Environmental storytelling

Sites have stories to tell. You should be able to answer questions like:

• Who built this place?
• How did it fall into ruin or disuse?
• Who or what dwells here now?
• When and why did they arrive?
• What are they up to now?
• What else has happened here?

The procedures later in this chapter Creating sites will help you establish the site's story, as will the resources in Book II: The Wider World and Other Wonders.

In play, you tell a site's story through its nouns—through the rooms or areas you present, the way you describe the environment, and the dangers and discoveries you put in front of the PCs.

For example, let's say your site was a Stone Lord temple to Aratis, then perverted by the Barrow Builders, and later sealed away by the Hillfolk. When the PCs explore it, they might find a crude stone slab, carved with warnings and runes. If they pried it open, they'd find a vast, dusty hall, lined with marred icons of Aratis. Further in: a blood-stained altar, discarded bones, and the tormented ghosts of sacrificial victims.

Now, what if a sorcerer has recently been here to claim the site's power? Then that stone slab would be ajar. The sorcerer's footprints might be visible in the dust. If the PCs approached the altar, they'd smell the rotting corpse of a recent victim. If they weren't careful, they'd get attacked by some unnatural vermin, drawn to the offal.