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With the last of the swamp behind him, the man pressed on, hopeful that his long journey was nearly done. However, there was one place he hadn’t been to, a place he knew was one of the most dangerous on the planet. Undeterred, he headed over to it, only to see lava furiously spewing from a large mountain. The fantasy volcano in front of the man was in the middle of an eruption!
Out of many fantasy environments, nothing compares to the power of a volcano. It towers over forests, cliffs, and even mountains! It’s one of the most dangerous environments and the lava and magma showcase why.
One reason why a fantasy volcano has so much power is because it’s made of rock. Rocks, as everyone knows, is capable of withstanding tremendous pressure. This pressure is why lava doesn’t melt the tip of the volcano completely during an eruption.
A volcano is bustling with activity. Creatures flock to it because it offers rich soils, which helps immensely in growing plants. The volcanic atmosphere leads to the creatures becoming nastier and meaner and thus more difficult to take down.
Believe it or not, a fantasy volcano plays a significant role in the story. The big bad of the tale dwells near it. It serves as a power source for the villain to tap into to enhance his magical skills and create armor for his numerous underlings.
This is the twenty-second article in the long series examining the different kinds of fantasy environments. If you like this article and you want more, check out our blog page! You have twenty-one others to look through. Surely, you’ll find one that catches your eye!
Get some shoes, for we’re going to scale the side of a volcano and discover what it’s all about!
At its heart, a fantasy volcano is composed of rock. It’s a conical structure with a vent at its peak where the lava and gases flow out during an eruption. The rock itself acts as a shield for the rising lava and is capable of withstanding its great heat.
There are two iconic volcanoes in the fantasy genre that everyone knows all about: Mt. Doom and Death Mountain. Mt. Doom is in the land of Mordor in the southeastern corner of Middle-Earth in Lord of the Rings. Death Mountain appears in the many different incarnations of Hyrule throughout The Legend of Zelda series. They play significant roles in the stories they appear in and not to mention, they look awesome!
A volcano reaches into the skies and usually is one of the highest points in the world. This makes it easy for people who’re lost to find them, for you can see one from nearly anywhere else — think of Death Mountain in Breath of the Wild and Tears of The Kingdom — so they can figure out exactly where they are and how to get to their destination.
So where can you find a fantasy volcano? There’s no set rules on where to put one because you can find it in places like mountains, deserts, the tropics, and the polar/tundra. And you can find some underwater! There’s really nowhere that you can’t stumble upon one.
When worldbuilding, there’s a few things to keep in mind when deciding to place one:
A fantasy volcano comes in a spectrum of colors. The color it takes stems from the colors of the rocks that it’s composed of. This is why you see many dark-colored ones like brown or black, as they come from the brown or black rocks that it’s made of. This makes each one interesting, for it’s has an unique composition of rocks no other one has.
One interesting note is that in the genre, the volcano can have clouds swirling around it. The color of the clouds depict its state. If they’re white, the volcano is at peace. It’s angry if the clouds are dark or red.
A fantasy volcano is one of the richest environments in the world. When it erupts, it rains lava and magma on the ground and those areas become prime spots to grow plants. These plants attract creatures who then settle there and thrive, becoming stronger than those found elsewhere.
Lizards are one of the most common animals that live around a volcano. It’s heaven for many four-legged and two-legged lizards. This includes the most powerful of them all, dragons. The warmth of the ground, which comes from the lava underneath, enables them to breed faster, leading to an explosion in the number of lizards living there.
Many rock-based monsters nestle around a fantasy volcano. With the volcano being made solely of rock, it’s easy for them to blend into their surroundings and catch their target off guard. They attack by using throwing their weight around or flinging heavy rocks that can pulverize someone in an instant. They don’t mind the lizards having the run of the place, as long as they get what they want.
