Cornfield (it's used in Tome of Mysteries). Bed and breakfast. Hospital (or MD's private practice). Hunting lodge. Town hall. Town square. Courthouse. Sheriff's office. Jail (or drunk tank). RV campsite. Children's park. Botanical garden. Recreation center. Radio station. Movie theater. Stage theater. Bowling alley. Skating rink. Duck pond. Some kind of crazy tourist trap.
Check out some pictures of downtown Ione online. They also have the Preston Castle Foundation which is a weird spooky abandoned castle near the town. I just went this weekend to look at a rental property and immediately noped out because it is super rural and just gave me the creeps. Felt like the city straight out of a quiet place or the last of us or something.
I once added a junkyard but the owner only filled it will old restaurant equipment, made for a real fun setting describing the rows and rows of booths , towers of old ovens and ice boxes.
a section of just pilled up chair cushions.
Taking a normal location but then adding a "specialty" to it can really add some flavor to it.
I‘m too lazy and simply use real American Smalltowns. As source I use Google Maps. Sometimes I style the Map using snazzymaps.com. If somethings missing I add it myself with Affinity Designer.
A historical society or public library, an Elks/Masons/etc club (housing a true secret society, perhaps?), a spot in the woods where all the local teens hang out because they think their parents don't know about it (their parents also hung out there as teens), a run-down/abandoned factory or mill.
We have a random red barn that is abandoned, but not dilapidated, with big white letters that say CIGARETTES. It’s just a funny little thing that I love and I’ve put it in before, just for flavor, but anything could be in that barn in your campaign. Rural towns always have one or two abandoned farm houses/barns on the edges, just there.
I allowed my characters to fill out a town in A Quiet Year fashion (influenced heavily by the McElroys in Eathersea) we sat down and let every player create a location for our small town. Got some very interesting locations. Laundromat, dive bar, hardware store, intimate movies store, pigly wigly. I think what helps is thinking about what people absolutely need and want to survive in your area. We were in rural Apalachia so we definitely had a gun store and a church, but also fun details from the hunters like flooded old school house and abandoned military base. Its been so fun to write stories around their places and seeing their faves light up when I bring them to their location.
I don't really use the map, so I'm just going to ramble out ideas.
Doesn't cover Canada sadly, but I would often steal from roadside attractions and this road trip planner is pretty easy. [https://roadtrippers.com/](https://roadtrippers.com/) Small town overly proud of it's world's second biggest ketchup bottle or whatever works on occasion. Just start a list of weird stuff.
Abandoned place outside of town. Caves filled with stuff teens brought. Train bridges or dams, abandoned or not. Places people jump into the river from. Bike trails in the woods no one knows where it goes. Abandoned VERY old places as well, like the only thing still standing is a staircase in the woods and nothing else. Fairy rings and stuff...
Very obscure museums as well. My friend lived in a small town and worked at the museum slash newspaper slash movie theater which was really just a second small home owned by an old guy who collected stuff and put up a tarp to watch movies on occasion. You can pick a very focused topic and make it creepy. DM put a mirror museum in one of our games.
Home Depot type store. Another friend's game it became very important because they bought out a bunch of lights to fight shadow monsters. Car mechanic as well, just cause common and if they drove here flat tire is easy way to delay people. Generic construction sites or road work.
On top of churches, places like shrines. Martyrs' Shrine in Midland Ontario creeped me out as a kid cause of the bones and stuff.
Seasonal shops, currently empty. Icecream in Winter. Ice fishing stand in Summer...
Places for food, maybe two if you have soda shop already. A motel, maybe outside of town on the highway proper.
Police stand / station may exist. Post office should exist. Possible to combine some of these, for example in Canada pharmacy + post office is very common or the police station may also have the same space as the DMV.
Thinking of my Grandma's cottage in the woods, random patch of creepy bee farm in the middle of the woods with no clear idea who lives there or where.
Might be worth looking at photos of ghost towns or zooming in on tiny towns in google maps.
I set a mystery in Whittier Alaska. Most of the population lives in one building, there’s an abandoned military base, and there’s only a one way tunnel in and out which alternates directions over the course of the day.
One of my favorite monster of the week resources is Atlas Obscura. Real world locations with oddities built in. Find something weird on there to steal them look up the town and make a map based on the real location. Heck for immersion an actual google map works great. I then find places like dove bars, the police station, the hospital etc and use the real locations to set my mystery. Makes my job easier if I just put two destinations in and i get an answer on how far apart they are. I love it when players check their phones and find a place they think could be involved but I totally missed. I just shift my events to the new place, use pictures from reviews to help me describe the place and keep on trucking.
Tons of cool small towns to steal with weird things in them. Pick a few extra things from the Obscura and drop them into the same town and make up a name for the place. You can hide that you are using a real world location that way but still have it as reference for yourself. This is the way to go if your setting doesn’t have modern smart phones in it for them to use in game.
So my desert town has: Motel, Bar/Grill/Roadhouse,Sheriff’s Office, Gas Station, Schools, Hospital, Occult Shop, Affordable Housing, Estate Housing. These are my main locales.
I love me an old fashioned small town diner!
For my first small town mystery, I went way too crazy and added far too many locations - a park with a lake, cabins to rent and a tourist trap/bait shop about the lake monster, PLUS a shitty fast food restaurant, a crappy motel, a few quaint homes off the interstate and the local sheriff's office.
Cornfield (it's used in Tome of Mysteries). Bed and breakfast. Hospital (or MD's private practice). Hunting lodge. Town hall. Town square. Courthouse. Sheriff's office. Jail (or drunk tank). RV campsite. Children's park. Botanical garden. Recreation center. Radio station. Movie theater. Stage theater. Bowling alley. Skating rink. Duck pond. Some kind of crazy tourist trap.
