Friday Encounter: Deals at the Crossroads

For optimal folkloric resonance, the best place to use this encounter is at a crossroads, preferably at night. As everyone knows, the crossroads is a place where the boundaries between worlds are weak, and it's easier to contact the other side - or, for that matter, for the other side to contact you. However, it would also work in the wilderness, in a dungeon, or perhaps even in a town, after everyone else is asleep.

Background

In the Lunar Lands, there are numerous places where the fabric of reality thins, and it is easier for things from other worlds to slip through. Crossroads are particularly susceptible to this, as an already liminal space where multiple routes intersect. Alimuth, a demon, has taken advantage of this. Like all demons, he delights in using his magic to bring mortals to ruin and spread discord, and he has come into the possession of multiple mortal souls through offering fabulous powers in exchange for immortal servitude. Now, the PCs might well become his latest clients...

The Encounter

Alimuth will appear to the PCs at the crossroads when no one else is around. He takes the disguise of a wealthy merchant, wearing fine clothes embroidered with fur and brocades, but all in shades of red. Like all demons, Alimuth is physically incapable of invoking the names of any gods, and instead refers to them by epithets and titles whenever possible. Additionally, a DC 20 Perception check reveals that he has slit pupils like those of a cat.

The "merchant" is found sitting on a cart hitched to a donkey on the side of the road. The cart has lost a wheel and sunken into a ditch - Alimuth is particularly interested in corrupting good-hearted and generous souls, and wants to pose as someone in need of help as a way to lure the PCs closer. He calls to the PCs for aid as they pass.

It's a simple enough task to find the missing wheel and fix the cart - no rolling is necessary. Alimuth just wants to get the PCs close enough to make his pitch. He graciously thanks the PCs and commends them on their kindness - then offers to repay them in a way only he can.

At this point, Alimuth promises to impart each of the PCs with a special "blessing." He will teach any of the PCs one spell from the warlock spell list, regardless of whether or not they have any levels in warlock. This spell should be one suited to the character's class, playstyle, and strategies, and should be one spell level higher than the highest level of spell slot a warlock of the same level as the PC would have access to - this is a more powerful spell than what would otherwise be possible of the PC. If the PC is a spellcasting class, the spell is cast as they would normally cast any other spell and takes up one spell slot of their highest available level. If they are not a spellcasting class, they can cast it as a warlock would (ie. their spell save DC is 8 + proficiency bonus + CHA, and their spell attack modifier is proficiency bonus + CHA), once per long rest.

However, this comes at a cost. To teach the PC the spell, Alimuth will need ownership over their soul as payment. If the PC dies, their soul is immediately damned to Hell; they automatically fail all death saves, and they cannot be resurrected or communed with unless their soul is retrieved from Hell directly or Alimuth otherwise relinquishes control over their soul. Furthermore, they are to forfeit their life after a year and a day (you are keeping track of time, right?). If they are still alive at this time, Alimuth will send a pack of three hellhounds after the party to attack them. The hounds appear at nightfall every day until the affected PC dies, heralding their arrival with the sound of a loud howl, and will track them relentlessly. If the hounds are killed, they simply respawn the next night. If the affected PC dies, the hounds immediately vanish and do not attack the rest of the party. The hounds cannot enter holy ground, such as a temple or the burial ground of a saint.

Although a demon, Alimuth is a man of his word and does not attempt to mislead or trick the people he deals with. He presents the PCs with a contract in which all the relevant information is laid out (albeit in circuitous language that is difficult to understand), and will not teach them the spell until the PCs sign the contract in their blood (he provides a quill with a pointy tip, if necessary). However, he will try his best to persuade them, describing how it's in their best interests to branch out with magic, and they surely won't be in any danger any time soon with such fabulous magic on their side.

If the PCs turn him down, Alimuth will disappear, but emphasizes that the PCs are welcome to change their mind at any time. He will also disappear if attacked. If they return to the crossroads with the express intent of visiting Alimuth, he will be right where they left him. He will not appear if they are just passing through.

Optionally, you might rule that a cleric or paladin who sells their soul to Alimuth will no longer be able to use class features that rely on divine favor, since their soul is no longer pledged to their patron god. However, this runs the risk of mechanically crippling a character and may necessitate multiclassing for them to remain viable, so it's best to talk this over with your players to make sure they're prepared for such measures. If you don't see a year and a day passing over the course of the campaign, another optional measure to speed things up would be to have Alimuth's contract specify it expires in a year and a day in Hell, and he comes from a domain of Hell where time passes faster than it does in the mortal realm - so he may come to collect the bargain sooner than expected!

