The crystals are the main source of magic in the world. When I walk away from the game I want to say, \"Wow, if only we had some of those crystals here. Everything would be so cool. Imagine what I could do.\" I\'m not going to walk away from the game thinking \"I wish I had some of those crystals... and some rain that magically appears... and some ogres falling from the sky for no apparent reason... and trees underground.\" It\'s too much of a stretch of the imagination to do all that. The fantasy has to be believable in such a way that people can leave the game wishing that the world they live in had that one detail that made the fantasy world so enjoyable. You want something that people can obsess over and want to know all the details of, something that can be explained better than \"oh yeah, that\'s magic.\"

If I had been told \"well, the ceiling is so high the water vapor has room to form into clouds and condense\" then I would have been satisfied. Figure out exactly how high you consider the ceiling to be before you start handing out such facts.  And then there will be atmospheric conditions to consider and whatnot... solidify the background.

00Matthew

I realize the whole world of PlaneShift is fantasy so there are going to be some things which don\'t make sense until the rules of the fantasy are understood... could someone explain to me why the building have roofs, why there is fog, and what all those trees are doing alive and underground?

It would make a little sense if there was something saying all the people living down underground decended from people from above who brought their building styles and plant life below... what\'s the tie?

00Matthew