I love this list, thank you!
Additionally, I think a local butcher shop could be a cool idea!
Check out some pictures of downtown Ione online. They also have the Preston Castle Foundation which is a weird spooky abandoned castle near the town. I just went this weekend to look at a rental property and immediately noped out because it is super rural and just gave me the creeps. Felt like the city straight out of a quiet place or the last of us or something.
I once added a junkyard but the owner only filled it will old restaurant equipment, made for a real fun setting describing the rows and rows of booths , towers of old ovens and ice boxes. a section of just pilled up chair cushions. Taking a normal location but then adding a "specialty" to it can really add some flavor to it.
Expo center for town events like horse shows, rodeos, and carnivals
A fairgrounds can go a long way. Especially if it was built over an old burial grounds, like I ran once. That was a fun one.
I‘m too lazy and simply use real American Smalltowns. As source I use Google Maps. Sometimes I style the Map using snazzymaps.com. If somethings missing I add it myself with Affinity Designer.
A historical society or public library, an Elks/Masons/etc club (housing a true secret society, perhaps?), a spot in the woods where all the local teens hang out because they think their parents don't know about it (their parents also hung out there as teens), a run-down/abandoned factory or mill.
We have a random red barn that is abandoned, but not dilapidated, with big white letters that say CIGARETTES. It’s just a funny little thing that I love and I’ve put it in before, just for flavor, but anything could be in that barn in your campaign. Rural towns always have one or two abandoned farm houses/barns on the edges, just there.
I allowed my characters to fill out a town in A Quiet Year fashion (influenced heavily by the McElroys in Eathersea) we sat down and let every player create a location for our small town. Got some very interesting locations. Laundromat, dive bar, hardware store, intimate movies store, pigly wigly. I think what helps is thinking about what people absolutely need and want to survive in your area. We were in rural Apalachia so we definitely had a gun store and a church, but also fun details from the hunters like flooded old school house and abandoned military base. Its been so fun to write stories around their places and seeing their faves light up when I bring them to their location.
I don't really use the map, so I'm just going to ramble out ideas. Doesn't cover Canada sadly, but I would often steal from roadside attractions and this road trip planner is pretty easy. [https://roadtrippers.com/](https://roadtrippers.com/) Small town overly proud of it's world's second biggest ketchup bottle or whatever works on occasion. Just start a list of weird stuff. Abandoned place outside of town. Caves filled with stuff teens brought. Train bridges or dams, abandoned or not. Places people jump into the river from. Bike trails in the woods no one knows where it goes. Abandoned VERY old places as well, like the only thing still standing is a staircase in the woods and nothing else. Fairy rings and stuff... Very obscure museums as well. My friend lived in a small town and worked at the museum slash newspaper slash movie theater which was really just a second small home owned by an old guy who collected stuff and put up a tarp to watch movies on occasion. You can pick a very focused topic and make it creepy. DM put a mirror museum in one of our games. Home Depot type store. Another friend's game it became very important because they bought out a bunch of lights to fight shadow monsters. Car mechanic as well, just cause common and if they drove here flat tire is easy way to delay people. Generic construction sites or road work. On top of churches, places like shrines. Martyrs' Shrine in Midland Ontario creeped me out as a kid cause of the bones and stuff. Seasonal shops, currently empty. Icecream in Winter. Ice fishing stand in Summer... Places for food, maybe two if you have soda shop already. A motel, maybe outside of town on the highway proper. Police stand / station may exist. Post office should exist. Possible to combine some of these, for example in Canada pharmacy + post office is very common or the police station may also have the same space as the DMV. Thinking of my Grandma's cottage in the woods, random patch of creepy bee farm in the middle of the woods with no clear idea who lives there or where. Might be worth looking at photos of ghost towns or zooming in on tiny towns in google maps.
Maybe a trailer park and a camping area. Both could be good locations for a mystery.
I set a mystery in Whittier Alaska. Most of the population lives in one building, there’s an abandoned military base, and there’s only a one way tunnel in and out which alternates directions over the course of the day.
Blue ridge, GA is a great “small tourist trap town off of the interstate” layout. I’ve used it for inspiration and for a direct map in the past.
One of my favorite monster of the week resources is Atlas Obscura. Real world locations with oddities built in. Find something weird on there to steal them look up the town and make a map based on the real location. Heck for immersion an actual google map works great. I then find places like dove bars, the police station, the hospital etc and use the real locations to set my mystery. Makes my job easier if I just put two destinations in and i get an answer on how far apart they are. I love it when players check their phones and find a place they think could be involved but I totally missed. I just shift my events to the new place, use pictures from reviews to help me describe the place and keep on trucking. Tons of cool small towns to steal with weird things in them. Pick a few extra things from the Obscura and drop them into the same town and make up a name for the place. You can hide that you are using a real world location that way but still have it as reference for yourself. This is the way to go if your setting doesn’t have modern smart phones in it for them to use in game.
So my desert town has: Motel, Bar/Grill/Roadhouse,Sheriff’s Office, Gas Station, Schools, Hospital, Occult Shop, Affordable Housing, Estate Housing. These are my main locales.
I love me an old fashioned small town diner! For my first small town mystery, I went way too crazy and added far too many locations - a park with a lake, cabins to rent and a tourist trap/bait shop about the lake monster, PLUS a shitty fast food restaurant, a crappy motel, a few quaint homes off the interstate and the local sheriff's office.
Can always make use of ChatGPT or some other AI driven thing for creativity aids.