Domains are the heart of Nowhere Land—impossible places born from ideas, dreams, and the residue of forgotten things. This guide teaches you to create domains that surprise, challenge, and linger in memory long after the session ends.
Domain Creation Overview
A domain is not a dungeon with a theme. It is a place where an idea has become geography. The best domains feel internally consistent yet deeply strange—places that operate by their own logic while still being explorable and comprehensible to players.
The Domain Creation Process
- Concept: Start with a collision of ideas that interests you.
- Bridge: Find the philosophical connection between those ideas.
- Shape: Determine the physical structure and regions.
- Ruler: Create the Partisan(s) who embody the domain's nature.
- Spirit: Design the Genius Loci—the domain's will and awareness.
- Rules: Establish what's different here—domain-specific mechanics.
- Anchors: Place the elements that hold the domain together (or tear it apart).
The High Concept
Every memorable domain begins with a collision—two or more concepts that shouldn't work together but somehow do. This creative friction generates the strangeness that makes Nowhere Land unique.
The Collision Method
Combine two sources to create tension:
Source A: An aesthetic, setting, or genre (Victorian circus, undersea kingdom, haunted library)
Source B: A contrasting element (insect ecology, medieval warfare, childhood fears, bureaucratic systems)
The Collision: What happens when these meet? What tensions arise? What new meaning emerges?
Collision Examples
Howl's Moving Castle × A Bug's Life
An ambulatory castle-creature with an ant colony civilization living within its walls. The ants maintain the castle's "body" while it wanders the domains. Partisan: The Queen-Architect, who is both castle and colony mother.
Hospital × Game Show
Patients compete in surreal challenges for "treatment credits." The sicker you are, the harder the challenges—but the greater the rewards. Partisan: The Host-Surgeon, eternally smiling, scalpel in one hand, microphone in the other.
Wedding × War
Two families eternally locked in a reception that is also a siege. The toast has been ongoing for centuries. The dance floor is no-man's-land. Partisan: The Couple, who love each other but whose families cannot stop fighting.
Library × Jungle
Books grow on trees. Ideas evolve, compete, go extinct. Readers are hunters tracking rare texts through the undergrowth. Partisan: The Librarian-Apex, who cultivates the ecosystem of knowledge.
Random Collision Generator
Roll d20 on each table and combine:
Aesthetic (d20)
- Victorian
- Art Deco
- Medieval
- Brutalist
- Organic
- Crystalline
- Clockwork
- Aquatic
- Volcanic
- Celestial
- Subterranean
- Arboreal
- Frozen
- Ruined
- Bureaucratic
- Theatrical
- Carnival
- Industrial
- Pastoral
- Void-touched
System (d20)
- Ecosystem
- Bureaucracy
- Family
- Religion
- Economy
- Disease
- Memory
- Dreams
- Games
- Warfare
- Art
- Music
- Justice
- Education
- Medicine
- Cuisine
- Fashion
- Architecture
- Transportation
- Communication
The Philosophical Bridge
The collision creates strangeness. The bridge gives it meaning. Without a philosophical core, a domain is just set dressing. With one, it becomes a place that resonates.
Finding the Bridge
Ask these questions about your collision:
- What do both elements share? (hospital and game show: judgment, performance under pressure, hope and fear)
- What truth does the combination reveal? (that healing can feel like a competition, that the sick are often forced to perform wellness)
- What emotion does it evoke? (anxiety, dark humor, the absurdity of desperate hope)
- Who would build this place, and why? (someone who believes suffering should be entertaining, or that entertainment is a kind of medicine)
Example: The Ant-Castle Bridge
Collision: Howl's Moving Castle × A Bug's Life
Shared Elements: Home as living thing. Community bound to structure. Movement as escape and search. Hierarchy and cooperation.
Philosophical Core: "What does it mean to be both home and homeless? To carry your civilization with you, never settling, always moving toward something you can never reach?"
Emotional Truth: The ants serve the castle that is their queen, but the castle-queen herself is searching for something she lost long ago. The domain is about purpose—finding it, serving it, questioning whether it's real.
