are quite similar in function to the ancient Aliahanian ruins from Dragon Quest III, but it's unlikely that they were created by the Aliahanian Empire, as all those portals are restricted to Erdland. If the Aliahanians settled in Torland, you would think they would build at least one portal to there, given that the inner world is otherwise very difficult to access. It's possible, however, that these portals have been lost to time. Alternatively, there could have been a similar world-spanning empire in Torland that built portals to link their colonies, or they could have built by the Ortegid Empire under Aleph Wyrmbeorn, considering that one of these portals is in his capital.
• On the island just east of the mainland, surrounded by mountains and desert (or perhaps, like Empress Castle, this should be interpreted to be a high mountain), there is a grove where a leaf of the Worldtree can be obtained. This can cure people of curses and ailments. I tried to line up the maps of Erdland and Torland, but if we assume that the Pit of Giaga is directly above Tantegel (as that's where it spits you out in DQ3), then this island would be beneath either Suland or Baharata, not the Worldforest, where a similar secret exists in 3. However, it's possible this leaf could come from an offshoot of the Worldtree's roots that extends further east.

Art by Einar Martinsen

• Not shown on the map, but included for completion, is a mountainous island (or, again, another mountain) midway between the southern continent and Dirkandor. At low tide, the island is surrounded by shoals that make it inaccessible, but when the tide rises, ships can sail into a cave on the south shore. Note that in the game, you need to use a fragment of the moon to alter the tides - as Torland is the inside of a hollow world presumably with no moon, this may be the only way to affect the tides. This cave is the site of a hideout of the Children of Hargon, a cult devoted to Malroth, the god of chaos and destruction - they likely chose the location as it's difficult to access, thus making it hard for the authorities to track them here.

Dirkandor

The middle act of Dragon Quest II follows a structure much the same as its successor. After obtaining a ship, you have free reign of the map and must seek out a series of artifacts - five crests, in this case - in order to access the next area. Probably the simplest of these to obtain is the Moon Crest, which is located in the Kingdom of Dirkandor.

Dirkandor is a large island to the south of Lorasia. The only site of interest we see in-game is the capital city, which I am calling Osterfair after the name used for the location in the original English NES release. The dominant feature of Osterfair is its large colosseum, where the King has a box to observe the games. The game refers to this as both a colosseum and a castle, but there don't appear to be any living quarters or rooms besides the arena depicted. If we assume this design is merely a matter of gameplay convenience, the King's personal residence must be elsewhere, though it's possible that he has a palace connected to the arena, as several Roman emperors did with the Circus Maximus.

Art by Travis Lacey

A few towns in Dragon Quest III also feature arenas, but at the time of 2 they hadn't figured out how to make this system work. Instead of being able to bet on fights between computer-controlled NPCs, this colosseum is a scripted event in which the King has you fight a lion in order to prove that you're worthy of holding the Moon Crest. This is a pretty pulpy quest - heroes being forced to compete in gladiatorial combat is a staple of sword and sorcery adventure stories, so there are definitely opportunities to work this into a tabletop adventure. However, keep in mind that the heroes of DQ2 are princes, and other PCs without such high status might not have as much say in the matter when it comes to their bouts. A campaign could involve the PCs being captured (you need to be doing that more!) and sold as slaves to the colosseum of Osterfair, forcing them to fight for survival and freedom - or else plot an escape, or even a revolt!

We don't see much of Dirkandor beyond its capital, but there are some inferences that can be made from the geography. The island is surrounded by high cliffs and rocky shoals, and the only safe entrance is through a central bay. It's not exactly the most appealing location for trade, even with the lands of the former Ortegid Empire to the north. Considering the island's size, the kingdom probably grows enough of its own food to sustain itself. Combine this with the fact the people are bloodthirsty enough for their main claim to fame to be an arena, and I can see a martial culture taking hold in Dirkandor. The rough terrain and isolation could give rise to a spartan ethic where the people are used to relative scarcity, and this tempers their attitudes toward pursuing strength in battle and succeeding by exerting power over others in their way. The strong are the ones who can claim the resources for themselves.

In fact, I'd like to note that Dirkandor's terrain makes it very defensible. The harbor is the only reliable entrance, and even from there the route to the capital is blocked by mountains. If we assume that northeast Torland was once the domain of sea raiders, I can see Dirkandor being a natural citadel from which raids could be launched without fear of retribution. The first kings of Dirkandor were likely powerful jarls lucky enough to claim the territory as their own and exert their power from there. If they were used to a life of fighting and raiding, and if this was a mark of status for them, this could well explain where their martial culture came from.

