21.5 DESIGNING IN LUSTERNIA
Lusternia is a world full of unique individuals who are as varied as the world around them. To help that individuality shine, one of Lusternia's flagship systems is its customisable design system. This design system is accessed by those who have been appointed Trademasters of a Cartel (see also HELP CARTELS).
Whether an affiliated or private cartel, the Trademaster is responsible for submitting designs for cartels on an annual cycle. To see the commands for creating designs, Trademasters need only type DESIGN to see the syntax.
* For help searching through an existing catalogue of designs, see HELP DESIGNSEARCH.
Design Guidelines
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In order to make sure that your submissions fit in with Lusternia's game world, there are a number of guidelines and rules regarding the quality and type of custom designs submitted. Your designs will be reviewed by both the Charites, Administrators of Crafts, and Their mortal assistants. They will look carefully at the design and will suggest any necessary changes to grammar, content or concept.
* For help applying to be a mortal reviewer, see HELP MORTALREVIEWERS.
* For help understanding the review process, see HELP DESIGN REVIEWS.
* For help understanding our plagiarism policy, see HELP PLAGIARISM.
Should the design rules need to change at any point, the Charites will make this clear via the Trademasters newsboard. Major changes may also be included on the Announce newsboard. If you ever have any questions about any of the rules, or require assistance, you are encouraged to message the Charites directly with your query.
* For greater guidance on creating a design, see HELP HOWTODESIGN.
Spelling and Grammar
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Your designs must be fully grammatically correct, but may be in UK or US English as long as they use valid spelling(s).
* In instances where multiple options are widely considered grammatically correct, all are valid (e.g. whether you pluralise collective nouns or not).
* While multiple options of spelling may be correct, you must be consistent when spelling the word throughout the design.
* To check spelling and grammar, use the Oxford English Dictionary and/or the Merriam-Webster Dictionary.
Your design short descriptions must pluralise correctly. To facilitate this:
* They MUST use the main noun of their pattern (if they are a 'suit' or 'pair' of something, those words are also fine as main nouns).
* They must not include possessives, e.g. 'a pair of dancer's shoes', because this will not pluralise correctly. This ruling is uniform across all tradeskills.
Your design should be grammatically written from the perspective of a third party observer, with very few exceptions:
* Designs are never written in first person ("I", "my", etc).
* The second person terms "you" and "your" may only be used in recipes under Consume, Smell, and Taste.
* Exclamation points may not be used in designs, as they assume too much of the observer's reactions.
Remember that your designs must follow certain formatting style guidelines depending on which fields you are inputting.
* See HELP HOWTODESIGN for more in-depth information regarding design formatting guidelines.
Vocabulary
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You should not include non-English words in designs, unless they are very well-known or otherwise already present in Lusternia. Most of the time, specific design styles can be replicated by using descriptive wording. For example: a 'kimono' can be described as a 'wraparound robe', and then have more detail in the extended description. Kimonos are, however, permitted.
In-Character Guidelines
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Your designs must be rendered in as in-character a manner as possible. For example, avoid using things like acronyms. You are also highly encouraged to write in a descriptive style rather than one more appropriate to speech.
This means avoiding reliance on puns or "playing-on-words" in a design, especially in an Appearance, because these terms are conversational in nature rather than descriptive. Examples of such unacceptable word choices include:
* Playful phrasing of words, such as writing "very" as "beary", or saying "an adora-bull taurian sweater".
* Using slang to describe an Appearance, such as "some doggone-good icecream".
* Using quotes in an Appearance for any reason, such as "a 'fruit' salad" that is not made of fruit, but rather, vegetables made to look like fruit.
In short, your design should use sensory language - your couch design is not literally "read" by characters, after all, but seen and felt. It should always be descriptive in nature.
Please note that Lusternia is a game for ages 13 and up - designs should never be "adult" in nature. This will be judged harshly, as it is part of Lusternia's Terms of Service.
Related to the above, do not include things that are real-world or modern. This includes but is not limited to:
* Really modern materials like plastic.
* Named cuisines, wine types, or other things that would not be found in Lusternia. Regional real-world terms such as "tex-mex" will be rejected, as will highly modern foods such as "pizza".
* Names of species that reference real world geography and that have not been given a place in Lusternia.