The volcano is typically one of the villain’s major base of operations. As such, his soldiers are everywhere, assigned to protect it from outsiders. Depending on the world, these soldiers are orcs, bokoblins, and so on. Due to the volcano being a strategic area, the villain sends his elite soldiers to guard it. These guys are harder to take down than a standard enemy grunt due to their higher attack power and heavier hit points.
Moving into the interior proper, could something live inside with the high temperature and lava? If it was the real world, probably not but this is fantasy we’re talking about. Naturally, you can. Just look at video games like Super Mario Brothers and The Legend of Zelda. You just have to create your own unique denizens that can survive in the hottest place in the world.
A fantasy volcano offers you a great opportunity to craft interesting creatures whether they live on its rocky slopes or in its heated interior. Feel free to experiment with different designs. It’s your world, after all! Just keep in mind that the volcano is home to tougher, more powerful creatures and your designs ought to reflect that.
A fantasy volcano appears in nearly every story, regardless of the media used, in the genre. Every time it’s in the story, it plays a significant role. Can you think of one where it shows up but contributes nothing to the plot? If you can think of one, feel free to drop it in a comment.
In many tales, the volcano is in close proximity to the villain’s fortress. It’s where he taps into its great power to augment his magical abilities. He uses the lava to forge armor and weapons for his soldiers as part of his bid to take over the world.
Some stories have the volcano be the villain’s home base. Here, he directs his armies to invade and conquer his neighbors, knowing perfectly well it’s difficult for his foes to mount a surprise attack on him.
For those tales where it’s not affiliated with the big bad, the fantasy volcano still plays a great role. It’s part of the hero’s journey, where he learns that something bad is going on either inside or around the volcano and he sets out to fix it. He eventually gets to the source, which is always a vicious monster who’s allied with the villain and is wrecking havoc upon his command. After a long battle, he vanquishes the monster, thereby restoring peace.
The volcano is one of these environments where there’s no specific part of the story it can only appear in. You can put it in the early stages, midway, or towards the end, it doesn’t matter because it’s quite easy to work with. The only thing to take into consideration is how you intend to use it in your tale.
You want to put it where it makes sense for it to appear. The last thing you want is to put it in a part of the tale where it feels out of place and doesn’t move your story forward. Let’s look at The Legend of Zelda for example.
Death Mountain is a place Link travels to in every game it appears in and it holds one or two of the game’s dungeons. During his travels around it, he learns about the problems it’s causing and sets out to investigate. He discovers that the culprit is the dungeon and sets out to locate it and explore it. Going through it leads to the monster responsible for all the troubles and he defeats it. In these games, Link speaks with the people who live nearby and they tell him about what’s going on. You see how everything all naturally fits here, from speaking with the locals to exploring the volcano and slaying the dungeon’s boss? That’s what you should aim for.
Regardless of how you use it with your story, it’ll definitely leave a memorable impression on your audience!
In conclusion, a fantasy volcano is not only one of the coolest environments, it’s one you need to have in your world! Volcanoes help shape the world and the same is true for their fantasy counterparts.
While it comes in different colors, it’s always a conical structure that dominates the landscape. The volcano towers over everything that surrounds it, making it one of the easiest landmarks to identify. It’s made out of rock, which enables it to withstand the heat of the lava during an active eruption without melting down.
As an important place in the world, the volcano teems with powerful monsters who serve the villain. As such, they’re not to be taken lightly. Only those with great courage can marshal the strength necessary to defeat these beasts and bring peace back to the volcano.
The volcano is one of the major settings of the story. Many tales feature it being under the control of the big bad, playing an instrumental role in his plans to conquer the world. Others depict it as a neutral environment that eventually gets overrun by the villain’s underlings, meaning that the hero must journey there to destroy them and set things right.
A fantasy volcano is one of few environments that plays a prominent role in both the story and worldbuilding. Some of the greatest stories in the genre have them playing a central role in the eternal conflict between good and evil. And just maybe you could create one who becomes equally legendary as Mt. Doom and Death Mountain…
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Sunfire
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