Become Famous! Write An Area Description

Just to be nitpicky..

Imho, you should avoid to describe what you can already see and focus in feelings and atmosphere.

For example:

It's quite redundant, you can already see that on the map. That kind of literal description could/should be shortened, is meant to pnp.
But:

It's absolutely perfect. That's pure rpging description, you're givin feeling and sensations to add to what players can see :clap:
(btw, i see some typos, but i'm not sure if they're typos at all... i guess i'm not the right guy to look at that )
That kind of description, makes players be suspicious even from the sword close to the giant (and dammit, i've been intrigued by that since always)

Seriously, this could be great. Emridy Meadows should be eerie...but it looks like the park next my house Lots of places could take advantage of this :yes:

 

It might help if you post the first (main) map of each area, plus a list of [likely] monsters etc.

That way, we can write descriptions with elements of foreshadowing instead of *just* a written description of the map...or at least maybe a link to the best thread for each area.

--thearioch

 

Or how about "Atmospheres" from the soundtrack of "2001, A Space Odyssey". Sounds like the wind, kind of creepy.

The pics look GREAT!

 

Okay, here goes, for Hickory Branch:

As you pass along the Low Road, you notice a trail, almost hidden by the trees, that heads off to the northwest. You decide to investigate... after a mile or so, the trail widens into a clearing.

The first thing that strikes you is the smell. Rotting meat, feces, death and decay, a pungent miasma of odors drifts in the breeze. Gnawed bones lie scattered about, some of them of men. It seems that many dangerous animals live here. You hear a wolf's low moan beyond the trees. Senses alert, you creep forward... fear dogging your every step.

Then you spy the litter. Discarded tools, broken weapons and armor, ill-kept before they were cast aside... creatures, barely more than animals, have made this foul area their home. This is not a place for you.

Before you can withdraw, there's a cry of rage... you've been discovered!

Casting aside their knitting, the Circle of 8 attacks...

 

Humm... i was suggesting not to change or add description, but to avoid the literal description.
There's no need for a long text that explains what it's already on the screen.
Just to make it clear:
"A scrub of thorns, thistles, weeds, and shrubs grows thickly along the edge of the track which leads to the Moathouse ruins"...i can already see that, there's no need to extra text

Oi, i meant about the descriptions, not actually a change in graphics LOL
In any case, i always thougth that Emridy needed a bit of enhancement :yes:
Graphically, i'm thinking in something more eerie than scary... maybe a few more bones or armors, covered with some kind of Ivy or the like...even butterflies, would look really...hum...melancholic. Rain? Fog? Something sad...

Indeed, silence will work really good. Sometimes the sound goes out in the temple, and the steps of the charcters sound ominous. :yes:

Visceral :blink:
Personally, i like it. The kind of description my players would love. :gotmyatte
For ToEE i would add a bit more "epicism", Gaear's style in the first post (emridy) looks quite good. It is mysterious, and has that goofyness all rpgs need

 

Okay so:

As our little band of weary travellers trudge dejectedly torwards nowhere on the road to their doom, Dweedlemeyer the Mighty espies an opening through the Horse Chestnuts. And through the opening, a Buxom Elven Maiden (technically, sort of rare).

"Horse Chestnuts! Check out those chestnuts!", he cried hoarsely. "Stand back as I ready my trusty lance!"

"More like a toothpick, if you ask me.", quipped Falderol the Sarcastic, But Somewhat Effiminate.

"Hot Damn! Fresh Meat!" sighed the shy Elven Maiden. "Bring it On, Bitches! Form a line on the right. Five at a time, please."

And the battle of Hickory Branch began...

 

This one is a submission for Welkwood Bog.


------


The odor of the bog struck you long before your first glimpse. The pungent smell of sodden, decayed wood and corpulent mosses are thick in the still air of the Welkwood. A carpet of green stretches through the valley floor under a perpetually gray and brooding sky. The blackened husks of suffocated trees line the bog floor, their broken and jagged trunks stretch like fingers to the unmerciful heavens in futile supplication. Leeching the last drop of life and sustenance from the trees are thick, ropy vines that spread from the trees in twitching, purple clusters.
The water of the bog is an unhealthy brown; opaque enough to hide the secrets its shallow waters have swallowed. The waters of the Welkwood can sustain only the most adaptive and cunning creatures. The carpet of peat and sphagnum rests mostly undisturbed, but sinister ripples and small waves occasionally disturb the stillness of the waters, as if something moves beneath.

 

Gaear, is the kind of thing you want essentially this kind of thing:

In other words, just atmosphere and description?

Everyone ought to take a shot at this...10,000 monkeys on 10,000 keyboards for 10,000 years...

 

Feel free to desecrate, abuse and butcher; I mean edit. Use what you want.

"I can make it longer, if you like the style. I can change it 'round cause I want to be a paperback writer. Paperback Writer!"