* Graphic t-shirt designs with text.
* Highly processed foods such as hot dogs or cereal.
A good rule of thumb is if it is not found in the Merriam Webster/Oxford dictionaries, the term will likely not be accepted.
If you want clarification on whether or not a design term would be appropriate in Lusternia, you are encouraged to message the Charites.
Realism Guidelines
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An item must be what it is, and nothing else or more. Do not take liberties with the pattern (I.e. a shirt is a shirt, not a vest. A shirt does not also come with a built in scarf or jacket. Shoes do not come with socks).
For cooking designs, the pattern used must be factually correct for the recipe. Pudding is not soup, even if it uses the bowl alias. A fish dish should not use the chicken pattern by claiming to be "chicken of the sea". Referring to food in euphemistic terms is acceptable as long as that euphemism is sufficiently in-world (no references to real life locations, or arising from situations unlikely to occur in the Basin).
That said, the design must at some point be explicit about what the euphemism is hiding. A character should know what they are cooking, or be able to deduce what they are viewing and eating, even if the player is unfamiliar with the euphemism in question.
Designs must be fully functional and cannot be broken, so worn that they would not work, or require upkeep not specific to the standard pattern. They must, in essence, make sense.
As such, you cannot contain living sentient beings in items, because you would need to feed them - or living plants, because you would need to water them. You can, however, preserve them in wax, dry them, or make them from silk.
You could also not cover your breastplate in lovely origami unicorns, because they would all be crushed the moment you get hit.
Magical Effects
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You cannot make magical items with the design system or items that have properties beyond their basic pattern.
However, magical commodities can be used to apply a small sensory affect appropriate to what they are. These must be minor and cannot affect the viewer. For example, using silveressence to add a shimmer or lightessence for a faint glow is fine - attempting to use cloudessence to make your item perpetually levitate is not.
* See HELP SPECIALCOMMS for more information regarding the effects that certain commodities can achieve for a design.
* If you do not think it is something that a mortal craftsman could reasonably create, then you should instead submit your request via the Customisation system (HELP CUSTOMISATION).
Divine Symbols and Likeness
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Divine script may not be used in designs.
Doing anything that involves the property, image or symbol of a Divine must be reviewed by the Divine. Submit them as normal, but expect them to take a little longer to process.
This includes Divine-made materials such as mistglass, dreameater silk, and smokesilver, which may additionally only be crafted if a unique commodity exists for them. Presently no such materials are available for use.
* See HELP SPECIALCOMMS for more information regarding which materials are presently disallowed for use.
Commodity Guidelines
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Everything that you include in a design must be represented by a corresponding commodity. This includes colours unnatural to the materials used (except in Cooking). Likewise, designs have a minimum commodity requirement that you can find with the DESIGN COMMS command, e.g. DESIGN COMMS TAILORING.
Rounded up, at least 75% of those commodities must be basic commodities for the design type.
* See HELP DESIGNCOMMS to learn more about what is considered a base commodity.
If a commodity doesn't exist, you must substitute it with something similar - if there's nothing even remotely close, you cannot make the item (though note that this is likely to be very rare). You can always make suggestions for commodities by messaging the Charites.
* See HELP SPECIALCOMMS for more information regarding existing precedent for commodity alternatives.
Trashing Design Sketches
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If you are a trademaster and no longer want to use a design sketch for your cartel, you may wish to trash it completely. You may feel free to do so only when you have no intention of further using this precise idea once it is returned by the review panel, or if you have not yet submitted the design to the review panel for approval.
Intentionally recalling a submitted design to trash it and submit the same design under a new sketch number is never appropriate. Doing so results in circumventing the review system, which is a system in place to assist trademasters and designers with creating designs that are up to Lusternia's standards, per this scroll. Attempting to circumvent the system in such a way will be met with repercussions, up to and including the loss of ability to design in Lusternia.
If you have questions or concerns about a design that is pending in the queue, you may message the Charites directly for assistance.
You may also review the following scrolls to assist in getting your designs approved more quickly:
* HELP DESIGN REVIEWS - information on the design review process and why a design may be pending.
* HELP DESIGNS - guidelines on what is and is not appropriate in Lusternian design.
* HELP HOWTODESIGN - information on how to draft your design and what is looked for in each field.
