Think of a place where nothing has ever happened, where it is always quiet and no one ever goes. Animals steer clear, migrating birds circumvent it. Flowers don’t grow there because the local bees will not pollinate anything growing nearby.

Creepy, isn’t it?

Put this place in the context of the game you’re running. The villains, creatures, monsters, old gods, ghosts and aberrations have never come here. Neither have other heroes, protagonists, innocent civilians or unlucky souls.

Why not?

Why does everyone and everything avoid this place?

Let’s look at some examples from popular fiction and, um, a theory I read in Fortean Times once…

The Lost Room

Joe Miller tracks down The Occupant of the Lost Room by tracing the recorded movements of the other Objects on a map and notes that there is an area where none have ever been. The Occupant was actively repelling them, creating the dead zone.

Supernatural

At the end of Season Two, as the hunters have seen a marked spike in demonic activity across the continental United States, they find an oddly shaped area devoid of demonic activity.

The area is a giant Devil’s Trap created by Samuel Colt out of criss-crossing iron railroads, with a sealed gateway to Hell contained in the centre. Demons could not enter, and if inside, could not get out.

Whale Migration and the Lost City of Atlantis

Some 15 years ago I read a Fortean Times article about the search for Atlantis, and how the author had taken to studying Whale migration. It seemed to her that the whale population was avoiding huge areas of ocean, for no obvious reason.

Could there be some other factor aside from the Gulf Stream and the Japanese that caused these gentle giants of the deep to circumnavigate vast tracks of submerged terrain?

She cross referenced these areas with Atlantean lore, all the while incredulous that no one had thought of doing this before now.

Unfortunately, but unsurprisingly, she failed to find Atlantis using this method, but may have a lead on R’lyeh.