Furthermore, even if Alimuth does collect a PC's soul, that might not be the end. A resourceful party might find a way to track the demon down and convince him to give up their ally's soul - or even free their companion from Hell itself.

Saga of the Ortegids: Races

The settings of the Dragon Quest games tend to be quite humanocentric. Almost all playable characters throughout the series have been human, and the ones that aren't tend to be cursed humans or tamed monsters rather than sapient humanoids. In the entire Erdrick Trilogy, there are only two nonhuman polities (three if you count Charlock), and nonhumans are not found in human realms. However, nonhuman races do appear in the Trilogy, and some play quite a prominent role in certain quests. Thus, there is room for discussion on what role the different playable races fill in The Saga of the Ortegids.

In general, nonhumans have their own kingdoms, and there is little overlap in demographics between them and human states. Mixed settlements are rare to unheard of. This is clearly a world closer to Middle-Earth than Faerun. This doesn't mean that nonhumans should never be found in human settlements - I think there's something to be said for leaning into the Blacksandliness of Ashalam and having some beastmen there, for instance - but this should be rare, and worthy of comment.

• Elves are your typical willowy magically-inclined forest dwellers. From what we see of Elvenham in Dragon Quest III, they don't have much in the way of permanent structures, which may imply a semi-nomadic lifestyle, or else they live in the trees and we can't reach their dwellings. I'd be inclined to rule them as wood elves, rather than high elves, but they do tend to be fiercely xenophobic and look down upon humans. They have one kingdom, Elvenham, located in the forests in the far north of the Romalian Empire. I would give them multiple such realms in wooded areas throughout the worlds. In particular, I think it makes sense for them to have a heavy presence in the Worldforest.

• Hobbits appear a few times in DQ3,mostly as one-off NPCs. Of note, the series consistently uses the term "hobbit" rather than "halfling," and I'm going to be keeping that - this project is already an act of copyright infringement anyway, so Tolkien lawyers can't stop me. Curiously, these hobbits tend to be quite solitary; the only two with significant dialogue both live alone in the wilderness, in contrast to the typical bucolic villages we expect of halflings. For The Saga of the Ortegids, I would run hobbits as typically being loners and hermits dwelling far from civilization, leaning into a more fey vibe. Ironically, more Tom Bombadil than Frodo.

• Dwarves do not actually appear in the Erdrick Trilogy, but it feels weird to have elves and hobbits without them, especially if translating the setting to D&D. I would add dwarven strongholds to the mountainous regions of the worlds, likely as self-sufficient and isolationist holdouts that trade little with the outside world to explain their absence from the games. The fact that the world is hollow does have some interesting implications with a subterranean race. There may be dwarves who maintain tunnels linking Erdland and Torland, allowing for travel between the two worlds - though this would, of course, require gaining the trust of the dwarves involved. There is a considerable overlap with hobbits here; one of the hobbits in DQ3 lives in a cave in the mountains, and some translations of the game use the term "dwarf" instead of "hobbit" for these characters. However, the term "hobbit" is used in the GBC release, which is what I'm most familiar with, and the Japanese script specifically uses the word "hobitto," so I'd like to keep them as halflings.

• Beastmen, also referred to as Orcs, would take the place of orcs, goblins, and other monstrous humanoids, and would be represented by their stats. This is a catch-all term to encompass the various humanoid monsters encountered in the Erdrick Trilogy (at least the ones that don't appear to be actual humans, and there's far more of those in earlier games than one familiar with later entries would expect). The series uses anthropomorphic animals more than it uses humanoids with odd skin tones and bestial features - orcs are consistently pig-faced, for instance. So if the Caves of Chaos exists in Torland, it's inhabited by wolf-men, swine-men, bird-men, ape-men, rat-men, and lizard-men instead of orcs, goblins, hobgoblins, and bugbears - which is quite satisfyingly pulpy anyway. There aren't as many of these sorts of monsters in 3 compared to the first two games, so I'd say that beastmen are native to Torland, but they've no doubt established populations in Erdland as well from past excursions. Beastmen tend to be brutish, barbaric, and degenerate, but in the interests of portraying a more realistic ecology than what's in the video games, they would have some degree of society, with villages and fortifications scattered throughout the worlds.