Domain Anatomy
Every domain has structure. Even chaotic domains have patterns. Understanding this structure helps you design explorable spaces.
Domain Zones
Most domains have 3-5 distinct zones:
The Threshold: Where travelers enter. Often deceptive or transitional. Sets expectations (correctly or incorrectly).
The Body: The main explorable regions. Usually 2-4 areas with distinct characteristics, connected by paths or transitions.
The Heart: Where the domain's core truth lives. The Partisan's seat. The place that defines everything else.
The Margins: Edges where the domain frays. Border zones, unstable areas, places the domain hasn't fully claimed.
The Secret: Optional. A hidden place that reveals the domain's true nature—often accessible only by understanding or changing the domain.
The Ant-Castle Zones
Threshold: The Drawbridge-Mandibles
Massive chelicerae form the castle's entrance. Worker ants evaluate visitors. Safe passage requires answering: "What do you carry?"
Body: The Living Halls
Corridors of packed earth and chitin. Chambers for larvae, food storage, soldiers. The castle breathes; walls shift as the creature moves.
Body: The Memory Gardens
Where the castle-creature stores experiences. Walking here triggers visions of places it has been. Some memories are dangerous.
Heart: The Queen's Chamber
The throne room is a birthing chamber is a navigation center. The Queen-Architect reclines here, connected to the castle by a thousand threads.
Secret: The First Home
Deep in the castle's foundations: the ruins of a normal building. The Queen was once human, her home destroyed. She rebuilt it—endlessly.
Creating Partisans
Partisans are not villains. They are beings who have become so identified with an idea that they've reshaped reality around it. They are dangerous, yes—but they are also comprehensible. Their power comes from their commitment, and their weakness from their rigidity.
Partisan Design Steps
- Core Belief: What truth does this Partisan hold absolutely? (Not a goal, but a conviction about how the world works.)
- Origin: How did they come to hold this belief so strongly? What happened to crystallize them?
- Expression: How does their belief manifest in their appearance, domain, and behavior?
- Blind Spot: What can they never see or understand because of their conviction? This is always their weakness.
- Desire: What would satisfy them—temporarily or permanently? This creates negotiation opportunities.
The Queen-Architect
| Core Belief | "Home is the only thing worth preserving. Everything else can be rebuilt, replaced, or abandoned—but home must endure." |
| Origin | A woman whose village was destroyed, family killed. She rebuilt it from memory—but memory is imperfect. She kept rebuilding, kept moving, became the castle itself. |
| Expression | She is mother and home simultaneously. Her body produces the workers who maintain her body. The castle walks because she walks. She cannot stop searching for a home that was. |
| Blind Spot | She cannot recognize that home was never a place—it was people. As long as she seeks location, she will never find what she lost. |
| Desire | To finally stop. To find the right place and put down roots. (Tragically impossible—but if someone could make her understand, perhaps she could become a stationary domain...) |
The Genius Loci
Every domain has a spirit—the Genius Loci—that represents its awareness and will. This is not always the same as the Partisan. The domain itself wants things, and those desires shape the experience of exploring it.
Genius Loci Traits
Define your domain's spirit with these traits:
- Awareness: How conscious is the domain? Does it recognize intruders? React to their actions? Have memory of past visitors?
- Mood: What is the domain's baseline emotional state? Anxious? Hungry? Melancholic? Playful? This colors all encounters.
- Appetite: What does the domain consume or desire? Memories? Fear? Time? Specific objects or emotions?
- Voice: How does the domain communicate, if at all? Through its features? Echoes? Servants? Direct speech?
Genius Loci Examples
The Ant-Castle
Awareness: High—senses intruders through vibration.Mood: Restless, searching. Appetite: New places to add to its memories. Voice: Through the pheromone-songs of its workers.
The Game-Show Hospital
Awareness: Theatrical—knows it's being watched.Mood: Manic cheerfulness. Appetite: Suffering transformed into spectacle. Voice: PA announcements and canned applause.
