James: What I meant is that killing a lot of people could make an area shadowed.
Love the concept, not the name. “sinkhole” strongly implies the ground is being sucked assunder. In fact I kept rereading the thing looking for the part about how big the hole was and how fast it grows, until I realized there is no sinkhole in a “sinkhole” of evil.
So…
How about Vortex instead? Much the same but Vortex of Evil sounds way cooler and magicky sounding.
Duskreign’s Minion here.
I personally love sinkhole. I find myself chuckling every time I read it. Vortex is cool too.
I found I wanted to call them Shadowlands, but that’s a White Wolf Exalted term (or Legend of the 5 Rings).
I called them Sinkholes because:
- Metaphorically, the Nether Darkness is “below” the material plane, while the Empyrean Heaven is “above” the material plane. Ergo, sinkholes of evil, pinnacles of good.
- The Sinkholes have tiers measuring their depth of evil.
- Ravenloft used the term and I thought it resonated.
Part of my sensitivity to the term possibly comes from having just been to an actual sinkhole with Tavis. Anyhow, given that caverns and dungeons feature prominently in the game, it doesn’t seem the best idea to me to use a confusing term with the given refferent. For example, one couldn’t say “As the party approaches from the west you come upon a sinkhole”, without someone immediately wondering if its an evil or geological feature.
Ravenloft used the term? Heh - that might be another good reason to change it.
That’s a good point. I’'m open to other ideas. I don’t like “vortex” as it sounds too science-fiction for my taste.
I will now share the sad truth that in my very first Auran Empire campaign, 5 years ago, the sinkholes of evil were called “tainted lands”. There were “taint elementals” and “taint demons” and so on. Unfortunately I was not aware that taint has an urban dictionary definition that is at odds with my desired sense of the macabre. Let us say that the atmosphere of bleak evil I sought to create ended every time I mentioned taint anything.
Blighted zone? I dunno.
I dunno about geographical confusion, I think it kinda suits the idiom, as Alex explained. However, if you want to monkey with some alternatives:
Shadowlands (which I have to confess is a favourite of mine)
Bitterlands.
Charons Callings
Dead Zones
Hell Manse
Miasma of Chaos (a bit 40K that one…)
Orcan Wastes (From Orcus, the Roman god rather than the D&D entity)
Desolations
Ravagings
Black Fields
I’m sure I could bore you all with more, but I shan’t.
Maybe ‘hollow’, which is both related to sinkhole and more metaphorical? Evil hollows, shadowed hollow, blight hollow, forsaken hollow.
I also see a more obscure, but kind of cool, archaic word: “Thester”, meaning “Darkness. lit. and fig.” Evil thesters, shadowed thester, blighted thester, forsaken thester…
(One of the joys of D&D for me, as a kid, was having to look words up periodically.)
I have a similar concept in my homebrew campaign. In it, such places are called “cysts”.
Thester… I quite like that! Though i guess there is a risk that the more archaic a word, the less accessible the concept. Course that may not be a concern 
Here’s a vote for Desolations. Sounds good to me, and doesn’t have the drawbacks of either being another geographic term, having to be a compound descriptive word (Shadowlands), or make a reference. In my book, I might call them Orcan Wastes or whatever as well, but the game term should be something like Desolation. I think it sounds cool too. I’d also be down with Blights for similar reasons.
Note: I know you could call a place a desolation, but it would have to come from fantasy fiction or something. Other Desolations in geography are american canyons or lakes, which fits the mold anyway.
I thought “Sinkholes of Evil” was pretty understandable as a metaphor.
I wonder if the opposite is also a spontaneous occurrence - martyrs dying causes a place to be hallowed, that sort of thing. Much more rare, obviously.
I like most of those too. I’ll just toss out another:
Unhallows
This might be an obvious place to go, but… I find that in RPGs or fantasy novels (and in real life) people often name things for what they see, or smell, or feel about a thing, or for their purpose - often in an unimaginitive but descriptive way. That’s at least as often as they’re named for metaphor or mystical connections. So, instead of plucking (more) new names for Sinkholes of Evil out of the ether, I’ve got a couple of questions:
- Aside from the mythic connection with the Underworld, is there anything about sinkholes that lends them to be called such, in a way a person could sense?
- What does a Shadowed Sinkhole, a Blighted Sinkhole, or a Forsaken Sinkhole look, smell, taste, sound or feel like?
I’ve been watching this conversation unfold - as a GM I’d inevitably like to turn a longer, more descriptive name into an abbreviated colloquial sounding name. ‘Sinkholes of Evil’ may be what the mages in the tower refer to them by since they have a more literate background and can bear to enunciate 5 whole syllables to communicate the thought, but the rest of the population would call them 'the ‘sinks’, or the ‘holes’ (or hollows), the blights, or the wastes, etc. I think I would prefer a descriptive term for this reason - something too specific and technical sounding doesn’t jive right with fantasy - especially when religion and myth are incorporated into the setting (which is typically true of any game with clerics). Cursed Desolations, Sinkholes of Evil - these sound fine to me.
Your post about ‘Taints’ was hilarious, Alex!
That’s kinda where I was going Ryan, only you used colloquial, which is a great word 
I am with you
Having done a quick count of the various viewpoints expressed here, it doesn’t look like any other name captures a plurality and that Sinkholes of Evil is at least as popular as any other option. So I’ll just leave it be!