Descriptions are the key to greatness.
Not everyone has a gift for words. Indeed, English is not even everyone's first language. But even so, everyone can write a description. Hopefully, this Guide will give you some guidelines to get you started. If you have any questions about descriptions, Mail me.
Are you a heavily muscled Alatharyan Barbarian, fresh off the plains with a grim smirk on your face? Or perhaps you are a rotund water scholar, barely able to walk from one side of Var Bandor to the other? On the other hand, you could be a slim shuddeni swordmaster, agile and quick with the eyeless glance of evil.
The point is, before you can write a good description, you must have a good idea of who your character is.
For instance, the helpfile for Shuddeni tells you that they have no eyes. Or, the helpfile for the Nefortu tells about the small, bat-like wings of that race. Check out the Races page for more information on each race.
A background story is your character's past. What has happened to your character to place him/her in their current situation? What do you know about their family, their home, their friends, why they chose their current proffession, and any and all special events that took place in their life.
Once you know the above information, and any other information you believe necessary, the description writing process will become much easier. Also, once your character has been fleshed out with a past, details will come easier. If they were beaten as a child, this might lead you to add hints of that to your description. Perhaps you will see long-healed scars, or whips marks. If your character was born rich, and always pampered, perhaps this will also show. But despite what the past is, it is certainly necessary.
For instance, the line, He comes up to you and disembowels you with a single strike of his hand." would not only be amazingly bad in a realistic sense, but would include an action that would seem to be performed every time someone looks at you. This is ridiculous.
This gives the impression of something that may or may not be fearful, depending on who reads it. And in truth, this is the purpose of descriptions: to give the reader a good idea of what your character looks like, while also giving them a chance to interpret the clues you've left in the description about your character's past and personality.
Their may be exceptions to this, depending on what you believe. In truth, I don't believe describing a small artifact, like a pendant or ring that is separate from your character's actual items will hurt anything, as long as this item serves a purpose for being in your description, such as for roleplaying reasons.
Before you stands a lean shuddeni, clad in black robes that seem to swirl about him like the shadows collecting at the setting of the sun. His hair matches the color of his robes, also being of stark, raven-black color. His skin is smooth and of a pale gray in color, a sharp contrast to his dark hair. His nose 5 resembles a hawk in some strange manner that you can't quite put your finger on, but this does not seem to detract from the overall portrait of the shuddeni. Outwardly he seems somewhat frail, prone to the harshness of the world. Perhaps what is most strange about him, is his complete lack of eyes. Where the eyes should be, a gaping hole is found, a hole that seems to burn with an inner 10 flame, flaring and burning, embodying the very essence of the sphere he serves, that of Fire. His skin is relatively unmarked, but you can tell that he is one that has fought the harshness of the world, and embraced it. Tattoos mark the palms of his hands, twining about his thin wrists and ending halfway up the arm. They are also of a black color, yet they seem to writhe and burn as if they are 15 made of pure fire themselves, sometimes seeming to change to an angry red...Alright. There's a lot here, so let's take a look at certain key points.
Firstly, in the first line this tells about something the character is wearing. Again, I would not suggest including clothing in descriptiong, but this one gets away with it, I think. Also, the addition of the simile in Line 2: like the shadows collecting at the setting of the sun add a nice touch that is a sort of redemption for the clothes bit.
Now, we run into our next problem, Line 3. If this player had known anything about shuddeni, they would have found that Shuddeni have no hair. Now, if this was a newbie character, this would be acceptable, as the helpfile seems to lack this information from some odd reason. But now you know, so don't add hair to any new Shuddeni!
Ahh, here is something good. Lines 4-6 describe something the reader might feel, without coming out and saying, 'You think his nose is like a hawk's beak.' Very nicely done, by hinting at what might be felt, and adding line stating: 'that you can't quite put your finger on'
Lines 7-10 are very well done, in my opinion. Descriptions should contain lots of adjectives, trying to convey a certain picture. The whole theme of flaring and whatnot goes well with the Fire Scholar class.
Lines 13-15 are particularly nice. The addition of the tattoos to the character adds something to remember them by, something that is different, and that is often good. The last sentence is also well done, reinforcing the impression of the malavolence and anger that I get from this description.
Overall, I'd say this description is fairly well thought it, and nicely done. I'd give it....a 7 out of 10