Due to my current state of upheaval preparatory to movin' out West (well, as far as Peoria), I know that I will not be able to do any significant Alyria writing for at least six weeks. HOWEVER....

Due to recent comments from folks (particularly Ron and my wife), I have come to see that my ideas of what would make for useful setting information are different than other folks' ideas. So, in the spirit of producing a useable game, I thought that I would solicit input from all of you. Here is the question:

What setting information do you need to run a successful game of Alyria?

To be clear, I am only talking about the next PDF that I release, not the final product (whenever that will happen). Certainly there is a lot that I'd like to include, but for now I want to focus on the basics.

So please, pile on the requests. I need to know what you think would be useful information.

Hi Seth,

I like the material in the Dreaming Out Loud zipfile, which gives the "player knowledge" summary of the history of Alyria, the Citadel, and the basic rundown of the vocabulary like The Blessed and dragons. That all works very well for me.

Since Alyria provides a setting-driven Premise, the setting needs to include concrete details - mind you, not complete, but concrete. There's a difference. Think in terms of clothes, features, furniture, and mannerisms. Think in terms of landscapes (e.g. how can the arches not be described so as to invoke MacDonald's jokes?).

I also like the descriptions you provided for the Citadel and surrounding areas, here in the forums. The webbing/material/sheets brought up by someone turned out to be reeeeally cool during play.

You go to dinner in a medium-level dwelling in the Citadel. What do you eat? What's it feel like? Cold? Hot? Can you read using the electric light-device, or is that reserved for the upper crust? How did you arrive? Are there horses, or what?

Most especially, imagine some art. Remember, we can't see inside your head. Say an artist gives you a picture of a typical amazon-D&D swordswoman fighting a very Hildebrandt-looking dragon. What's wrong with it? Why wouldn't you use it? Everything: clothes, hair, shoes, the sword, posture, composition, various dragon features, the sky, the treasure, everything. Now reverse it and when you describe such elements, scattered throughout text or examples, make it clear. Make it so clear that I could imagine the right sort of picture myself. Do this a lot, and create reams and reams of concrete notes, from which you will pick perhaps 10% actually to include in the manuscript.

Scale is also a concern. I don't need a detailed map of the Citadel, but I would like an idea of how big it is, in size not populations, relative to real cities - Chicago? Peoria? Same goes for the plateaus in general.

Best,
Ron