I want page designs!

Like:

Would that be a per page or a per book thing..?

I think this would be great, but I want to go one further.

I see lots of books where people do things like:

** There is an engraving in the middle of the page with a dolphin chortling as winged elephants feed him hazelnuts upon a skyscape of marbled vermillion. **

And I don't like it.

Even worse is the occasions when people up their word count for prestige purposes with something like this:

A sketch of a rockeater

** Looking like a rock itself, a mountain rockeater is a large, heavy animal with claws that glitter like sharp quartz. Its eyes are small gray orbs with tiny black pupils that swivel within hard bony sockets. Its mouth is lined with rows of sharp teeth that are as hard as diamonds, able to grind down even the hardest granite to dust. When the rockeater opens its huge maw, steam from its superheated internal organs blasts forth in a smoky cloud. A mountain rockeater exudes a quiet confidence. **

Because that's just cheating as far as I'm concerned.

So maybe you could have one 'picture' per page, and the picture shows up at the top in a different colour with wording similar to yours and we can end the library picture convention word-count cheat.

Discuss.

Indeed. I've always wanted to write a Serenwilde Picture Book, one picture per page, that goes the same way as I've suggested above. Just like those old books with fancy pictures in them.

Page designs could have a very slight magical aspect to them(as such, magic ink should be used)

Here's my take on it:


Edit:
There should be a limit on the page design, too, perhaps not more than x number of words

I'm all for implementing picture designs for books but I really don't get why you think the current way of handling it is wrong. Sure, quoting an -exact- description of something is beyond lame and really annoys me, especially when it's all over the place. I successfully critiqued 'The Tailor's Catalogue' precisely because of that - not even a sliver of work was put into rendering the designs somehow, it was a straight copy from pattern into the book. Same could be said of various other titles. But small things, really?

To give examples... Lenalith's 'Newcomer's Guide to Magnagora' has really delightful vistas of Magnagora on each page, themed with the area that is being talked about. Sure, the whole thing, proper text wise, is rather short, and these images boost it (although I know that wasn't her intention). I honestly believe though that this short book, even if extended, would lose a lot without these splendid works of art.

Another example is my own 'Magnagoran Winter' which has watercolour renderings edging the text, mixing with it. The intention wasn't at all to boost the word-count but to include various scenes from a painting that inspired Nariah to write this piece, a thank you of sorts to her brother, and the author of the painting, Othero. In my humble opinion the colour theme and mood of the writing, of the scroll itself, and of the renderings, melt flawlessly and really brings the musings to life.

Maybe from a strictly OOC viewpoint, since IC they are 'considered' images, it's somewhat unfair because they are not an actual part of the scholarly essay or a poem. But at the same time, from an OOC point of view, I consider them a vital piece since it too is writing and usually quite remarkable. Should we really only use the library to publish strict essays with not an ornamentation? Are paintings/sketches/designs included and used right, really such a horrendous crime against the system? And how is that sort of writing of less value than slapped together childish poems I wonder? Sure, writing a scholarly essay, a coherent one, is much harder than writing out a picture, but for a lot of people designing in Lusternia is an art of words much like writing a successful, emotion-evoking poem is. Not to mention, they often take it to a level literary pieces can't even dream of.

In answer to the word-count problem, the Admin can disregard descriptions within the page.

I didn't say wrong. I just said I didn't like it. That may sound like a lawyer's distinction, but what you said makes it sound like my opinion is a representation of policy, when in fact it isn't - it's a personal preference. I just happen to find it unimmersive. I can agree that people have done pictures in books very nicely, but I would prefer a specific mechanism for it.

Aye, looking over my post it sounds rather accusatory and renders you looking like a hater of the art - that wasn't the intention, apologies. I more wanted to know precisely why you don't like it and "finding it unimmersive" is precisely what I was looking for. The page design idea would really address that and make everyone happy. I'm not too fond of how we have to go about it myself, it's just the only way we can right now.

Warning: this post has turned out to be way too lengthy, I'll try to summarise it in bullet point form later.

As for how to implement that... Well that's rather tricky and I have more questions than answers. One per page only? Limiting a tiny bit but sure. Limiting the word-count is fair too. However, running it through Bookbinding as a typical pattern skill could make the process unbearably tedious whenever we wanted something more special than a golden border or a sketch of the Megalith in the backdrop. Might not be as bad as I imagine it of course, but the probability of it not being used at all, and making the life of these few who'd want to use it a misery, raises with the level of difficulty involved as opposed to how we currently handle it.

I'm a bit iffy too on Bookbinders being that artistically talented as to create renderings comparable to those in the Sistin Chapel but I suppose that's easily fixed by throwing some magicink into the equation. Not to mention already some of the designs sport such works of art as to be able to put the Chapel to shame!

