d20 Past - Anyone using it?

[mythusmage]

Buzz, I expect you expect that I expect it to be bigger than I do.

That aside, a writing example from yours truly.

We call it Mesopotamia; the Land of the Two Rivers. It is an alluvial plain bound in the north by mountains, to the east by mountains and highlands, to the south by the Persian Gulf, and in the west by highlands rising to the Syrian plains.

The year is 6,000BC. Mesopotamia more closely resembles the East African veldt. Complete with herds of antelope and wild cattle. Prides of lions dwell in the grasslands while leopards prowl the brush. At this time the Tigris and the Euphrates have separate mouths. Their joining will not occur for thousands of years.

Man is present here, a tall, slender brown-skinned folk with medium brown hair and brown eyes. Nomads in the mountains and highlands, settled farmers on the plains itself. The latter live in villages for the most part, though some communities have grown into small towns. The growing population and attendent prosperity is leading to job specialization and social stratification. The first steps towards record keeping are being made.

Out of the Zagros Mountains to the north and east a new people are coming. They are a short, stocky people with fair skin, dark eyes and dark hair. In the centuries to come their neighbors will come to know them as "The Black-Haired People". They will conquer or displace those they meet, settling the length of Mesopotamia; though the heart of their land will be southern Mesopotamia. In time they will fade away, interbreeding with their neighbors, their culture mixing with theirs. But before then they will devise many things; war, religion, writing, irrigation, the wheel, literature. From them will come the soldier and the priest. From them the first hero and the first tragedy. At a time when the Egyptians are a neolithic culture they will work in bronze. When the ancestors of the Chin live in villages they will raise cities. They will create the bureaucracies, the governmental structures that allow for the first empire. Their gods will become Semite gods, their legends Semite myths.

They are the Sumerians, and though their pre-eminence will last but a thousand years, it will be the foundation upon which all that follows will stand.

Okay, probably not your cup of tea, but it illustrates my point. Put yourself into your writing and write in a manner that says to the reader that you actually care about the subject. If you don't care you can't expect your readers to care.

You're not writing technical manuals here, you're writing guidelines for bringing worlds to life. If you won't bring your world to life for the GM, how can you expect the GM to bring your world to life for his players?