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After exploring the volcano, the man began going down its slope. He lost his footing and tumbled all the way down, going into a place that seemed to reach into the earth. Crashing into some foliage, he looked around and saw nothing but rock walls all around him. His eyes veered upwards and noticed the shadows dancing on the walls. Brushing himself off, he got up and set out to find a way out of whatever this place was. He was in none other than a fantasy canyon!
The canyon is unlike any other fantasy environment. All other environments with the exception of the cave stands on the surface. Not so with the canyon.
It’s a deep gorge into the earth and is flanked by cliffs. A river runs through it at its bottom, cutting into the rock walls. Depending on its size, it may or may not receive abundant sunshine all day long.
A fantasy canyon is flush with life. It’s a harsh environment that doesn’t have a lot of vegetation which means that most of the animals who live there are mostly carnivores. These creatures have no qualms about killing other animals or people who get lost.
Regarding the story, the canyon doesn’t play a significant role. Instead it’s merely yet another environment that the hero and his allies must navigate through. This doesn’t meant you can’t pretty it up and make it a great visual showpiece!
It’s hard to believe that this is the twenty-third article in the series looking at the various types of fantasy environments. If you like this article and you want to read more, why not check out our blog page? We have tons more articles in this series that you’ll definitely want to look at!
Without further ado, let’s venture down into the world of the canyon and see what it offers!
Everyone knows what a canyon looks like. The fantasy canyon is exactly the same as its real world counterpart, only with elements of the genre added in. This could mean using a different color not found in the real world or sprinkling in wildlife unique to fantasy.
But where can you find one? Canyons appear all over the world, from the tropics all the way to the tundra. However, they tend to appear in close proximity to mountains. This means they could be within a group of mountains or just found outside the range.
Their being found in many locales gives you an opportunity to create one that not only looks great but fits seamlessly in where you place it. Want to add one in a snowy area? Make it white or gray with icicles sticking out of the walls. Interested in a desert one? Throw in a mixture of brown and yellow with sand falling off the top.
A fantasy canyon can have a river flowing through it. Or not. You can design one where the river dried up a long time ago, leaving nothing but sand and dirt. Or you can opt to have something else besides water flowing, something like lava or poison. There’s a lot of different ways you can go here!
One requirement of a canyon is that it must be deep. It needs to be so deep that you need to go around it or find a bridge that you can safely cross it. Its depth you can set for yourself, provided it naturally fits in with its immediate surroundings.
Just as with designing any environment, the goal here is to create something that not only feels real, but makes it easier for your audience to be fully immersed in the world you’ve built from the ground up. You want your audience to feel like it makes sense for the canyon to be there.
Many fantasy video games do a superb job in integrating the canyon with its immediate surroundings. Check out your favorite ones and see how they make it work, from the color palette to the types of rock and the wildlife found there for inspiration.
A canyon isn’t devoid of life. Quite the opposite, a great number of creatures reside in such a place, which may or may not be good for those who wish to learn its secrets. The denizens of the canyon tend to be fierce and aggressive. Some of them are territorial and will zealously guard their turf against unwanted guests.
Wolves are one of the canyon’s denizens. They can travel either in packs or by themselves. Either way, they move and strike fast. They won’t hesitate to sink their fangs into people who are lost or other creatures.
Since the canyon is made of rock, it’s home to many rock monsters. Like the ones in the cave or around a volcano, they weigh a ton and move slow. However, they pack a great punch, being capable of obliterating anything they come into contact with into smithereens in a matter of moments. These rock fiends blend themselves into their rocky surroundings which can make it hard to spot them.
One of the canyon’s rarest beasts is the bat. This creature lives in a group and it likes all the crevices and little holes found within the canyon. While the bat is typically a nocturnal beast, in fantasy you can have some species that flies during the day. It likes to attack by swooping in on its prey and biting it.
The land isn’t the only part of a fantasy canyon that has lifeforms. Let’s look into the water and see what animals you see there. Frogs and different kinds of fish like the coolness of the water. You have trout and bass and so on.
But when it comes to fantasy, anything goes. You can have some fish that eats flesh like piranhas or create your own kind. You don’t have to use water. Poison and lava are perfect substitutes, along with any other liquid that flows.
Using the right bestiary can make a canyon quite memorable!
A fantasy canyon plays only one role in the story: acting as a place where the hero and his allies must navigate it in order to make it to the other side unscathed. This signifies that it only appears in one part of the tale but you have enormous leeway in determining where to place it.
There’s no wrong place to put it. The canyon works great whether it’s at the beginning, middle, or towards the end of the tale. You want to use it where it works for your story, where it just makes sense why it’s in that part.
Just because it only plays a specific role in the story doesn’t mean you can’t make it a riveting environment. Quite the contrary, if you play your cards right, you can make it have a lasting impression on everything that comes after.
The canyon is a dangerous place to trek, especially if the hero is traveling either by foot or on horseback. Crossing it is perilous, since he and his allies must hope that the bridge they’re using doesn’t break apart. Some stories only focus on the crossing but the vast majority force them to have to travel through it by cutting the bridge off.
Either the villain or his underlings or a weather-related event causes the bridge to be torn apart, leaving them no choice but to walk through the canyon. The hero and his party must be alert for the vicious animals like wolves or monsters who roam the land. This can make for suspenseful drama as the savage wildlife can present a grave threat to the party, especially at nighttime when everything is pitch-black.
Another way to have a fantasy canyon leave a memorable impression is to have a confrontation of some kind that leads to trouble down the road. Maybe the hero and one of his friends have a bitter argument that causes bad feelings for both, causing one of them to head off on his own. Unfortunately, he runs smack dab into the middle of trouble. Maybe he walks into a wolves’ den or he accidentally awakens a sleeping monster. Nevertheless, his life is in danger and his friend sets off to find him to make things right. He sees he’s in trouble and runs to help him. Together, they eliminate the threat and they apologize to each other.
An interesting way to use a fantasy canyon is to have it be plagued by something. Perhaps the villain, knowing that the hero would go there, poisons it or causes a rockfall to stop him. Going down this route helps to link it to the main story and helps bolsters the hero’s determination to stop the villain.
To summarize, a fantasy canyon is an incredible environment, one you absolutely must have in your world! It plays a vital role, transporting water in a deep chasm from one place to another. Its strength is that it’s a deep place and that depth is precisely what makes it so unique.
Being found all over the world means the canyon comes in different colors. This gives you a great opportunity to craft one that not only looks great but fits right in with where you decide to have it.
The canyon’s natives are tough and vicious. They take no prisoners, meaning they won’t hold back just because someone happens to be passing through their home. Rather, they’ll go all in, determined to make that person rue the day he decided to intrude upon their territory.
Though a fantasy canyon plays only the role of being a place where the hero must go through, you have the power to make it an experience he’ll never forget for the rest of his life. It could be that a calamity befalls him or his party, forcing him to learn a painful lesson that he’ll carry with him which spurs him to set things right before moving on.
So what’s stopping you from having a canyon in your world? Don’t you want to create a fantasy canyon that your audience will love?
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Sunfire
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