Top 10 Most Haunted Places Across Alternate Worlds
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 1 ส.ค. 2024
- Submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society, 10 of the most haunted places across alternate worlds.
0:00 | Intro
1:39 | #10
3:03 | #9
4:22 | #8
5:18 | #7
7:03 | #6
7:57 | #5
8:41 | #4
9:42 | #3
10:16 | #2
11:19 | Honorable Mention #1
11:49 | Honorable Mention #2
12:27 | #1
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Of course, the truly most haunted place is our Twitter. Follow us and abandon every hope! twitter.com/TemplinEdu
Especially since Musk Bought that Site.
Hey why not for Halloween, you make a video exploring the Federal Beareu of Control, from the heavily SCP-inspired game, Control?
No Haunted Mansion!?
what happened to cities skyline : invicta ??
The Outlast Hospital i think deserved a Mention.
The scariest thing about the Skull Pit is that this universe doesn’t pull its punches when it comes to gory morbid details, and almost every slaughter has a group or being that claims responsibility. The skull pit doesn’t. It’s a mystery. In a universe where you’ve seen almost everything, something unknown cannot be good.
I have knowledge that is unknown. Seems that this goes with exploring space. I had some space ships built.
At first I thought "this reeks of Khorne", but admittedly it would be cool if it was something more mysterious.
Honestly, the closest thing to a reasonable (if statistically implausible, to say the least) explanation for the Skull pit is that Kheradruakh, The Decapitator (aka that named Drucharii Mandrake) took a wrong turn in Commoragh and stumbled unto a webway portal that lead there.
The whole thing screams "lone assassin", and the fact that Khornate fanatics tend to be really obvious pretty much rules *them* out.
Only a few stories in the last many years of 40K have understood that the myth and mystery is far more important than any number of answers can be. The newfound obsession with creating detailed wiki-ready narratives has led to dozens of books that are cumulatively less effective than a single story in a margin that gets the idea.
Seems like a Chaos or Dark Eldar thing
I always think of Moscow and its metro tunnels in the Metro 2033 series of books and games, the supernatural element takes away the power of your weapons and leaves you vulnerable to an enemy that up until the bombs dropped was considered fictitious. A personal favorite is the story of the Kremlin's red stars that if looked upon will lure you into its basement where a unnatural abomination consumes you.
What works so well about the Metro is that is absolutely refuses to explain why and how this all happened. Bombs fell, people died, and now this is the world. Did the sheer scale of death break something in the world and change the rules? Are they ghosts, transformed into nightmares by the unprecedented horror of the titanic instant that made them? Were they always here, biding their time? Are the survivors already dead, and this is hell? The answer doesn’t matter - you can’t divide them into science monsters and ghost monsters and religion monsters, only into whether it is something you can kill or something you can’t.
It’s the best written work to follow Roadside Picnic, with the premise of ‘what if everything outside the Zone was gone now?’
The shadows of the Metro always give me the creeps you never see them directly always out of the corner of your eyes and when the pipes sing to you oh boy
@@UnreasonableOpinions the closest thing to an explanation is that the character Khan said: "When the bombs fell, it destroyed the Haven and Hell, now the souls on Earth have no where to go after their life ended".
@@sandvichbros1659 That is way more scarier then the actual nuclear exchange and repercussions.
This. Probably the scariest universe i have every played or read. The one from F.E.A.R comes close. But Metro is way more depressing.
I'm just surprised that the 40k entry isn't the ghoul stars.
There are many reasons why, but for me it's the fact that it's an entire region of space which even the TYRANIDS try to avoid.
The tyranids are a collective consciousness with functionally infinite biomass to chuck at things until it's been consumed and converted, and even THEY are scared of what's out there.
Something even worse than Tyranids? I need to catch up on more lore.
I was expecting the same, hell even the imperium of man at their greatest extent during the latter days of the great crusade, dare not to cross the boundaries. And any Necrons who crossed the Ghoul Stars became Flayed ones.
I don't think it means it is worse than the tyranids, if they do not understand it and/or feel that it would cost them more biomass than it would bring to attack it, even by a tiny amount, from my understanding of the tyranids' structure, would be enough to make them refuse to risk altercation
also sorry to hijack your comment, does someone know where the three images (from 0:52 to 1:14) come from ?
its most likely a CTAN that is still at near full power as the Ghoul stars are close to where the Necrontyr home systems used to be and tyranids avoid necrons as they gain nothing from them and reuqire ALOT of resources to beat.
a full power CTAN is something to truly fear its essentially a choas god in the matieriel universe it can do ANYTHING and without the necrons being aware of it due to it making them go flayer if they enter the area means they cant provide the weapons to defeat it.
at the same time the CTAN were decadent pyschos so perhaps its just been using the ghoul stars as its one big personally directed Horror movie to entertain itself.
The bloody tyrranids won't enter the Ghoul Stars?? Now I'm interested, haven't heard of this place before. Is there any lore I can read/watch about this place?