• Dragonborn, or Dragovians, actually fit pretty nicely into the setting. The Dragon Quest games have a number of NPCs who are dragons capable of taking human form, and having dragonborn be playable would represent similar characters. In the interests of game balance, these would have to be lesser descendants of dragons that cannot take the form of a true dragon, but still possess draconic powers. They look mostly human, but may have horns, patches of scales, unusually-colored eyes, or other such features. Their primary realms are Charlock in Torland, and a small kingdom north of the Worldforest in Erdland.

• Tieflings aren't specifically present in the games either, but I would allow them as a playable race anyway. A number of villains in the series have monstrous features that are never really explained, and the amount of demonic incursions into mortal domains would make it quite believable that some interbreeding would occur. Tieflings would be very rare, appearing only sporadically and often being shunned by society, and would not have much in the way of their own civilizations.

• The Drokkarim are something of my own creation. In DQ3, the villain Baramos looks like some kind of saurian humanoid. He's probably supposed to be some kind of demon, but due to technical limitations, they reuse his sprite a few times, including as a generic monster in Zenithia. And one boss, though portrayed in recent releases as Baramos's ghost due to a mistranslation, is actually supposed to be his brother seeking vengeance. Based on this, I've interpreted Baramos to be a member of an entire race I've called the Drokkarim. These creatures are twice as tall as humans, with dragon-like heads and wings and three-fingered claws. They were originally created through the experimentations of the mad wizards of Old Aliahan by breeding humans, demons, and dragons together, and the knowledge behind their creation is long since lost, but scattered populations of them still live on. Drokkarim would be very rare, solitary creatures and would not be available as PCs.

Ashalam

The city of Ashalam is Dragon Quest III's stand-in for the Middle East as a whole, and while there are no major quests there, it's one of my favorite locations in the game for just how evocative it is. Even before you get there, you're told that it's a great trade center, and indeed, there are more shops here than anywhere else in the game. Some of the merchants are more unscrupulous than others and dramatically overcharge you for their wares, insisting that they need to do that or they won't make enough money to feed their family, you see, and you don't want their family to starve, do you? You can play a simple haggling minigame to try and lower the prices, but even then, the lowest they'll ask for is still more than what you could get the same items for in other places.

Unlike many towns in the game, where NPCs retire to their beds at night, Ashalam is busy night and day, with different encounters you can find at different times. There's a tavern where dancing girls are performing at night, and a woman who propositions you for a "massage" - which turns out to be a scam and a waste of money if you take her up on her offer. Ashalam is noted as being famous for its dancers, and one of them can be found as far away as Alefgard.

This already sounds like the kind of city Conan would brawl and wench his way through, and I would play this up for The Saga of the Ortegids, running Ashalam as something akin to Shadizar or Port Blacksand - a hotbed of thievery, crime, and charlatanism, where all the authorities are corrupt and you can never take anyone at face value. A city where gold and silver flow in the streets, but where fortunes are gambled away as soon as they're won. A city where all manner of vices are indulged in openly, where a cheer can be heard from every tavern and the scent of black lotus hangs on the air (Isisian, the best! Would I sell haga to a slayer such as you?). Turn the wrong corner and you'll be shaken down - or worse.

Ashalam could serve as an excellent home base for a more roguish party; as a regional trade center, there would surely be rumors heard from all over, and plenty of patrons in need of someone willing to work under the table. If one wanted to emphasize the danger of the city, it could even be run akin to a dungeon - it certainly has enough potential for chaos to unfold, and one could find plenty of adventure within the walls.

Art by Vitor Ishimura

Like Kazave or Noaniels, Ashalam has no authority figures, but it's located quite far from Romaly, so it's hard for me to justify it being a part of the same empire. I would instead run it as a free city-state, likely established as a stopover point for caravans, and run by a few powerful merchant dynasties - probably with several rivalries among them, to make for higher-level intrigue and faction play. Most likely, there would be other mercantile city-states in the region of similar character, though I'd be inclined to make Ashalam the most notorious of the lot.

Interestingly, while the ground in the city itself is sandy, the overworld doesn't have any major deserts in the vicinity - those are all over by Isis. Instead, Ashalam is surrounded by forests and grasslands, inhabited by carnivorous apes and wild dogs. Perhaps, geographically, the region would be more akin to the savannahs of the Sudan, or maybe the Iranian plateau. There are still deserts nearby, but it's not the endless sea of sand you'd expect from most settings of the sort.

