In most fantasy campaigns and stories the protagonists find themselves in familiar places, encountering every day people and places, from the tavern to the shop, from the library to the temple. Far beyond tropes these places are basic elements of storytelling. Essential Places explores them all, bringing to life those critical encounter areas that world builders continually need but often dread to address.

Essential Places explores how to create background material, with regional influences, locations, and other critical elements to create spaces for craftsmen, professionals, tradesmen, mercantile government, service, scholarly, and the underworld. Learn to fashion your own or deploy the readymade examples supplied.

Essential Places is the Ninth Volume in the World Building Archive from the creative mind of Gary Gygax.