I think a candidate that should have been considered are the Dead Marshes from Lord of the Rings. In a world with a long history of many battles against forces of darkness and evil, combined with the fact that the place was inspired by Tolkien's own experiences during WWI, it leaves one to wonder just what the hell happened in such a place that was so terrible that it left this supernatural scar in the form of the spirits of those that fought and died at this battlefield to haunt it for all time, seemingly. That combined with the fact that it can't be traversed without the aid of certain foul, jewelry-obsessed creatures lest you be tempted to follow the lights and join those that died in this place and light little candles of your very own, makes it one of those places that you really, really don't want to find yourself to be.
The Dead Marshes is *sort of* explained, but I don't think the supernatural part of it is, which I can appreciate. Tolkien stated in his Legendarium that the Marshes were the remains of one of the great final battles between the Last Alliance and the forces of Mordor that led to the end of the Second Age. Nearly a member of every race could be accounted for on both sides of the conflict (I say nearly, Orcs and Elves were firmly evil vs good respectively, but there were even evil dwarves involved too). But it's never outright told to anyone why the tormented spirits remain, or what evil is driving them. And I like that. A lot of what goes on in Middle Earth is told either in the main books or the extended lore but there are bits and pieces that are just kind of there and not outright told, such as the Watcher in the Water over in Moria or the origins of Ungoliant (Shelob's mom). It adds a lot more dynamic mystery to things.
@@kerianhalcyon2769 Oh I agree. Don't mistake my comment as me asking for clear cut defining of the thing. Farm from it.
Rather it is just a case of theorycrafting, you know? It is one of those great mysteries that Tolkien never explained, and he didn't really need to beyond the basic "inspired by his experiences in WWI" that we got.
But still, one can't help but stop and wonder just what the hell made *THIS* battle so terrible that the spirits of those who fought in it are not only trapped in this place but doomed to try and drag any unwary travelers down into the marshes with them.
Also, on your number 5, its worth mentioning that the Wolfenstein Naz1 Capitol City is no longer called Berlin, just like in real life, H1tler intended to rename the German Capitol City of Berlin *"Germania"* and this name is mentioned in the game on a Propaganda Announcer. 1's added to avoid TH-cam's Comment Blacklisting.
Censorship is bad.
@@ClassicMagicMan Bad but it serves a general purpose here. You dont wanna give those assholes a platform.
Wow, do you think reich 4 would invites you to illustrate those cities more clearly?
@@linz8291 wat
Honorable mention to Phaedra from 40k, which has roughly 40% the lethality of Catachan but makes up for it with an uncanny ability to drive anyone on the planet insane.
It´s always good to find another traveller. Phaedra deserves its own spot on the list.
Is it a Daemon World?
@@Dracobyte oh, it’s trying for that!
But all serious I don’t think it is… yet. It’s just REALLY horrible.
I always found Malachor from KOTOR, and the Sierra Madre from New Vegas to be chilling. While not especially mysterious, they left a lasting impression on me.
I would also add the Divide from New Vegas. The place is haunting, especially the bunkers, the ancient Sentry Bots still roaming the dark, empty halls…
@@ghostplays2766 yes I automatically thought of the divide played it again recently as a catch up with the series and it’s still as haunting as when I first played it.
The Ghost People from the Madre have always stood distinct from everything else in fallout.
Like, they're not ghouls. Ghouls don't get back up when you kill them, and even feral ghouls make noise and are vaguely intelligent enough to be herded by intelligent ghouls.
The ghost people are silent, they make and use weapons, they seem to worship the holograms, and they apparently live in the sewers and tunnels under the Madre in WWZ numbers, such that what we see on the surface is a microscopic portion of their real strength.
We also don't know what they do to people. Dean canonically says that they may or may not kill you, but they'll drag your body into the cloud all the same, and suggests that suicide before they take you is a good idea.
I would like to add Dunwhich Mines of Fallout 4. It is the single place in all of that game I refuse to go to.
New Vegas is great because whenever I take a step out into the wasteland there is always something that tries to kill me.
For me, nothing beats the Dead Marshes from Lord of the Rings. The fact that the battlefield itself was warped and corrupted so totally is creepy in itself, especially since it makes the land itself hostile. It is as if the hatred and hostility of each soldier seeped into and twisted the very earth they fell upon. However, what makes uniquely eerie to me is that it was based off of the real-life no man's land Tolkien experienced at the Battle of the Somme. For me, it almost places the Dead Marshes into an uncanny valley of both fiction and reality, where the Marshes can somehow exist in both.
I was very surprised it wasn't on the list.
Metro's Moscow. A world built of iron, steel and concrete by people who are not in any way different from normal, and where souls relive the moments before the bombs, a waterway that is able to show you visions of the past and future, and the station that has a worm with powers able to compel people into throwing themselves into it.
I really like Skull Pit choice. Reminds that there are not only the well known threats of Chaos, Necrons and Tyranids, which are all horrifing enough, there are also countless unexplained things in the universe.
Always good to see tourist guides to Australia in this time of the year, kudos for your work Templin institute!
