Darkest Heresy

As I am sure any GM will attest describing a scene in an imaginative and engaging manner can be hard to do, especially if giving the description with little warning.

Many are the times my acolytes have wandered off my laid out path and I’ve fallen to a stammering description of ‘entering a medium sized dark room with a single light… and some crates and stuff piled against a wall.’ Hardly inspiring stuff compared to ‘bursting into a dingy hole of a room, litter and debris scattered across the floor… A single flickering glow lamp illuminates a pile of discarded shipping crates in one corner near a boarded up window.’

But how to improve the quality of your off the cuff narrative? The answer, at least for me, is brainstorming.

As often as possible I think of ways to describe scenes, characters, plot hooks, combat actions or anything else that comes to mind. When I’m at work, reading a book or any time my mind is free to wander. Then, as soon as I can, I write them down. The effect is I improve my ability to describe situations on the fly, and as a bonus I build up a catalogue of pre-written blurb for when I write an adventure.

So what is this post all about? Well, apart from sharing my simple methods, I thought I may as well share my ramblings so that someone can find them useful. Every so often I’ll post a similar inspiration post on a particular theme. The aim is to keep them generic and adaptable, so I’ll leave out NPCs and things like blood spatters that may sound as if they are plot specific.

Today you get locations, specifically a military base.

Corridor:

Grimy grid metal floors are illuminated by a string of overhead glow globes. Dirty white stencilled letters signpost important areas, and heavy looking armoured doors seal off rooms marked Lab 08, Storage, and X-18-319.

Canteen:

Sparse tables and benches sit in neat rows across the large hall, faded motivational posters adorning otherwise bare walls. At the far end you can see the serving counter and a large set of swing doors leading, presumably, to the kitchen.

Garage:

Large, blocky APCs and tanks dominate the garage, tool benches, tanks of petroleum and crates of ammunition lining the sides of the room. Larger arcane looking tools hang suspended from cranes. Everywhere is well lit by ceiling mounted glow globes, and hazard stripes and safety markings seem to mark every surface. An overseers office overlooks the space, accessible only by a single staircase.

Bunker:

Thick armour-crete walls cracked with age and a single heavy steel door guard you against outside attack. A beat up, hand cranked vox caster is bolted to one wall and next to it utilitarian posters advise of nearby armouries and rally points. In the middle of a large vision slit is mounted a heavy stubber, several boxes of shells stacked below it.

Hope those are of some use to people. Feel free to add your own scenes in this theme to the comments below, or suggest ways to improve these inspiration posts.

-J