Lianport

Much like how Portoga is where you get a ship in Dragon Quest III, significantly opening your venues for exploring the world, the city of Lianport plays a similar role in Dragon Quest II. This port town is located on the eastern coast of the southern continent of Torland, facing Alefgard, and with the northern continent not far from there. It's no surprise that a port would be established there - it's at a crossroads of Torland's three major land masses, with ready access to all three. For this reason, it's reasonable to believe that this region is a major trade center.

For The Saga of the Ortegids, I would hypothesize that Lianport is only one of a number of such cities along the coast. We just don't see the others due to the map being simplified for gameplay purposes. There is no king in Lianport and no capital cities nearby, so it's likely that Lianport is a free city-state; other cities in the area may well be as well. There may also be a few larger merchant republics in the area, or groups of allied cities similar to the Hanseatic League - which would certainly fit the northern European feel of Torland.

Due to its nature as an important mercantile center with access to sea trade, Lianport (and other cities like it) would likely be a cosmopolitan place, with merchants from across Torland passing through here. Indeed, we even see a soldier from Alefgard here. There are a number of advantages such a setting would offer a tabletop campaign. It could be an easy way to bring PCs of disparate backgrounds together, since no matter where they came from in the world, it wouldn't be hard to think of reasons for them to arrive in Lianport. It would also be a hotbed of rumors and quest hooks from so many disparate visitors. If ships are readily accessible here, it could serve as a hub for the party to explore locales throughout the map - tie this in with the previous point, and you have an easy setup for a globe-hopping campaign. Is it still a globe if it's on the inside of a hollow world?

Furthermore, with Lianport being a free port outside the authority of any king, it's easy to imagine how a criminal underbelly could form. It'd be a natural spot for smugglers to pass through without attracting attention, and even pirates might be able to evade the law here. For this reason, it could make for a good base of operations for a more roguish party - or, consequently, it could present its own dangers. The streets could be thronged with cutpurses, thugs, or even beastmen, where taking the wrong turn down an alley could get ugly fast. Add in a few competing criminal organizations, and you have factions the PCs could play off of or get involved in.

Art by Jihyun Kim

Also located to the south of Lianport are the Dragon's Horns, a set of two towers flanking a river. In the game, in order to reach Lianport, you must climb the tower to the south and jump from the top, using the Cloak of Winds from the Tower of Winds to glide across. It's mentioned that the two towers were once joined by a bridge, but this has been destroyed by the time of DQ2. Despite this, the people don't seem to be in any hurry to rebuild the bridge, and the towers are still manned by guards, implying that they're still being used as fortresses by the local authorities. Perhaps it's just easier to navigate by sea. Due to the distance from the city, I don't think the Dragon's Horns are controlled by Lianport itself; perhaps there's another city on the river, maybe at the foot of one or both of the towers, and the towers are there to protect its harbor. Strangely enough, there are monsters in the tower itself. Maybe the guards are in the process of fighting off an infestation? It is the obligatory dungeon where you fight a lot of rats.

Art by Marc Mons

The Ortegid Empire

At the end of Dragon Quest I, the hero (who, for the purposes of The Saga of the Ortegids, I've given the name Aleph Wyrmbeorn - if you know, you know) defeats the Dragonlord and marries Princess Gwaelin of Alefgard. The king gives him the option to stay and succeed him, but he instead chooses to sail across the sea and settle a new kingdom.

Dragon Quest II picks up generations later, where there are now three kingdoms where the royal families claim descent from Aleph, and by extension from the Ortegid Dynasty. Two of these kingdoms are named different things in Japanese and English, but I'm once again going to use the Japanese names for the kingdoms and the English names for their capitals, as they sound more like city names. Ergo, the northeastern corner of Torland is home to the Kingdom of Lorasia and the Kingdom of Samartoria, with the northern continent being split roughly evenly between them; the Kingdom of Moonbrooke is across a strait to the south, occupying a considerable part of the southern continent.

It's mentioned in the instruction manual that Samartoria and Moonbrooke split off from Lorasia after the first king, on his deathbed, divided his land between his three children. That's a backstory I'd like to keep. But it does imply that Aleph was a very successful king, conquering nearly half of Torland (if you've played DQ1, you'll know that this is particularly funny) and ruling it as one. The three kingdoms, then, are successor states of a short-lived Ortegid Empire.