I don't think of you guys as haunted. Too hot and a few cities separated by deadly animal infested deserts yes, but not haunted.
No ghosts in Australia. They got eaten by the spiders.
@@GaldirEonai What about ghost spiders?
The only ghosts that haunt Australia are Tasmanian Demons, the spirits of Devils too angry to stay dead.
@@Servo_M Those were eaten by the kangaroos.
For the Asoiaf representative I'd probably pick the Ruins of Valyria over Aashai because while Aashai is mysterious and has a dark reputation you can reasonably expect to potentially survive a visit there and see some of the horrors and wonders the city has to offer, while nobody except the most dangerous and insane dark sorcerer of his era returned from Valyria. Valyria is in a good middle ground of not knowing exactly what dangers are lurk in the ruins, while also knowing that what ever horrors do lurk in the ruins are the results of some of the cruelest and most blasphemous dark magic that ever took place in that world and are dangerous enough to harm and kill the most venerable Dragons to survive the Doom.
Who survived? I thought nobody had
@@jacobscott7261 in the Books Euron Greyjoy claims to have travelled into the Ruins of Valyria and returned, we don’t necessarily know if he’s lying or not, but he has a set of Valyrian Steel Armor and a Magical Valyrian Horn that allows him to bind Dragons to his will.
Agreed, Asshai is mostly known through rumors and the accounts of Corlys Velaryon's expedition east- we know a little more directly about the ruins of Valyria and what seems to be there is terrifying. In 54 AC Princes Aerea and Balerion the Black Dread, the largest dragon of Targaryen history, traveled to the ruins of old Valyria and returned- Aerea had some horrible flesh creatures in her (which the maester described as "worms with faces") that caused her to slowly die in agony, and Balerion had a massive 9ft long gash in him.
I think one of the most haunting places, for some of the reasons you mentioned here, is the home of Jadis (aka The White Witch of Narnia). We know so very little of this world, being exposed to a single city of a vast empire that was "good" that turned "bad." What word was uttered that destroyed that world? What acts were done by the people of Charn that would classify them as evil in their own eyes? It's seemingly hundreds of thousands of years old, older than human history, and yet we only know of the last day. What horrors are hidden? We will never know because the portal is in all likelihood lost to all, but it's still there...
I appreciated that you included, if not a mention, then at least a brief glimpse of Reach, as an example of a more metaphorical rather than literal sense of haunting.
Exploring the USG Ishimura in DS2. 11 years later and I still have not had the same feeling in a video game than the first time I saw that ship again in my first play through of Dead Space 2. Still get the chills.
One notable candidate that will always be on my list is the town of Nightvale and to a similar extent its sister town.
While Welcome to Nightvale can often include comedy or chipper elements, the towns setting never fully sheds this aura of unease for me.
The sheer endless unexplainability and innumerable horrific elements makes it a truelly haunted place. Even the people add to this. Their cheery acceptance of the towns oddness and horror as though this is perfectly normal compliments this. The town is out of time and place, it's people ignorant and content. A town out of time and space who's denizens are as much a threat to outsiders and each other as any unseen horror or corruption that makes its presence felt every week
One I was surprised didn't make the list was Arkham, MA. This fictitious university town that H. P. Lovecraft made famous has plenty of secrets and stories about same that were brought back from the field to Miskatonic U, and as in most college towns the school tends to draw into it folks with the same (weird, f'd-up) vibe that radiate from the ivy-covered halls...
5:19 "The forest protects its children against all foes." - Ariel, the Queen In The Woods.
''exept when it dosent''- Drycha
It's so cool that you included Session 9. That was such a creepy movie, and so much less talked about then stuff like Event Horizon. Good stuff
You called? Lol
@@eventhorizon492 oooh nope! Lol
Session 9 is such an underrated gem.
4:23 "Eyes? Where we go, we don't need eyes." - poor guy after personally experiencing early Warp travel.
One thing I think the little nightmare games make better than almost any other world is that they make the environments some of the most haunting you can imagine. Other games or movies may have scarier contens but those games create environments I would never want to be in.
I can't believe you forgot the Shimmer from Annihilation. That shit was genuinely disturbing.
The fact that Bethesda realized the Boston setting of Fallout 4 allowed for Lovecraft content AND LEANED INTO IT still impresses the hell out of me
The Moon from the Destiny franchise, post failed invasion by the guardians. Empty, eerie, literal ghosts of guardians in their last moments of dispair, and the glowing eyes of the hive~
When I think of haunted places, the Ocean House Hotel from VTMB immediately comes to my mind.
You know there are ghosts in there from pretty much the moment you enter, but the sheer sense of dread you feel as you try to navigate its hallways is just so memorable.
Even though there were no jumpscares and the ghost mostly just threw random objects at me, I found myself constantly renewing my Auspex so I could see better in the darkness and hopefully detect any entities before they could charge at me, knowing full well that if they did, my Thaumaturgy would be useless against them.