Friday Encounter: The Limestone Caves

As far as geological phenomena go, I've long held the belief that limestone caves and similar formations are woefully underused in fiction in general, and RPGs in particular. Limestone is known for collapsing without warning as it's eroded by water, which can lead to the structure of limestone caves changing dramatically in short periods of time. This could make for a dungeon that can't easily be mapped, and which presents dangers when navigating - one could find themselves sealed in a cavern if the entrance collapses behind them, or they could even be caught in the collapse of a tunnel while it happens. To say nothing of the risk of the caves filling with water! All in all, being trapped in a limestone cave is horrifying, and something that deserves to be utilized more.

This encounter aims to mechanically represent the dangers of an unstable limestone cave system. It can be used in a variety of different ways. The cave entrance could simply be dropped in the wilderness, along a road, or even in a town, or the ground could suddenly collapse as the PCs pass by to reveal a cave entrance! You could even use limestone caves as an extension of an existing dungeon. If the PCs aren't the types to investigate a cave out of curiosity, you could have NPCs impart rumors of treasure being hidden in the caves, or perhaps a shepherd hires the party to track down a sheep that went missing there.

I've provided a map of a sample limestone cave, but you're welcome to make your own. You could even spin the concept out into an entire dungeon, stocked with traps, enemies, and puzzles accordingly. There are six rooms, marked with numbers on the map, where an objective might be located - this could be treasure, or a missing sheep, or whatever the PCs might want to venture into the caves for. There are also 13 passages linking the rooms.

Click here to enlarge

You'll need to do some rolling in advance here. First, roll 1d6 to determine which room the objective is in. Then, roll 1d4 for each of the passages. The result of the roll is the number of times that passage can be passed (by the entire party) before it collapses. Once the count is up, roll 1d6. On a roll of 1, the passage collapses while the PCs are in it, and everyone crossing must make a DC 10 Dexterity saving throw or take 5d10 bludgeoning damage from the falling rocks. On a roll of 2-6, the passage does not collapse until after the entire party exits through it.

A collapsed passage cannot be crossed. This, in effect, makes navigating the caves a tense experience - you can never trust each passage, and the layout is rapidly changing around you, so the route you took to get in might not work to get back. It is entirely possible for the PCs to get trapped at a dead end. This might lead to a TPK if they don't have access to teleportation magic or other means of getting out, so a more merciful DM might want to add some other exit - perhaps a hidden trap door that leads to a larger dungeon below. Then the PCs will have to brave its challenges to find the way out.

Another option is to have the rooms fill with water once the PCs enter. I recommend using this for the room with the objective, for maximum tension, but you could also use this mechanic as an alternative to having the tunnels collapse - have them start filling with water once the number of safe passes is up. Once a room or passage starts to fill with water, enter Action Time. After each turn (not each round!), the water rises by 2 feet until all PCs leave the room or passage. Hopefully, the PCs can get out quick, or else hold their breath...

The Romalian Empire

It does not feel this massive when you're walking around.

After leaving Aliahan, the first place you go in Dragon Quest III is the city of Romaly. Or Romaria, depending on which version you're playing. For the purposes of The Saga of the Ortegids, I'm going with Romaly being the city, and positioning it as the capital of a much larger Romalian Empire. The comparisons with the Roman Empire are obvious given the city's name and location, but aside from the superficial stuff, it's also the first city you go to that has an arena where you can wager money on the outcomes of battles, much like the Colosseum. The king is a greedy, feeble-minded man with no real desire to rule, to the point of insisting on passing his title to the first people who can help him with his problems as an excuse to abdicate and spend his wealth gambling. This makes for quite a memorable NPC, despite him having little importance beyond that, and it certainly brings to mind some of the more corrupt and decadent Roman emperors. In the game, you have to decline the offer if you want to progress (accepting means you get to walk around as the NPCs salute you, but you can't leave the city). However, if you want to incorporate domain-level play into your campaign, having a king so eager to offer the throne to the PCs could be a useful way to introduce players to this side of the game.

Romaly was likely founded as an ancient Aliahanian colony, given that there is a portal in a shrine in Aliahan that dumps you out pretty close to the capital. After the old Aliahanian Empire fell, Romaly was likely a center of power that was able to exert considerable control over its surroundings once communication with Aliahan was lost. It stands to reason that the region would have been settled fairly extensively by Old Aliahanians, and there would surely be many such ruins in the area. It's also not hard to imagine Romalia styling itself as a successor to Aliahan as the great empire of the world, and may have taken on some of its traditions, at least in the past - compare the Byzantine Empire's relationship to Rome. Or the Holy Roman, or the Ottoman, or the Russian, or...you get the idea.

