Monster Writing Guide: Page 3
The hills have eyes. Your arms don't.
"Of course my arms don't have eyes, Ambrosia you silly billy!"
Well, yes, but that's not the point.
Looking back at the description I put on the last page, you might notice the
following part:
"The legs, just like the arms, are powerful and predatory, clearly built for chasing potential pray, and chasing it with an impressive speed."
Aside of the typoing of the word 'prey' (Did you catch it earlier?), lovely legs
there. Would hate to go into a running competition with that one. BUT!
Remember that while the above description might perhaps make perfect sense on
your critters, you always, always need to consider a player having mixed
mutations.
Let me repeat that:
Always consider that a player might have mixed up mutations!
So, hence my comment about your arms not having eyes. The arms don't know what
the legs look like. The legs don't know what the torso looks like. The forms a
player ends up with will potentially, at some point, be mix and match, so a
bodypart simply must not reference another bodypart. No matter if the arms are
'just like' the legs, no matter if they are 'similar to the head', etc. etc.
It's an absolute nono, and the most potential pitfall is describing the exterior
of the bodyparts on the bodyparts themselves, like feathers or the color or
texture of the skin. There is an extra skin bodypart for that!
So, so far we are down to:
1. Be descriptive, and be as detailed in your description as to give a good,
accurate image of the critter
2. Don't repeat yourself! Use synonyms, describe what limbs might potentially be for, always keep in mind that bodyparts might not just be individual mutations, but also should be non-annoying to read on the singular critter description.
3. At the same time, do not make one bodypart reference another, because of the exact aformentioned possibility of the bodyparts being mix and matched on a player. Or even critter!
"Ha, but I'm making the occulaoctopus! It has eyes on its arms! What now??"
Er..I give. But not the point. Moving on to the next page after this important
message:
Also always consider that a player might have a different gender!
That means the player might have breasts, when the normal critter does not.
They might be male, female, herm or even neuter!
Always use 'they' and 'their' instead of his/her/she/he etc. in the
descriptions. if you want a literal "They", simply wrap it in brackets: [They]
"Are we done with the descriptions yet???"
Actually...
Actually yes, yes we are. With all the points and guides on the previous three
pages, you should have a good set of guidelines that hopefully will result in
imaginative, interesting to read, non-repetitive descriptions that do not fall
into the trap of mixed mutations and different genders, and should give people a
very good idea about what you are exactly imagining the critter to look like.
But looks aren't all that there is to a beast of the nanite apocalypse, is
there?
After all, Sally the cow might look adorable, but beware her fetish for having
you trampled beneath her mighty hooves!
Which brings us to the next page.
Page 1 - General description guideline
Page 3 - The Hills Have Eyes; Your Arms Don't.
Page 5 - Keeping Things Interesting