Thats the one where you get a phone thrown at you right
@@KillerOrca
That among a vast number of pots, paintings and vases
Though what I suggest may not be just one location, I would like to bring notice to the X-laboratories in The Zone of Alienation of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Universe, and many of the underground locations as well, and though some aspects are explained about the ones in game, there is still a lot more unknown about them.
Opening with the Midnight Society submission.. you already got me. Nice. Never heard of the Skull Pit, but yeah, that absolutely exudes eldritch fear. I'm not inclined to think that it was some alien invasion that did it, given the fact there was no damage to the facilities. But I would wonder what or who might be sleeping deep under the Pit, who, upon being disturbed by the mining, reached out and...collected everyone it could find. I'm thinking almost a Deep Rising type thing, but without the blood and gore; it just took people entirely, and didn't disturb the surroundings. The lone survivor might have seen it retreating back into the pit after it left the skulls behind, which probably broke his brain depending on what it looked like and if his brain could process what he was seeing.
The thing about the skull pit that gives me the most fear is the lack of identifiable calling card. 40k is full of horrifying factions in their own right but we would know that they did it. Whether it's simple graffiti proclaiming the greatness of a chaos God or mounds of corpses. When a population gets massacred, we generally know who did it. The skull pit lacks this defining feature. In a universe where every serial killer and mass murdering cultist leaves some sort of brutal calling card to take credit of the act. The lack of such a calling card is terrifying
@@obscureoccultist9158 absolutely. It's something utterly foreign, in a universe where even Chaos leaves a recognizable design.
Agree with a lot of other suggestions below, Dead Marshes, Minas Morgul, Charn, The Overlook Hotel and others.
My own submissions would be the Glykon from Destiny 2 and the ship from Chains of Harrow in Warframe.
The Glykon is a little like the Event Horizon, in that you arrive after the fact. But what makes it extra creepy is the whispers, the banging behind the walls, the sudden floods of suicidal undead enemies that appear from nowhere, the plant-like thing growing inside the ship and through the bodies aboard and of course the realization of what exactly was happening on the ship and what was left.
Shadowkeep may have been the first proper bit of the cosmic horror that is the Darkness in Destiny and nothing is quite like the empty Pyramid ship with our possessed Ghost talking to us, but the Glykon is a whole new thing.
The ship in Chains of Harrow is similar. Pitched in shadows, lit only by an eerie red light, as the ghosts of the dead crew attack you and the whispers of the Void play inside your head. Add in the messages written in blood on the walls and the story of why all this is happening and it gets very chilling, very quickly.
Glad to see so many people suggesting stuff from different mediums.
Honestly Gravity Falls deserved a place in that list, the amount of bizarre things in that city are unbelievable, you have ghosts, robots, aliens, zombies, witches and a lot more of magical creatures on the city, and like if are not enought an extradimensional demon in triangle shape with a disturbing notion of humor invaded the place to conquer the entire universe, and the last hope are a group of aparently random people than only won because they have a master cheater and his genius brother to make an improvised plan in the last minute, fuck, the mini golf camp have an entire civilization inside the holes, sorry for the english if had some mistake, is not my native language
They are in no particular order
Another mention that deserves honors here. The Shalebridge Cradle. THE reason why you buy Thief: Deadly Shadows. It's horror done right, and I REALLY wish the TDS team made a horror game.
My choices: Shalebridge Cradle (Thief); Warren of Shadow (Malazan); Red Zones (Tiberian Sun); Derelict Reaper (Mass Effect 2); The plane of Innistrad (Magic the Gathering)
Two I can think of:
The abyss from "Made in Abyss". What makes that place so haunting is not the curse that inflicts increasingly horrifying tortures upon you as you try to ascend, or the hostile wildlife that have found increasingly weird and painful ways of making you their next meal. No what is the most frightening about it is the sheer compulsion of entering it. Like an irresistible lure. A constant sense of something being wrong.
My second pick would be the Amigara Fault from "The enigma of Amigara Fault". Another one haunted by an unknowable compulsion to enter, but with loads of claustrophobia rather than predators.
EDIT: And one other place I came to think about, it is only seen very briefly but Colony 30 from Zeta Gundam is another. Once a bustling space colony, it is now just a wasteland after it was gased by the Titans. What makes it so haunting is that the place is well and truly dead. Humans, plants, animals, not even bacteria are alive in there anymore. It was gased using G3 gas which is an incredibly potent and silent killer, meaning that the place is littered with the corpses of its former inhabitants still looking like they are going about their daily lives. While the gas has long since decayed by the time our characters visit the place, it is clear that the colony is truly forever dead and gone.
I really hope we get more of these, The Templin Institute always nails the subtle horror when they dive into it, the music playing throughout the video is just great
"I submit for the approval of the Midnight Society" "Is it set in a small town in Maine again, Stephen?"
Ungoliant's lair from the world of Arda. Unlike the Dead Marshes, Mordor or Mirkwood, to which Elven scholars have developed perfectly rational explanations, Ungoliant is a being of totally unknown nature whose fate can only be speculated upon, so dangerous that even Morgoth was overwhelmed by her malice. All that is really known is that she is/was anathema to light.