This is quite similar to the history of the Carolignan Empire, which was briefly a major power in Europe before falling into chaos after being divided between Charlemagne's three sons. It seems reasonable to believe that something similar could have happened in this case. A campaign set in the immediate fallout of Aleph's death could be placed against a backdrop of unrest and civil war, with border disputes and factions squabbling to take control of all three kingdoms. This would give the PCs plenty of options in terms of who they'd want to ally with, or if they wanted to get in on the action in carving out a domain for themselves too.

Another time period I think could be interesting to explore would be what the region looked like before Aleph became king. The fact that he specifically chose it as an unconquered territory has implications to me. In all likelihood, his empire was the first large-scale state in the area, and he may have waged a campaign to unify disparate lands under his banner. The fact that he was able to conquer such a large swathe of territory in one reign is certainly in keeping with the feats of legendary heroes, but if he was mainly fighting (and/or allying with) smaller tribes and jarls, especially with the backing of Alefgard on his side, this would be an easier task.

Art by Peter Jackson
(Still not that one)

I've mentioned before that Dragon Quest in general and Torland in particular makes use of Norse themes. You've probably been asking this whole time "where are all the Vikings." Well, here's your answer. In my personal interpretation of the series' lore, northeast Torland was inhabited primarily by seafaring barbarians and raiders before being unified by Aleph's conquests. Samartoria, in particular, has a long coastline with easy access to Alefgard and the southern continent, which would make sea raids quite strategic. A campaign set in Torland before the events of DQ1 could definitely make use of Norse history and mythology for inspiration.

Given the shared history, Lorasia, Samartoria, and Moonbrooke are likely culturally similar. If I was to differentiate them, I'd portray Lorasians as Danes, Samartorians as Norwegians, and Moonbrookers as Swedes, in order to call back to the Norse inspiration.

Notable Locations in Lorasia:

• Midenhall: The capital. There is a portal located in the castle that links to the island of Zahan, which may indicate a previous alliance, or perhaps the castle is built on ruins that once housed a network similar to that of Old Aliahan.
• Leftwyne: A town located on the border between Lorasia and Samartoria. Likely a strategic chokepoint, a trading post, or both.
• An oracle lives on an island in the northeast bay.

Notable Locations in Samartoria:

• Cannock: The capital.
• The Spring of Bravery: An underground wellspring located northeast of Cannock, guarded by a hermit. It is a sacred location that travelers go to purify themselves in before making a journey.
• An abandoned silver mine on an island in a lake to the west.

Notable Locations in Moonbrooke:

• Moonbrooke: The eponymous capital. Was destroyed by forces from Rhone, which kicks off the events of DQ2.
• Hamlin: A city located on the river northeast of Moonbrooke. Likely an important port due to its sea access. Holds a lottery.
• The Tower of Winds: A ruined tower in the southeastern mountains. A cloak that allows the wearer to glide and survive long falls can be found here.

Charlock

In Dragon Quest I, the castle of Charlock is the final dungeon in the game, and the site of the final battle with the Dragonlord. It reprises this role in Dragon Quest III, with Zoma filling in for the role of final boss. It plays a different role in Dragon Quest II, but we'll get to that later.

Charlock Castle is on a small island at the very center of Alefgard, occupying the continent's central bay. Notably, it's directly across from Tantegel - you can see it on the map as soon as you leave the starting location, but it's inaccessible until much later, and much of the first game revolves around creating a passage to the island.

I don't think Charlock is actually a part of Alefgard, so much as it's located in the immediate vicinity of it. At least, for The Saga of the Ortegids, I would portray it as an independent kingdom in Torland. Although the Dragonlord is the final boss and central antagonist of I, his grandson appears in II, still apparently in charge of Charlock, and this time as an ally. His role is small, all things considered - he really just gives you information needed to complete a late-game quest - but he even declares the party to be friends if visited after defeating Malroth. And the fact that he's there at all is, in my opinion, a clue toward Charlock's true nature.

You would think that, if the Dragonlord was some rogue entity acting within Alefgardic jurisdiction, his descendants would not be allowed to operate the same position so openly, and not with the kingdom turning a blind eye to it. This only makes sense if we assume that Charlock is a sovereign state, and the Dragonlords are its rulers. They had opposed Alefgard at one point in time, but later forged an alliance with them and/or the three Ortegid kingdoms, perhaps out of necessity with the Children of Hargon proving to be a bigger threat.