There are two human villages located to the north of Romaly, Kazave and Noaniels, as well as Elvenham, a secluded kingdom of xenophobic elves living in the woods. Neither Kazave nor Noaniels has a king; additionally, villagers in the inn at Kazave mention happenings in Noaniels, which suggests there's some level of contact between the two - at least enough for rumors to spread. Based on this, I'm inclined to run both villages as subjects of the Romalian Empire, which would set its boundaries as running from the impassible mountains on the border with Portoga in the west to the Inland Sea (every sword and sorcery setting needs one of those!) in the east - I've marked this with red lines on the map. This would make Romalia by far the largest nation in Erdland, again fitting the Roman parallels. This is an empire in its prime - one of great wealth, luxury, and power. However, the Imperial forces might be stretched rather thin, considering no one has done anything about the curse in Noaniels. Noaniels is thus most likely a frontier territory of little concern to the imperial core. Thus, Romalia offers the sweet spot of being centralized enough for courtly drama to take place, but still feudal enough for there to be untouched opportunities for exploration and adventure where civilization hasn't smoothed things over. There's certainly enough territory, and room to place adventure sites, that one could run an entire campaign that never leaves the boundaries of the Empire.

Art by Samuel Sandelin

This is particularly of note when one looks at the western region of the Empire, which is cut off from the capital region by high mountains and is only accessible through a pass in the north, west of Kazave. I would, personally, add more passes closer to Romaly for the sake of player convenience, even if that route is the most accessible. Despite the geographic separation, the area consists largely of plains, which would appear quite habitable even though there's no settlements in that area in the game. I would hypothesize that this region is also Romalian territory, but a rough borderland where the law is at its weakest since it's cut off from the rest of the Empire - it is, after all, the location of Shampan Tower, the redoubt of a powerful bandit warlord, and it's mentioned that the place has been a hideout for criminals for generations. If one wanted to murderhobo their way across Romalia, they would face the fewest repercussions here. Of course, if one wanted a wilder, points-of-light style setting, it could just as easily be ran as unsettled wilderness yet to be fully explored.

Aliahan

The Kingdom of Aliahan is the starting area of Dragon Quest III, and consequently chronologically where the Erdrick Trilogy begins. It's only fitting, then, that we begin our exploration of the Trilogy's setting for The Saga of the Ortegids there.

Aliahan is, by the standards of the game, quite a large kingdom, seemingly occupying an entire (albeit small) continent. There are two towns and several dungeons located there - of course, we can assume that this is a constraint of game mechanics, and that any kingdom of such size would hold many more settlements that are glossed over due to not having anything to serve the game's narrative. Its remote location makes it isolated from other major powers, but numerous NPCs in other areas are familiar with the kingdom, so it can be reasoned that it maintains trade with them. Furthermore, it does appear to have a military - the castle has guards, and the protagonist's father, the titular Ortega, is noted as an accomplished warrior. Thus, it doesn't appear that Aliahan is particularly isolationist. At the least, it may need to deal with threats from inside its borders.

What is interesting is that NPCs in Aliahan mention that the kingdom "once ruled the world" - some nebulous time in the past, its influence was far greater than it holds in the present day. We see evidence of this in how the eastern end of the continent contains an ancient shrine with a portal to elsewhere in the world, and similar such shrines are discovered in the game, scattered throughout the overworld and allowing for fast travel.

I don't think it's much of a stretch to assume that these shrines are in fact the remains of magical infrastructure left behind by a much vaster and more advanced Aliahanian empire, perhaps one that established most of the cities in the game given how they tend to be located close by. This gives the vibe of a lost ancient civilization, grander and more powerful than its degenerate successors - both a very pulpy idea, and one in keeping with trends in OSR gaming. It's also very gameable - ancient Aliahanian ruins and artifacts would lend themselves nicely to dungeons and the treasures within.

Aliahan is one of the few locations in DQ3's overworld that doesn't have an obvious real-world counterpart. The land mass it's located on appears to be a completely original one, located in the center of what would correspond to the Pacific Ocean, and the culture has always been portrayed as generically medieval European. Some have correlated it with Australia or Antarctica, but both of those already have closer parallels in the game (we'll get to that in time). Others have cited comparisons to the lost continents of Mu or Lemuria, which certainly lends things a pulpy tinge.

For The Saga of the Ortegids, I've chosen to portray modern Aliahanians as Anglo-Saxons - fyrds, shieldwalls, and boar-crested helmets. I'd even go so far as to combine the city's castle with the tavern you can recruit allies at to instead have a grand mead hall where adventurers from across the land gather.