You could probably just put any Sith planet on this list. Dromund Kaas, Korriban, Ziost, Nathema... Their planets are so haunted that spirits are literally part of their education system.
Points for the 'Are You Afraid of the Dark?' reference. Really enjoyed that show and lot of episode still hold up well.
I would have to add the Abyss from Made in Abyss. That place gives me more questions than answers and unsettling is an understatement for that place.
Holy shit I was the one that recommended the Dunwich Building. This is such a huge honor oh my God. I legitimately didn't think my suggestion would make it.
The Dead Marshes of Middle Earth (Lord of the Rings). All we know is that it was once the site of a great battle between Man and Elves against Orcs but then it became this marsh waste land with bodies in the pools, bodies that never rot away.
I think the Oldest House from Control should be on the list.
Sure, the events of the game are not THAT mysterious, but the house itself, and all it represents, the various thresholds, or the Board and the Former are just... creepy.
Ultima Thule from Final Fantasy 14 had a really haunting atmosphere. A graveyard of dead worlds occupied only by echoes of those that once lived. Who's denizens have long since succumbed to despair and now only await an end to the misery they call life. As you wander through it you see the vast emptiness, interrupted only by the occasional shadow willing to divulge it's sorrow to you.
A personal favourite haunted location of mine has to be the Moon in the Destiny games. The face of it has been scarred by ancient alien foes for all on earth to see, and as time goes on, even as our knowledge and power grows, the moon becomes still more menacing. The site of Golden Age labs whose residents were driven mad, the hiding place of an army that seeks humanity's extinction, the location of a slaughter so great it set back humankind's expansion and drive for decades at least. And that is to say nothing of the Pyramid Ship lurking beneath the surface, a symbol of an enemy we still don't comprehend. Humankind in Destiny's universe may be forging alliances and unlocking ancient secrets, but the menace and unknown of the Moon remains
The slow zone from the expanse. The uncertainty of your ship going Dutchman, not knowing what mundane action will trigger the station to break physics, the goths reaching in…
Maybe not the top of the list, but perhaps an honorable mention.
I hope The USG Ishimura from Dead Space is on here that ship is Haunted to the exstream.
Respect and keep up the epic work
1:39 | #10 City 17 from Half Life
3:03 | #9 Asshai from A Song of Ice and Fire
4:22 | #8 Event Horizon from Event Horizon
5:18 | #7 Vaults of Winter from Warhammer Fantasy
7:03 | #6 Derry from Stephen King's It
7:57 | #5 Berlin in Wolfenstein
8:41 | #4 The Dunwich Building in Fallout
9:42 | #3 Silent Hill in Silent Hill
10:16 | #2 The Upside Down from Stranger Things
11:19 | Honorable Mention #1 Tomb of Kujet in Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order
11:49 | Honorable Mention #2 Danvers State Mental Hospital from Session 9
12:27 | #1 The Skull Pit in Warhammer 40,000
All very interesting choices. From ASOIAF, Asshai is definitely one of the most haunted, but my preference would go to the ruins of Yeen, so cursed that even the jungle doesn't grow there and all those who tried to settle it disappeared.
Most haunted place Across Alternate Worlds?
Shalebridge Cradle - Thief: Deadly Shadows
Orphanage? Check. Insane asylum? Check. At the same time? Check. Abandoned after fire? Check. Patients were left to die? Check.
This place was designed to be creepy, eerie and over all nerve wracking. 10/10 never return… But have you really left?
Yep, my vote goes to Shalebridge as well. And for another reason, too: It is also meta-haunted by a feature cut during the development: No swimming animations.
The cage (you know it when you see it) is terrifying by itself. Now imagine it under water. That is the maximum I can say without spoilers.
Of the ones on this list Event Horizon gets my vote. That movie was creepy AF.
Bonus points because of the fan theory that it's WH40k pre-history.
Good list! I feel the need to shout out Rapture from bioshock. Even in the areas with no spooky memory ghosts, there's is a definite haunted vibe.
The most haunted place I have ever encountered in all of fiction is, in my opinion, the House from "House of Leaves"
My first thought was "Ah, finally, Templin Travel Agency"
But I also think of the Lord of the Rings, it might not be material for a top 10, but that battlefield (forgot the name) where they go that has a lot of dead soldiers from the ancient war and all of them are somewhat preserved was so haunted for me, enough to stand out; these warriors died at the prime of their ages and the battlefield just preserves them, and if you enter the water, you might get dragged down.
Dead Marshes
One might put out the Shadow Isles in general as the most haunted place in Runeterra. But we know more or less what to face when we arrive at its shores. Just spectres and giant spiders.
However, that is not the case with a certain place inside the isles. The ancient Vaults of Helia.
Because even after the Ruination cracked them open, and showed a chance for profit and power to anyone brave or stupid enough to try to evade the Black Mist to get to them, we know 2 things:
1) The Helians had spent millenia tracking down all of the most dangerous magic and otherwordly objects around Runeterra, to store them safely there. And that the objects that were sacked and still are being done so now, were enough to provoke the cataclismic Runic Wars, that basically wiped out all stablished civilizations in at least Valoran and Shurima.