Art by JamesRPGArt

This interpretation is actually pretty internally consistent with what we see in the games. Neither character is given a name beyond "Dragonlord," which is likely the title of the ruler of Charlock. They use the same sprites, would could be a sign that they use the same royal regalia for their position. Furthermore, the first Dragonlord is implied to be the son of the Queen of Dragons from III, which positions him as being part of a draconic royal bloodline. As I stated before, that also explains his motivation for stealing the Sphere of Light from Tantegel, because that item was originally owned by his mother, and is likely a sacred treasure of the draconic royal house. If we further pull at the strings of the Dragon Queen claiming to be a "messenger of the gods" who lives close to the heavens, the Dragonlord may well be a direct descendant of Gaius, the god of dragonkind, and would have reason to covet the Sphere if it was forged by Gaius himself. If he was born in Erdland, him retrieving the Sphere may also be a way to legitimize his rule to the dragons of Torland.

I would go as far as to say that Charlock was probably run by a different lineage of dragons at the time of DQ3. I don't think Zoma would've always been there, at least not going based on the logic I've already created for this setting. In my opinion, the power and authority Zoma displays in being able to overthrow a goddess makes the most sense if he is himself a god, and the Erdrick Trilogy shows that gods can be summoned to the mortal realm. Perhaps Zoma is in Charlock because he was summoned by the reigning Dragonlord at the time, who may have been a worshiper of his cult.

In fact, one of the bosses fought directly before Zoma is the "King Hydra." There's no real sense of significance alloted to this creature besides the name, but consider that that name combines a reptilian monster and a noble title. Where have we seen that before? I'm almost certainly overthinking this, but it makes a surprising amount of sense.

Art by Gustavo Cabral

Anyway, on to the gameable stuff. Befitting its status as the final location of the original game, Charlock's terrain is quite foreboding, consisting mainly of mountains. Uniquely, the castle itself is placed atop a series of tall cliffs, which use unique graphical assets not seen elsewhere on the map - I'd posit that it's built on the tallest mountain in the Alefgard area, if not all of Torland, which draws further parallels to the Kingdom of Dragons. Unlike the Kingdom of Dragons, though, I don't see such an inhospitable land sustaining a large population of humanoids. The bulk of Charlock's population is likely made up of dragons and their kin, like Dragovians.

It could be a place to go to battle monsters, but we also see that the draconic rulers are capable of diplomacy and maintaining friendly relations with outsiders. Negotiating an alliance with the dragons could provide a valuable asset. Further, the fact that the ruling dynasty is a foreign one could well breed tensions with native-born dragon houses. And who knows if they would approve of the ruler's decision to ally with humans...

Alefgard

The Kingdom of Alefgard is the only location to make an appearance in all three games of the original Dragon Quest trilogy. Thus, it's a natural place to begin our exploration of Torland for The Saga of the Ortegids. The entirety of Dragon Quest I and the latter third of Dragon Quest III take place within its borders - using the same map, in fact. This was apparently a big reveal when the games first came out, one that was completely lost on me because I played III first as a kid. Furthermore, while Dragon Quest II's map covers the whole of Torland, Alefgard is present on it, and several of the locations from the first game can be visited.

In the second game, the map of Alefgard is shrunken and many locations have been dropped in order to make it fit into the larger map of Torland. I feel like there is no greater proof than this that the maps we see in the games are simplified representations of the actual in-universe land masses. If the worlds were real, there would surely be many more towns, dungeons, and points of interest than we can visit in the games; we're just seeing a zoomed-out version of the map that only has the highlights included. The Alefgard we see in DQ2, then, is merely a further zoomed-out version of the Alefgard of 1 and 3. However, because two of the three entries in the trilogy limited their scope to Alefgard, our gazetteer of it can afford to be more detailed and granular than that of any other region, and it has the most discrete locations of all of them - though we should remember that this too is a simplification.

Alefgard is a small continent located in northwestern Torland, in between its two main continents. Conveniently, the world map in 2 is the exact same size as the Erdland map in 3, which makes sense if we interpret these maps as representing both sides of a hollow planet. Thus, we can assume the Alefgard in DQ2 is in scale to the map of Erdland, while the version in 1 and 3 is comparatively zoomed in. If that's the case, then Alefgard is roughly the same size as the Worldforest. If you wanted to compare the map of Erdland to Earth, we could hypothesize that Alefgard is about the size of Krasnoyarsk Krai, but we have no reason to believe that Erdland is as big as Earth, and I think the degree of interconnection we see there would support a smaller planet.