There's a number of reasons behind this. In a meta sense, considering I'm taking liberal inspiration from Beowulf for this setting, it only seemed right to call back to the people who wrote it. But it also fits the insular location, and the presence of periodic unrest and blood feuds caused by a tradition of weregild would justify a martial culture despite the lack of hostile neighbors, as well as tying into the fact that the plot of DQ3 is largely driven by you seeking revenge for your slain father. The fact this would make the culture similar to yet recognizably distinct from the vaguely Nordic Alefgarders is a fortuitous touch. Also, the most important Aliahanian in the series is Erdrick himself, and the name "Erdrick" is derived from "Eardric," a (to my knowledge) invented name that would translate to "world ruler" in Old English. While 3 would retcon this into being a title, if Erdrick is only a historical figure in the setting rather than a playable character, I see no reason it can't simply be his real name here, in the name of streamlining. The presence of ancient Aliahanian ruins from a bygone empire would also make for an amusing inversion of Roman ruins in Britain, although that analogy may be a little strained when a Roman analogue also exists at the same time.

The World of the Ortegids

The setting of the Erdrick Trilogy has some very interesting worldbuilding implications. Not all of them were intentional - some appear to have been invented as a means to justify game mechanics and engine limitations - but if one was to run with them, it would produce some intriguing opportunities at the tabletop. For The Saga of the Ortegids, I've decided to interpret the setting as looking something like this, in order to best take advantage of these implications:

Erdland: The outer surface of a hollow planet, which behaves as a typical Earthlike planet would. Has a sun and moon and a normal day-night cycle. I've chosen to go with a geocentric interpretation here, mainly for symmetry with Torland. Very much a History's Greatest Hits-type setting in the vein of the Hyborian Age; the land masses correspond roughly to those of Earth, and the cultures and civilizations parallel those of the appropriate regions, though not always contemporaneous ones. Notable locations include the Kingdom of Aliahan, the Romalian Empire, the islands of Zipangu, Dharma Abbey, and the deserts of Isis. The majority of Dragon Quest III takes place here.

Torland: The inner surface of the hollow planet, with its own oceans and land masses. It is lit by an artificial inner sun, causing it to be in a constant state of twilight (this, incidentally, is because they hadn't figured out how to do a day-night cycle in the first two games, and rather than admitting that like a normal person, decided to go full Burroughs). The geography is invented; culturally, it seems to be vaguely Norse. It was said that demons, dragons, and monstrous races originated from Torland (compare Alexander's Land of Darkness), though most of them have established native populations in Erdland. Likewise, humans have settled Torland and established their own kingdoms there, including Alefgard, Rhone, and the three Ortegid kingdoms of Lorasia, Samartoria, and Moonbrooke. Dragon Quest I, II, and the latter third of III take place here.

Zenithia: A small floating island located in the clouds above Erdland. Inhabited by a magically advanced civilization of winged people, who dwell in Castle Zenith. At the summit of the Castle dwells the Divinegon, an immortal god-dragon who will grant one wish to anyone who can impress him in battle. Zenithia doesn't play a role in the games' story until IV, V, and VI (the "Zenithian Trilogy"), which are not explicitly canon to the Erdrick Trilogy and are thus outside the scope of this project, but it was added as a bonus dungeon to later releases of III, so it makes the cut.

The Pit of Giaga: A massive chasm in the earth linking Erdland and Torland, located at the caldera of a volcano in the Southlands of Erdland. Previously the only means of travel between Erdland and Torland; descending from the Pit in Erdland would cause one to fall out of the sky in Torland. It was sealed off after the events of Dragon Quest III, but no one can say how long that will last...

The Worldtree: A massive tree linking the three realms of Erdland, Torland, and Zenithia. It grows over the course of every Age, periodically wilting, crumbling, and regrowing. By the time of Dragon Quest III it was only a sapling, and we don't see it again in the Erdrick Trilogy, though similar features have appeared in other games. For the purposes of The Saga of the Ortegids, the Worldtree has grown to its full strength by the modern era, and serves as a means to traverse the three realms. Its mountain-like roots jut out of the ground in Torland, and one can follow them up into Erdland and Zenithia, or descend the trunk, which grows in the continent-spanning Worldforest of Erdland, into Torland. This has allowed for travel and trade between the different realms, though the locals of the different worlds have been slow to accept the sudden contact with other lands.