2) We know that the treasure hunters so far had only explored most of the upper levels, where the "safer" objects were being held. Because from the diaries and experiences of Erlok Grael, we know all the real dangerous knowledge and objects were being held still hundred of meters below. In labyrinthic tunnels no light could touch.
So, who knows what really is held really that deep and down below? Because we know stuff like different Darkin weapons, you know, the mad gods that devastated the world during centuries on their feuds of conquest, was considered on the relatively safer side of things.
Great video, I'd like to hear more about what the Asshai city was guarding.
Seeing 40k on this list, it surprised me that the Ghoul Stars weren't mentioned. An entire sector of space where even chaos seems to be spooked by, where tyranids barely approach, where the only necrons present are those of the bone kingdom.
Great list ! There is a a place the Templin Institute has not investigated yet that would fit in here, The House of Leaves (Mark Z. Danielewsky, Zampano, Johnny Errand)
Oh my fucking God. That book stares at me from my bookshelf every night I go to sleep.
Minas Morghul,Barrow Downs,Paths of the Dead,Moria,Dead Marshes,Dol Guldur and Angmar from LOTR Universe deserve an honorable mention at least.
The idea of being inside of a Borg cube terrifies me...I think a borg cube should have been on the list.
I'm surprised you didn't mention Ascalon from Guild Wars 2, the entire land is haunted by the dead of a nation who are doomed to repeat a war that has long since been lost.
Too obvious. Didn't quite fit the criteria
The ghosts of Ascalon are basically a nuisance. They keep coming back and force the Charr to maintain an active war front in perpetuity but they are completely predictable and a known quantity.
Surprised no one’s talking about the backrooms. Awesome video though!
Great job. I would put, at least as honorable mentions, Dracula's Castle from Castlevania( which is pretty much connect to a chaos dimension as well) and Madhaven From Rifts Earth, which is a post apocalyptic New York full of all kind of shit you can imagine
The night folk maybe responsible for 90% of it, but the swamps of Saint Denis are always unsettling to ride through. With discoveries of abandoned shacks, towns, and miniature churches adding unanswerable mystery to what was.
Don't forget about the movie Ghost Ship, it's pretty eerie to see something like that abandoned far out at sea.
Maybe this is just me, but if I was a ghost I like to think I wouldn't just spend eternity sticking around one place 😅
I think the Disease reserch facility from Subnautica is also pretty scary, as is the wreck of Aurora from the same game.
Scary yeah, but not haunted I think. It's like Chernobyl, a fight against an enemy that if you don't know it, at least you understand. But more importantly, it is an enemy you can't fight down, because this enemy has won.
Hadley's Hope from Aliens can be a bit haunted. Especially with how stealthy the Xenomorps can be. Not only that... the uncertanty of safety in any location is a concern. And it would be too easy for teams to go in... and never return.
The Ishimura from Dead Space would also qualify as a ghost ship because if the mystery of her end. Before the Necromorphs ramp things up, the ship just seems... dead for no reason.
In some realities, Chernobyl may qualify as... the place just screams ghosts. In the STALKER universe, there's even unexplained anomalies as well.
Shalebridge Cradle from Thief:Deadly Shadows is pretty spooky.
10: City 17(Half Life)
09: Asshai(A Song of Ice and Fire)
08: Event Horizon(Event Horizon)
07: Vaults of Winter(Warhammer Fantasy)
06: Derry, Main USA(Steven King Multiverse)
05: Berlin/Germania, Germany(Wolfenstein)
04: Dunwitch Building(Fallout)
03: Silent Hill(Silent Hill)
02: The Upside Down(Stranger Things)
01: A Place With No Name/The Skull Pit. Lucin’s Breath, Imperium of Man
(Warhammer 40000)
Honorable Mentions
-Tomb of Kujet, Dathomir(Star Wars)
-Danvers State Hospital(Session 9)
PS: Past Asshai is the ruined city of Stygai a place deeper in the Shadow lands even worse than Asshai.
My personal theory about the Upside-Down is that it’s a divergent timeline where government experiments with fungi were released and destroyed the world
The empire of the severed has to be one of the most haunted places in 40k. It is a collection of necron worlds where the sleeping necrons have had their minds erased and are now controlled by a malfunctioning maintenance programme that seeks to incorporate more necrons into its consciousness. The necrons are an ancient race of soulless androids and 40k's oldest species and yet even they fear the empire of the severed. It shows how dark 40k is that the anchient eldritch horrors are themselves being hunted by even darker things.
Caverns beneath the Dwimorberg and the valley of Harrowdale, 1428 Elm Street, Camp Crystal Lake. Maybe not the most haunted places but maybe ideas for next October The Templin Institute investigates haunted places throughout the month of October.
