D&D General What does Arcadia look like?

[Shades of Eternity]

Mainly in classical times, as well as Dungeons, and Dragons.

 

[Azzy]

Mainly in classical times, as well as Dungeons, and Dragons.

I dunno, but Goethe said "At the end of their lives, all men look back and think that their youth was Arcadia."

 

[Yaarel]

In my mind, Arcadia looks like infinite shopping malls.

(The architectural "arcades" of shopping malls inspires this, also the economy being highly Lawful and regulated but tending toward Good and helpful.)

 

[Chaltab]

Thanks to the show Joan of Arcadia I generally imagine it looking like a small town in Maryland.

 

[bloodtide]

The plane’s orderly in nearly every way. Its orchards consist of trees growing in straight lines, all without having been planted that way. Its fields glimmer with grass that grows to a certain height and no higher, much like a rich berk’s lawn. Its streams flow straight, taking right-angled turns when they bend–no oxbow lakes here, berk! And its animals are willing to do what they can for the common good of the plane. Foxes willingly give up their silver fur. Geese line up at the chopping block. Even bees don’t attack anyone reaching for honey–at least, if the berk’s lawful and neutral or good. It’s a flawless form of existence. In the land of Perfect Good, nothing intrudes on the harmony–at least it better not, or it’s going to get scragged.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Mainly in classical times, as well as Dungeons, and Dragons.

I mean in classical times, it looks about the same as it does today - a remote, mountainous area in the central Peloponnese in Greece. More paved roads and cars these days, though.

During Roman times, it became idealized by those who never lived there as a sort of rural utopia, filled with handsome/beautiful shepherds and nymphs, all living in a hilly (but not too hilly), idealized, semi-forested landscape. This continued on, becoming more idealized as eras passed, until during the late Ancien Régime in France, you had nobles, including Marie Antionette herself, building model rural villages where they could play at being milkmaids and shepherds.

In D&D terms, it's two layers of (mostly) very neatly and orderly farmland, with perfectly straight hedgerows and roads, with the weather being controlled by four near-deities who make sure it rains and is sunny at the perfect times. There's a giant orb on a huge mountain in the center, half light, half dark, which rotates and controls the day/night cycles. And underground, there are lots of dwarves and formians (sort of ant-centaurs, basically).

 

[Yaarel]

The plane’s orderly in nearly every way. Its orchards consist of trees growing in straight lines, all without having been planted that way. Its fields glimmer with grass that grows to a certain height and no higher, much like a rich berk’s lawn. Its streams flow straight, taking right-angled turns when they bend–no oxbow lakes here, berk!

Yup. Shopping malls.

 

[sevenbastard]

Like part of Duran Duran, so I guess just Duran?

 

[Twiggly the Gnome]

Shine like a sun that lies beneath the sea
Divine is the one we call Tehra
Far from the world we knew so long ago
Mine is the land Arkadia

 

[Mistwell]

I couldn't resist: