A nation was conquered and the conquerers took control and put themselves in all positions of authority. One major problem, the new rulers and the now peasant/ruled class speak entirely different languages.

In a small farming community, the only way to cross a river is to basically pole vault across. A small section of river has a small raft on a string to pull items across but for a person to cross they must use one of the many provided poles. Might be interesting seeing what the players do when they come across it. Villagers do it all the time so are skilled and can do it with ease.

A low lying area will flood after rains causing many people to be stranded and many roads are covered with water and unuseable.

Religious city. Hundreds of vendors selling small statues which sole value is as a donation to one of the many gods that are worshipped.

Thieve's House or thier main front: All the floors are designed to squeak when stepped upon or to sag or bend sending a small shake along the beam, somewhat like a spiders web, to alert those inside.

A revolt or attack happens against a strong city/kingdom. All the losers of the battle that can be captured are brutally crucified along the roads that enter the kingdom to show their strength and as a demonstration of what happens to their enemies.

Small village tavern specialty of the house is fresh cow blood mixed with milk. For each order they go out back and actually draw blood from a cow by puncturing a vein in it's neck. Fresh blood brought to the table where they poor milk into the glass of blood in front of the customer so they know how much blood they are getting.

In the middle of a desert in an oasis is a single prospering oak tree. Near the tree is a large pool of water. Drinking from the water is said to give you eternal life but really only extends your life for as long as you continue drinking from it. Those that have found it and left, have never found it again. Some search for it still.

The devil's wind. Explains why people become crazy. They are caught up in this wind which steals their sanity which in turn feeds the wind. The wind is a leftover from when the air elementals banded together in a mass army at one point to attack the True Gods. The wind is leftover of their attack route and on the anniversary of the battle the wind sweeps through causing the madness.

A basin type hole in the middle of the plains. Once every so many years the rains come very hard and flood this place. Maybe that is where the tribes congregate for their tribal meetings.

A large river that is continuously covered in a thick layer of fog. There will be either a rope ferry to get across or possibly a boat that is rowed across by worshippers of the water elementals. It is very thick fog to the point where it even muffles voices even at close range and visibility even beyond a foot is almost impossible.