My favourite haunted place has for many years been the Metro, from the book series of the same name, the Moscow Metro and the few lucky enough to be in it at the moment of a total nuclear exchange, surviving for decades in the dark. It’s at the exact nexus point of the mundanity of infrastructure, the unsettling nature of the underground, the quiet fear of urban legend, and the ghostly assumptions of a great atrocity. It is a place so profoundly inhabited by supernatural beings, be they ones we can bravely try to explain, new things created in the wake of an act of unimaginable killing, or things that have been here longer than we have, where the ghostly remnants of former tenants could just as well describe the living inhabitants themselves. The sheer scale of size and spookiness gives it plenty of room for thing unsettling, nightmarish, wondrous - and those things beautiful no less dangerous than the grotesque.
But what makes it fascinating is knowing that not so long ago, it was our own world. There were rumours here and there; urban legends, perhaps a story or two a conductor would tell when drunk, but not a hint at the place it would become. And yet, in one titanic instant, humanity was almost annihilated at its own hands, and the Metro became profoundly, utterly haunted. Why, how? It’s not clear. Maybe ghosts were always quietly here, and the sheer scale of death has made them very loud, made of them something far less and far more than human. Perhaps these things have been here a very long time, waiting on the fringes, and this is their chance to return. It could be that the destruction was so complete that it tore open the veil between worlds, and what was once the thinnest trickle has become a flood nobody can hope to staunch. Maybe our former world, built as it was on science and reason, was so utterly betrayed by that very science and reason being used to obliterate it that the very rules themselves have broken beyond repair. Or the bombs may have been nothing less than divine judgment - we survivors are already dead, and this is hell.
There is no final reason - nor can there be, because no one cause would be as satisfying as the bleak wonder of why. There is only the certainty that what was is gone, forever, and what is will be here to stay. And the last question, whose two answers are equally fearful - if the bombs fell everywhere, is all the world now like this, the ghosts of men in fearful circles in the dark, or is the Metro the only place left?
I'd like to ad a few places to this catalogue of the strange and macabre:
1) Moscow, in the metro saga, especially the book version. A whole city ravaged by nuclear war, where lurks monsters, cults, and unexplainable shadows.
2) The Estate of the Darkest Dungeon, surrounded from all sides by abominations and unaturals "things"
3) The End in Minecraft. Probably less gloomy and horrifying than the other places listed here, but the desolation and darkness of this place is in such a contrast to the rest of the minecraft universe...
4) Half-life's Ravenholmes, I don't think I need to elaborate.
I'm late to the party, but I definitely have one I could add to the list...
Taris Undercity (Knights of the Old Republic) - Before Darth Malak would bombard the planet into oblivion, Taris was essentially an ecumenopolis almost identical to Coruscant. Despite this it was also very much unlike Coruscant, being a very xenophobic world where its human aristocracy ruled over an oppressed alien middle and lower class. And then there is the Undercity, where nobody goes. Those who live there are descended from criminals, outcasts, ne'erdowells, and the poorest of the poor who were effectively left to die in a vast lightless wilderness beneath a gleaming spire city above. But they aren't along down there. Rakghouls - a monstrous ghoul-like zombie created by a plague that cannot be cured - dwell in uncounted numbers down there. Anyone, regardless of species, can become one of these freakish hellspawn, and greater Taris is largely unaware of them. Not even Malak's orbital bombardment could kill them off, as they can be found in the ruins centuries later, which means that up until they are cured they remain a threat to all life. If a world-ending plague of space zombies can remain largely ignored by the greater Tarisian populace who knows what else lies down there or on other worlds like it?
More honourable mentions:
Cittàgazze for Pullman's The Subtle Knife and that dead city from the first season of the wheel of time.
Oh, and Dylath Leen from HPL's Dreamlands.
In Destiny the moon is super haunted. Plagued by nightmares of allies and enemies alike, you constantly fight these while uncovering the horrible things that happened to the guardians that ventured into the moon. There's also literal artifacts of darkness hiding under the surface and whispering to us. Centuries ago the first researchers trying to understand these artifacts went insane and killed each other.
My favourite is The Midden from Skyrim. Used for the practice of dark magic and full mysterious experiments
The Oceanview Motel from Control fits the theme. Every place in that game does.
I still love the theory that Event Horizon is a prequel to warhammer 40k, the invention of the warp drive but not the invention of the geller field.
TFS Alucard when he see these Haunted Places: "I'm going for a walk. A very enthusiastic walk."
A terrifying AU:
Where there’s a great anime adaptation of Berserk.
I'd like to put forward Necrom from The Elder Scrolls. Despite not having appeared in a game yet, Necrom is supposed to be completely intertwined with the dead and mourning, with ghosts and spirits walking among the living as if it's normal, and the Dunmer casually striking up conversation with their dead ancestors on a routine basis.