Culturally, there seems to be a vaguely Norse theme to Alefgard, and to Torland as a whole. The name recalls Norse realms like Midgard and Asgard, and characters from there often have Scandinavian names like Lars. Visually, Alefgard, like most places in the Erdrick Trilogy regardless of geographical inspiration, has usually been depicted as generically medieval European - sometimes you'll see a horned helmet, but then, those were everywhere in 80s fantasy art. I feel like a tabletop take on the kingdom could draw more from Nordic sources, but I'd probably lean toward the post-Viking era, as there doesn't seem to be a strong raiding or seafaring culture in Alefgard.

Alefgard's greatest treasure is the Sphere of Light, given to Erdrick by the Queen of Dragons, and then passed on to the royal family, where it has been guarded for generations. The Sphere seems to have a non-specifically beneficial effect on the kingdom, blessing it with fertile harvests and protecting its people from monsters. DQ3 reveals that Torland is located on the inside of a hollow world, and for most of that game Alefgard is shrouded in darkness until the Sphere is used against Zoma. It's possible, then, that the role of the Sphere of Light is to somehow control the Inner Sun. There's still vegetation in Alefgard in DQ3, so clearly sunlight isn't needed to grow crops in Torland (maybe it runs on Mythic Underworld logic), but it's possible the Inner Sun is centered directly above Alefgard, and it may provide more direct effects on its land. While most of Torland is in a state of perpetual twilight, never getting dark enough to restrict vision, Alefgard in particular might be constantly at midday. Funnily enough, like Scandinavia in the summer.

Towns in Alefgard include:

• Tantegel: The capital. Site of the royal palace.
• Brecconary: A mercantile center located just east of Tantegel. This town only exists in the NES release of DQ1, in which Tantegel consists entirely of the palace; in subsequent releases, the two are combined into a single location. Still, it gives us another location to work with - and there is plenty of historical precedent for a state having separate administrative and financial capitals. They may even be separate but contiguous settlements - compare Westminster versus the City of London.
• Galenholm: A port town located in the northwest corner of Alefgard. It was founded by a bard named Galen, who owned a magic silver harp, the music of which draws creatures closer. He is buried with the harp in a crypt under the town. Given its position on the coast, close to Lianport and Samartoria, Galenholm is likely an important trade center for Alefgard.
• Kol: A rustic woodland village in the northeast of Alefgard. It holds a natural spring, and at the time of DQ3 the town blacksmith was an emigrant from Zipangu who fled after his wife was set to be sacrificed to the Orochi. He knows the secret to working orichalum.
• Rimuldar: A city located on an island in the southeast of Alefgard, known for its locksmiths. It's separated from the mainland by a tunnel under the sea, which by the time of DQ1 has become the lair of a dragon. Given the city's apparent size and wealth, it's likely that most commerce with the mainland is performed by sea, and the tunnel was likely an aborted project that fell into disrepair. Though we don't see other settlements there, the island is large enough that it could easily support several, so it's probably self-sufficient.
• 
  Hauksness: A trade center in the Domdora Desert, located in the southwest of Alefgard. Originally built around an oasis, but this has dried up by the time of DQ1 and the town is abandoned, save for a single knight guarding a magical suit of armor that once belonged to Erdrick. I like to interpret this as him being part of a lineage of knights tasked with such a job, and even though everyone else has fled the town, he stays, refusing to let the armor fall into the wrong hands. A vein of orichalum is also located nearby.
• Cantlin: A heavily fortified city in the south of Alefgard. In addition to its walls, it's located in a defensible chokepoint surrounded by mountains and swamps, and has a golem that guards the entrance. Likely it is an important redoubt that may have developed from a citadel. Also has an arena.

Dungeons in Alefgard are mostly unremarkable caves, but there are a few sites of interest:

• The Tower of Rubiss: A tower in the northeast of Alefgard where Rubiss, goddess of creation, was imprisoned after being overthrown by Zoma in the God-War, until being freed by Erdrick. Later became home to a hermit in the posession of a staff that could conjure rain.
• The Nailmark: A cave in the north of Alefgard where Zoma was said to have clawed his way into reality, either during the God-War or from being summoned. I just had to talk about that, because the thought that an entire dungeon, with all its traps, denizens, and dangers, is merely the mark a god made on reality with his fingernail is very evocative in a Lovecraftian sense.