This post belongs to the #AtoZchallenge 2024, where I attempt to turn a word a day into something that can be used in Role Playing Games.

A nadir is a low or downward point of reference, the opposite of a zenith. It can also mean a real or figurative low-point, the lowest measurement or lowest geographic location (for example the Nadir Crater at the bottom of the ocean). It also exists as acronym for Network Anomaly Detection and Intrusion Reporter, and intrusion detection system. Sometimes it is (wrongly) translated as „Vanishing point at Infinity“ in German. There was also a tribe called Banu Nadir, but the name only sounds the same in English, it has nothing to do with the word otherwise.

How to integrate it into your typical fantasy RPG?

• A nadir could be a riddle in a dungeon, a place with a treasure that can only be indirectly observed, and only entered indirectly – to walk in, you have not to walk in.
• A nadir could also be the core of the dungeon – the place most distant from the natural world.
• It could be a cursed tribe that, despite its wealth, require indirect means to interact with. They cannot be seen (except in reflections), they cannot be heard (except as echo, or perhaps only when referring to the approached in third-person), and they cannot give or take (unless „leaving“ something and not checking again, or by sliding it away at an angle).
• It could be the name of a castle of a God of the Depths.