The Wedding-War
Awareness: Fractured—two competing consciousnesses.Mood: Joyful and murderous simultaneously. Appetite:Declarations of loyalty. Voice: The toast that never ends.
Domain-Specific Rules
Each domain should have at least one rule that makes it mechanically distinct. These rules reinforce the domain's theme and create unique challenges.
Creating Domain Rules
Good domain rules should:
- Reflect Theme: The rule embodies what the domain is about.
- Create Choice: Players can engage with or work around the rule.
- Be Clear: Easy to explain and apply consistently.
- Reward Understanding: Clever players can turn the rule to advantage.
Example Domain Rules
The Ant-Castle: "Carry Your Weight"
Characters who aren't carrying something useful are treated as intruders by the workers. Those carrying objects valued by the domain gain +2 to social checks with its inhabitants.
The Game-Show Hospital: "Audience Favor"
Track Audience Favor from 1-10. Dramatic actions increase it; boring actions decrease it. At high Favor, healing is easier. At low Favor, the domain actively sabotages the party.
The Wedding-War: "Choose a Side"
Upon entering, each character must (secretly) choose Bride or Groom faction. Actions that benefit your faction are easier (+1 die); betraying your faction causes 1 Wound as the domain punishes you.
The Library-Jungle: "Predator-Prey"
All creatures (including characters) are classified as Predator or Prey in each zone based on their knowledge. Predators track and ambush; Prey hide and flee. Classification changes based on what texts you carry.
Anchors & Instability
Domains are held together by Anchors—objects, rituals, beliefs, or beings that stabilize the domain's reality. Understanding and manipulating these Anchors is often key to surviving, changing, or destroying a domain.
Types of Anchors
Physical Anchor: An object (the Queen's crown, the Host's microphone). Destroying it weakens the domain; possessing it grants influence.
Ritual Anchor: A repeating action (the eternal toast, the nightly hunt). Interrupting it creates instability; performing it perfectly grants the domain's favor.
Belief Anchor: A conviction held by domain inhabitants. Challenging it causes reality to waver; reinforcing it strengthens the domain.
Living Anchor: A being (often the Partisan). While they exist, the domain exists. Their death or transformation ends or changes the domain.
Domain Instability
When anchors are threatened, track Instability from 0-10:
- 0-2: Domain is stable. Normal rules apply.
- 3-5: Minor warping. Details shift between observations. +1 TN to navigation.
- 6-8: Major distortion. Zones bleed into each other. Paradoxes emerge. +2 TN to all checks.
- 9-10: Collapse imminent. The domain is dying or transforming. Escape or be lost.
Worked Examples
Let's build a complete domain using this process.
The Certification Bureau
Collision: Tax Office × Fairy Tale Forest
Philosophical Bridge
Both involve arbitrary rules that must be followed. Both are tests that determine worthiness. Both have hidden paths for those who know the right words. The domain asks: "What makes something official? What gives authority its power?"
Zones
Threshold: The Waiting Forest (take a number, wait among the trees)
Body: Processing Glades (different stations for different paperwork)
Body: The Archives (filing cabinets grown from oak, records of every story)
Heart: The Approval Clearing (where the Registrar sits in judgment)
Secret: The First Stamp (where the first bureaucrat realized paper was power)
Partisan: The Registrar
Core Belief: "Nothing is real until it is documented."
Origin: A scribe who recorded so many lies as truth that truth became dependent on their records.
Blind Spot: Cannot comprehend things that exist without permission. Undocumented beings are invisible to them.
Genius Loci
Awareness: Obsessively observant (everything is recorded)
Mood: Pedantically helpful
Appetite: Names and stories to file
Voice: Stamps, form letters, queue numbers
Domain Rule: "Proper Documentation"
Characters must have the correct paperwork for each zone. Wrong papers: +3 TN to all actions and eventual removal. Right papers: +1 die to related actions. No papers: invisible to domain creatures (advantage and danger).
Anchors
Physical: The Registrar's Stamp (certifies reality itself)
Ritual: The Morning Filing (all records must be organized daily)
Belief: "The forms must be completed correctly"