“ The accepted mode of getting otherwise unobtainable information is to go visit the cranky old hermit living in the mountains. It's just the sensible thing to do. So, naturally, everyone takes their monthly excursion to the hermit's hovel to consult him on everything, from lock-jaw to lovesickness, necromancers to nasal viruses.
Now, if everyone's always visiting the poor old hermit, there's going to be an enormous queue... 'Wellcome to the Hermitt's Hovele, Please Take Ye a Number and Have Ye a Seate' reads the sign outside the packed dwelling.
Imagine the poor hermit, having retreated into the mountains to escape this precise situation...”
“ The secret for immortality has been discovered by an eccentric wizard/mad scientist. Its found you need to reapply once a month. As people stop dying, and the birth rate increases exponentially, people are forced into homelessness, because of the need for food reamins the same, and food is not being produced fast enough to feed the undying population. The PCs have to find the creator and kill him, and destroy production, to save the world from undying, unending torture from hungryness.”
“ 'The world has an immovable dark red sun in the centre of the sky that produces very little light. The heat is totally unbearable and the aroma of delicious cooking meat is in the air. To look around it appears as though you are surrounded by giant black mountains with no vegetation anywhere. The ground is soft and an oily liquid flows into your footprints. Travelling reveals nothing else.'
Any character without some resistance to fire or heat is slowly being cooked. The ground if you haven't guessed it is the cooked meat.
I've wanted this world to be part of a dimensional hopping 'chase'. I thought maybe to populate this world with giant carnivorous beetles or perhaps this could be a 'Nirvana' for deceased or living (but dimension travelling) fire dragons.
Perhaps I've just been grilling a little too much meat or perhaps there are some great ideas out there on how to spruce up the place. Any suggestions?”