"They are elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty."
— Oscar Wilde
"I'll take care of it, Luke said. And because he said it instead of her, I knew he meant kill. That is what you have to do before you kill, I thought. You have to create an it, where none was before."
— Margaret Atwood
Weird Ingredients: A Designer's Guide
One of the things that I'm absolutely loving about Starmourn is just how damn weird it is.
We're playing in a world that's sent in a far out distant future, with alien species on alien planets. This logistically means that many of the materials and ingredients we would use today don't/shouldn't exist in this world, but as new players it's hard for us to come up with such far-fetched ideas that are still likely to resonate with our own audiences. An example of this would be in Cuisine. Let's say I want to make a fruit salad, what kinds of fruits am I using? Grapes, apples? These belong on Earth, but that doesn't mean they'd be common (or exist at all) in the Starmourn Sector.
So an idea I have is for all of us to share any weird ingredients and materials we come across in our travels through Starmourn. This way all of us designers can find some inspiration for what sort of additions we should be making to the game.
Additionally, if @Aurelius, @Tecton, @Eukelade, @Oryx and team would be willing to chime in, I bet we can get some documentation going that would really help us all out.
We're playing in a world that's sent in a far out distant future, with alien species on alien planets. This logistically means that many of the materials and ingredients we would use today don't/shouldn't exist in this world, but as new players it's hard for us to come up with such far-fetched ideas that are still likely to resonate with our own audiences. An example of this would be in Cuisine. Let's say I want to make a fruit salad, what kinds of fruits am I using? Grapes, apples? These belong on Earth, but that doesn't mean they'd be common (or exist at all) in the Starmourn Sector.
So an idea I have is for all of us to share any weird ingredients and materials we come across in our travels through Starmourn. This way all of us designers can find some inspiration for what sort of additions we should be making to the game.
Additionally, if @Aurelius, @Tecton, @Eukelade, @Oryx and team would be willing to chime in, I bet we can get some documentation going that would really help us all out.
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Comments
Materials
Edit: It's been pointed out to me that I missed this from the wiki. It's incomplete though, so I'm going to keep editing and adding stuff to this post.Nanoplastic
Polyleather
Merovo silk
Ingredients
Hypermeat
Synthetic meat.
Krellian Grapes
— Oscar Wilde
"I'll take care of it, Luke said. And because he said it instead of her, I knew he meant kill. That is what you have to do before you kill, I thought. You have to create an it, where none was before."
— Margaret Atwood
We're totally open to people putting together a proposal to help us further the lore/world, with the understanding that we may reject it entirely, and if accepted it's quite likely to be altered minorly to majorly by us.
In terms of consumables, here's a partial list of foods that are canon.
— Oscar Wilde
"I'll take care of it, Luke said. And because he said it instead of her, I knew he meant kill. That is what you have to do before you kill, I thought. You have to create an it, where none was before."
— Margaret Atwood
— Oscar Wilde
"I'll take care of it, Luke said. And because he said it instead of her, I knew he meant kill. That is what you have to do before you kill, I thought. You have to create an it, where none was before."
— Margaret Atwood
Faction: Song Dominion
Class: Engineer
Faction: Song Dominion
Class: Engineer
Realistically, why would we not all be eating Ambrosia flavoured nutrient pastes?
Make me my pickled Hinka Fruit.
Because that would be boring. I like food. I don't eat and cook to not be hungry, I do it for the same reason I fuck with no intention of procreation: because it's fun, it makes me happy, and I like doing it in a variety of awesome ways.
My fridge contains both cucumbers and pickled cucumbers. Access to fresh produce does not prevent me from enjoying the latter.
— Oscar Wilde
"I'll take care of it, Luke said. And because he said it instead of her, I knew he meant kill. That is what you have to do before you kill, I thought. You have to create an it, where none was before."
— Margaret Atwood
By the way:
Synthetic Cloth: syncloth, polyfiber, fibrisilk, synleather
Natural: Fleetweave, hardweave, cotton, grub silk < crezan silk < merovian silk (price and quality), leather, velvet, elastic, lace
It would probably be easiest to begin a list of 'nearest-related' translations of ingredients (I.E. What we behind the screen recognize as cabbage, is usually ____ in Starmourn). You could pad in a little flexibility here, since alien words for everything can become exhausting, by writing it off as our mindsim universal translators over-simplifying.
Bring on the space cabbages!
You don't have to reference a SmartCore tag in a design for it to be approved - it is assumed that every garment and piece of armor in Starmourn will be fabricated with that technology. Though I do love seeing references to it, and think it fits well (get it?) with our gameworld.
Using descriptive terms like gothic and baroque is fine in the long-form description (This long, black coat is a ruffled, lacy concoction with intricate gothic styling), but those terms are borderline in the appearance field. We want designs and items to evoke a sense of the galaxy we all are pretending to inhabit. If a descriptive word is found to be too esoteric/obscure and too closely married to a specific earth culture, it might be rejected.
Pickles are fine. Pickles are more than fine. I love pickles. Just make sure they aren't pickled cucumbers, because cucumbers don't exist.
If not, can we have one so we can stick it on pizza?
Also, can someone explain exactly what fleetweave is? Is it a style? Or a particular material? Mix of both?
Thanks!
It's space linen, basically.
And sure, let's make a space pineapple. The Pippalap fruit is now available in the marketplaces of Prugita.
Faction: Song Dominion
Class: Engineer
That being said, ORGANIC materials from earth may not have a space equivalent, but MINERAL materials from earth should. So gemstones and metals and the like should be all fair game.
I've also started compiling a list of organic stuff from room descs/critters/items I come across in game. It's pretty short atm because I've been bashing-focused, but as an example, from Biloxin's swamps:
Plantlife:
Lyssla trees: Massive bases of roots that emerge above the water/swamp line and support thick trunks that climb 20 meters high and have palmate leaves and globe-like fruits with luminous scales ranging from aqua to indigo in color.
Critters:
Eskama: Orange body feathers and a brilliant plume of crimson feathers and a long, curved bill.
1) Golsul: Silicates extracted from the Golpur region serves as a condiment across the Starmourn sector. Known for its unique mineral flavor and preservative properties, it is a staple in all cuisines
2) Dewlite: Harvest from the highest treelines in Sabiak, aqueous condensate on the fresh new leaves have a heady, chlorophyll flavor which is considered aphrodisiac in many cultures.
3) Burley: The trunk of several trees in Sabiak exhibit 'knots'. These knots produce a sweet taste, with a fibrous, cellulite texture. Used as a sweetner to produce burley-candy. It is said, the more aged the tree, the sweeter the taste of the knot.
So long as you don't break any of the current design submission rules, this is ok by me! So in other words, no using clothing-based holotech to make your character look like other characters or force actions/emotions on other players, etc. But describing some flashy lights or flickering overlays to add pizzazz is cool.
@TextWench - I think it is ok to use earth words to describe flavors and things. You can say something tastes like vanilla, without stating that the flavor was derived from a pod plucked from a Vanilla planifolia. You can describe a color as 'cherry red' despite cherries not really existing anywhere. I'd say just try to keep earthlike references tasteful and low key, and don't absolutely jam-pack your descriptions with nonstop amounts of very specific earth words, species, cultural concepts, etc.
I know it's a sometimes blurry line, but as Starmourn gets a few more months under its belt I think we'll all find a comfortable middle ground that feels familiar enough to be fun without being too familiar.
— Oscar Wilde
"I'll take care of it, Luke said. And because he said it instead of her, I knew he meant kill. That is what you have to do before you kill, I thought. You have to create an it, where none was before."
— Margaret Atwood