Scam
When I think of haunted places, I generally think of any place inhabited by ghost Pokemon:
- the Pokemon Tower in Lavender Town (and later the House of Memories)
- the Burned Tower and the Bell Tower in Ecruteak City
- Mt. Pyre in Hoenn
- the Old Chateau in Eterna Forest
- the Lost Tower in Sinnoh
- the Celestial Tower in Unova
- Route 10 in Kalos
- the Lost Hotel in Kalos
- Hau'oli Cemetery in Melemele Island
- Memorial Hill in Akala Island
- the Abandoned Thrifty Megamart in Ula'ula Island
- Glimwood Tangle in Galar
I was hoping that the hotel from the Shining would make it there. And the entire region of Sylvania from WH Fantasy too! I didn’t expect City 17 to be a contender tbh.
I think Dunwall City from the first Dishonored and USG Ishimura from Dead Space deserve a spot on this list
I did not know about the vaults of winter, cause that part of warhammer just aint that interesting to me. BUT i love the implications that the Elves are "Sacrificing to" or feeding some unnamed horror.
The saddest thing to me in warhammer, is that there is little to no eldritch/Cosmic horror, since the daemons and such are so well defined
Cosmic horror? That's what Warhammer 40k is for 😉.
40K also only has Cosmic horror on occasion :P most of the time its a known entity or just over the top grimdark goofy
suprised the Metro system from Metro 2033-35 wasn't mentioned. As with Fallout, most creatures can be explained by either genetic altering, shadow government, or the radiation. But it also houses that.... paranormal element. The shadows of the people long gone, able to be seen only when not shining a light on them; the Red star atop the basilica on the surface, on which only a look would mean death. The voices of the dead being heard in the pipeline if you listen long enough. By far my fav haunted setting.
I would have added The Alpha Halo, while it has been explained, there is always a feeling of errieness that takes the back of the spine whenever you stop and look at the empty buildings and wonder what happened before this war arrived, and don't get me started on the Swamps
I think a worthy addition to this would be Arkham Asylum. In some ways, perhaps it doesn't fit your criteria. We know what evil lurks there. The Joker. Two Face. The Scarecrow. Yet what I feel makes Arkham a haunted place is that there seems to always be a feel of a sourceless madness to it all. Those stories that tell of the asylum's founding almost always hint and touch upon this idea as well. That the land itself is cursed, that even the sane lose their minds if they linger too long. That atmosphere of malevolence is, I feel, an important part of any depiction of Arkham. It is that atmosphere of insanity that combines with those evils we can see, such as The Joker, that makes Arkham a truly haunted house.
Ah, the Skull Pit...
In a universe where "literal daemonic possession" is considered a legitimate, reasonable and verifiable explanation, there's truly something scary about stuff that the Imperium can't explain.
The conclusions of the Institute's hauntologists are more definitive than my own - I'm merely a hauntometrist - but since you mentioned having consulted with the Institute's ghost hunters, I would suggest New York City, specifically the Shandor Building and the resulting Gozer Incident, as another Honorable Mention. While the Ghostbusters were ultimately successful in unraveling the mystery and dealing with the issue, a big question remains: why then?
Tobin suggests in his Spirit Guide that it happened in 1984 because that year was one when, in effect, The Stars Were Right - but his research also indicates 1945 was similarly attuned, and Shandor died that year with no Gozerian arrival. It can't be that Shandor or his cult were prevented from carrying out a rite or ritual, because by the 80's no Gozer-summoning rituals were being carried out at all, but a Keymaster and Gatekeeper were chosen from the general population anyway.
Apparently, random people being demonically possessed to help some moldy Babylonian god suddenly show up and start tearing up the city (sorry: _Sumerian,_ not Babylonian, big difference) is all ultimately just A Thing That Can Happen. The implications of that are more than a little unsettling.
As always awesome
The Zone from S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
There are parts, like The Rookie Villiage, that feel lived in and alive. There are parts that just seem like wilderness plus a few unusual elements. There are ruins of old laboratories where you really feel that something's off. But you can never quite shake the feeling that there's a bit more that you're missing. Even if you can't see radiation or various anomalies, you have a geiger counter for the former and there are ways to discern the latter. But it always feels like there's something else that you'll never get more than a feeling of.
The Vaults of Winter are strange and unexplained but I definitely feel like Mordhiem would have been a better choice for most haunted.
Or skavenblight, imagine living in a world where a race like the Skaven are just willed into existence and then your eaten alive by giant rats before you can even ask why.
I'd like to nominate Rose Red as an honorable mention. Even as a "dead cell" it was creepy af. Charge it up with psychic energy and it was I think WORSE than The Overlook hotel.
Lavender Town was the first thing I thought of, though it does seem fairly tame in comparison to the list, I'll admit.
Glad you gave session 9 a shout out
A personal favorite of mine has to be the hospital (I forget the name) from The Void (2016). Already the hospital is a little creepy being manned by a skeleton crew in the middle of the night, but only gets more disturbing once you start adding in the supernatural details like supernatural geometry, cultists surrounding the place, and then the goddam basement which looked creepy on a shoestring budget.
I've got the exact same theory for what the Upside Down is; it's a timeline where Lovecraftian monsters invaded, consumed Humanity, and now seek to move on to other worlds like locusts.