I'm with Damian - adventure seeds are ten-a-penny, but you can never have too much atmospheric context in which to set your campaigns. One of the best treatments I have come across is this introduction to Algandy by Stephen Dove:
http://dragonwarriors.wikifoundry.com/p ... of+AlgandyI have also read Stephen's treatment of the Nomad Khanates, which sadly isn't available on the Wiki (or anywhere, I don't think
), but more of that ilk would definitely be welcomed. The problem with the general trend towards more civilised and santised FRPG writing is that it relies too much on overt fantasy and tends not to be very 'personal'.
Following on from Dave Morris's
recent blog post on investing players in interactive fiction by telling the story through dialogue and anecdote rather than description, the same works for regional supplements, too. By far the best thing about Cadaver Draconis are the little NPC quotes and I'd say the same for the journal extracts that I have for the Brymstone material (I know, I know...). If the reader can get a
feel for what life is like for ordinary folk , it will make it much easier to run an adventure/campaign there. A lot of supplements start too big - with the politics and demographics, etc., and completely gloss over what existence is like for the thousands of real people that given an environment life. A lot of this is because in many FRPGs, the heroes are powerful people who consort with barons and bishops, but our noble dragon warriors are not so grand - they may live in the same dirty hovels as the peasants they have dedicated their lives to protecting; maybe scratching together enough coin from danger-filled adventures to be able to afford a night in a clean inn every now and again, but their diet is not the princely banquets heroes of other games enjoy, but the thin greasy stew freely given by destitute peasants in return for freeing the mind of a child in their village from the grip of a fey enchantment (although, unbeknownst to the characters, such sorcery is not so easily dispelled, only displaced, and even now the cursed seed festers in the wavering will of another local child, soon to be entranced by the empty promises of the spirits that stalk shadows of the doomed child's dreams).
Any particular reason for asking, Kharille?