Another issue is whether we make it more 'page designs' or 'page picture designs'. Something like mentioned below:

Or that plus the ability to 'examine book1234 on page 4' which would give us crazy-on-designing people the ability to include sweet details. It could have a sensible word limit too. Altogether, it would need the extra short desc for how it would appear an the 'carrier' , the on-the-page design and the examined design.

Also, how would these be implemented into the book itself? Handled like sorcelglass where the Bookbinder creates a magicscroll with several applications you read at/press into the pages, or done on a page to page basis by the Bookbinder. The first allows them to sell these = and we wouldn't have to rely on tracking down a Bookbinder each time, so that would be preferable.

Perhaps Bookbinders could also have a skill to implement one of the designs throughout the whole book that only they could do at the bindery, and they could use it without having to create the magicscroll itself, just straight into the book off the pattern. Then, instead of pressing the magicscroll to 25 pages yourself, you take it to a Bookbinder to handle. In this case the book type would define the necessary multiply in commodities needed, perhaps cut down by some percent due to the Bookbinder's mastery to make it worthwhile on a few fronts.

Bookbinders could also have the ability to purge a specific page off its design so that when you have it ornamented throughout in one go by the Bookbinder, you could still include that special sketch/picture here or there manually.

There is also the whole issue of how to create these designs to fit into the whole 'of the on page '. The easiest way would be to omit it altogether and just go with: 'Done in pastel shades of pink and blue, a border of entwining ribbons runs along the outer side of the page.' (disalow using left and right!). The alternative is to make it very complex and including a whole extravaganza of variables which would place the idea in the 'never gonna happen' file cabinet. If we really wanted the book design/page to be included (and I would as book designs are way too often not even acknowledged), a line saying what and where you open could be added to reading a book (or tweaking the current one since it already mentions a page).

Alternatively, if to avoid running it through the Charites, and whether it would be in Bookbinding or Arts, we could perhaps allow it to be made on the spot which would perhaps require least coding. We already can, after all, write whatever we want in the books, 'pictures' wise too, so I don't think we -really- need that extreme supervision. The only problem with this take lies with the inability to implement commodity requirements into the design, not beyond paint palettes at least and what of gold leafing then? In any case, the easiest way I see this done syntax wise is having to sketch the design upon sketch sheets first and then trasferring it into the book. Like so:

DESCRIBE
Sets the description of the picture.
- describe sketch1234 A monochrome rendering of the merian anatomy graces the side of the page.

SKETCH ON
Which either takes you into the editor with limited word allowance or just works like editing one's description.

PAINT on with

This, however, robs Bookbinders of receiving a nifty addition and chances for profit as I don't really see such 'un-authorised' sketches making it to the shops. This is an overall flawed idea but just throwing it out there.

Further issues lie with books (scrolls in 95%) already having such page designs on them so it would be easiest to disallow it for scrolls/pamphlets and the rest in books is fairly inconsequential anyhow.

Lastly... how to make it worth all the coding to make it perfect? The commodity requirements would have to be really low (1-2 per 5 applications?), they would have to be sellable, and BBs would need to be able to implement them throughout in one go (easy = used). What beyond that? I can't really think of anything extremely balanced at this point. I was thinking of culture points for artism thrown in (not counted retroactively for old books though) but that could be abused with extreme ornamentation of every page and obtaining of enormous tomes for a 5-page thesis.

As an aside, for pages with illustrations, would it be possible to set aside some sort of tripcode that causes the section to be recognized as such, and therefore removed from the wordcount, or counted differently?

For example, in the editor I could type in ***This is a very poor illustration***, and then as far as prestige goes, the section is either weighed differently (such as every 10 words of description adds one to the word count) or ignored outright.

Now, back on topic with the original idea:

I'd not mind seeing something like that as well, either as: a bookbinding thing similar to sorcelglass, where it can be produced, designed, etc. ahead of time, and then sold seperately; or as a skill in bookbinding wherein the binder can add the illustrations and floweryness directly; or even as a general thing in arts, though this does kind of keep bookbinders somewhat shafted.

I like the special mechanic for pictures idea. But don't put a char limit on the pictures, unless its a variable size limit.

What if the pictures come with a short description, which you see when you first read the page, and a long description, which you can see by LOOK AT PICTURE ON PAGE (whatever)?

I can't explain what I'm thinking exactly, but I hope people can get the general idea.

We could shorten it even further-- when you READ BOOK PAGE #, if there is a picture there will be a tagline, something like "there is a picture on this page" in bright yellow or something, and then LOOK AT PICTURE ON PAGE # shows you the description-- this thereby alleviates the concern that picture descriptions are being used to bolster the word count of a book.

these ideas. Shiny!