Before he could dive into the story hook, the interface started acting up on him. The whole thing flickered like a dying monitor, and this weird low humming sound filled the chamber around him. The air began to shimmer with that heat-wave effect you get off hot pavement in summer. His book suddenly snapped shut with a loud thud that made him jump, then zipped over to his side where it latched onto his hip like some kind of futuristic holster. The moment the echo from that sound faded away, everything went black and the drafting room just collapsed into nothing.
When his vision cleared, he was standing somewhere completely different. One second he'd been inside that high-ceilinged sphere with all the shifting lights, and now he was floating above what looked like a fog-covered game board. Faint outlines of terrain stretched out in every direction below him, like someone had sketched the world's largest D&D map in pencil. "This must be the floor editor," he said, glancing around. It made sense that he'd need some kind of canvas to work with. The transition wasn't really disorienting so much as it was like waking up and realizing you'd somehow ended up sleeping on the couch instead of your bed.
For several minutes, absolutely nothing happened. Then the fog got a bit thicker, and he noticed the book on his hip was glowing with this soft, rhythmic pulse. It reminded him of a notification light on a HUD in some games, except way more mystical and less annoying.
He reached down and tapped the cover. The Core Weave activated with a quiet click, and the pages unfolded in this really smooth, deliberate motion that was oddly satisfying to watch. The surfaces of the pages glowed softly, and seven labeled tabs materialized in the air in front of him:
📚 STORYBOARD
Guide the floor's tone and narrative direction.
⚔ ENCOUNTERS
Manage enemy placement, patrols, and behavior.
🎭 AESTHETIC LAYER
Edit visuals, fog, ambient sound, props, and buildings. Elements must align with the selected theme.
🧱 TRAPS & HAZARDS
Place and configure traps. Options expand with milestone progress.
💬 LOOT SUGGESTION
Submit item names and lore. AI determines eligibility and rarity.
🏆 MILESTONES
Track Prestige and Infamy. Detailed unlocks hidden until activated.
🧠 SYSTEM NOTES
AI feedback and design interpretations appear here.
Evan studied the interface, impressed by how clean and organized everything looked. There were obviously submenus lurking beneath the surface, but nothing was buried so deep that you'd need a guide to find it. No flashing alerts or cluttered UI elements that made you want to throw your controller across the room. Everything felt smooth and logical, like it was actually designed to help you create stuff instead of fighting against you every step of the way. "I could definitely get used to this," he said out loud, mainly because the silence was starting to feel a bit too heavy. Even his own voice was better than the oppressive quiet that had settled around him.
He clicked on the Aesthetic Layer tab. "Let's start with making this place look the part," he muttered to himself. It seemed like the logical first step—establish the visual tone and atmosphere, then worry about filling it with content. When he made his selection, the other menu options tucked themselves neatly out of the way. The ground beneath him shimmered slightly as a transparent overlay appeared, casting a faint grid pattern over the landscape. A clean, scrollable sidebar unfolded beside him with all his options laid out:
Fog Density: 30–100%
Moonlight Filter: Neutral / Full / Blood / Eclipse
Ambient Sound Layer: Wind / Distant Howl / Whispered Voices / Bells, etc.
Environmental Props: Effigies, Lanterns, Graves, Ruins, Hanging Rope, etc.
Buildings: Chapel, Farmhouse, Bell Tower, Ruined Manor, Shed, Tavern, etc.
Color Palette: Natural tones / Edit
He slid the Fog Density up to seventy percent. "Let's make it properly creepy, but not so thick that people spend half their time walking into walls," he said, watching the terrain respond almost instantly. The mist flowed outward like it was alive, gathering in low pools along the ground. It softened the harsh edges of everything and swallowed up the distant landscape, but still left enough visibility for players to actually navigate without getting completely lost.
When he selected the Moonlight Filter and switched it to "Blood," the sky above them shifted in this really subtle way. A soft red glow began washing over the entire environment, and a large crimson moon faded into view in the simulated sky above. The effect wasn't over-the-top dramatic—it felt eerie and quiet, almost solemn in a way. "Weirdly cozy," he muttered under his breath. "Well, if cozy means haunted with a decent chance of ritual sacrifice happening somewhere nearby."
He started dropping buildings into the landscape. First, he placed a Chapel right in the center of everything. Behind it, he positioned a Graveyard that looked appropriately weathered and overgrown. A leaning Bell Tower went up nearby, its angle suggesting years of neglect. A Tavern took its place near what would become the main village entrance, because every good RPG location needed a place where adventurers could gather information and drink questionable ale. Finally, he dropped a Ruined Manor at the far edge of the settlement, right where the forest began to get really thick and ominous.
To give the whole place some proper scale, he started filling in the outskirts with less distinctive but still atmospheric structures. Farmhouses with sagging roofs, Tool Sheds that looked like they hadn't been opened in years, Storage Barns with broken doors hanging off their hinges, and Abandoned Shops with empty windows. Near the center, he built out a collapsed Market Square, flanked by crumbling stalls that suggested this place had once been bustling with life. Paths stretched outward into winding lanes dotted with Homes, their positions irregular but believable, like a real village that had grown organically over time. He kept placing structures until the area covered several square miles of territory. "If they think there's a secret hidden in every single one of these buildings," he said with a grin, "they'll waste days trying to search them all. That's exactly what I'm going for."
As he placed each structure, the world responded with these small, organic animations that made everything feel alive. Stones settled into place with little puffs of dust. Wooden beams creaked gently as they took shape. Moss began growing along the bases of walls in fast-forward. Inside one house, he caught sight of an overturned chair sitting in what had probably been a kitchen. Another building had shutter slats that rattled softly in the constant wind. The whole place didn't just look like it had been inhabited—it looked like everyone had fled in a hurry, leaving their lives behind.
He moved on to adding environmental props to sell the atmosphere. Lanterns dangled from crooked poles, swaying slightly in the breeze. A weather-worn scarecrow leaned against a broken fence, its burlap face somehow managing to look menacing despite being just cloth and straw. In one narrow alley, he tucked a small pile of wooden crates that were half-covered by a forgotten tarp. He added a cracked stone well near the center of the village and placed a broken bucket beside it, the rope still attached but frayed and useless. Every object he placed seemed to anchor the illusion a little bit more, making the whole environment feel like a real place with real history.
Next, he dove into the Ambient Sound Layer options. He selected Wind as the base layer, then added Distant Howl for that extra touch of menace, and finished with Whispered Voices because nothing said "cursed village" like disembodied voices muttering in languages you couldn't quite understand. As the audio mix activated, he could hear the landscape come alive around him. The wind hissed through dry grass and rattled loose shutters. The distant howls came and went at irregular intervals, never quite repeating the same pattern. And those whispers—they weren't actual words exactly, but they ebbed and flowed like someone breathing against a wall in the dark.
He stepped back and took a good look at what he'd created. The layout had come together really smoothly, with the fog, lighting, and ambient audio all working together with this kind of quiet precision that impressed him. Nothing looked accidental or randomly placed. "It almost feels familiar somehow," he said softly, then paused to think about that. It wasn't really familiarity exactly—it was more like the sense that everything had purpose, that the details all emerged from a clear set of design rules rather than just random placement. "Like it's already a real place that exists somewhere," he added, mostly talking to himself since there was nobody else around to hear.
He spent several more minutes fine-tuning the road layout, dragging paths around buildings and placing trees and debris to create natural choke points that would affect player movement and combat positioning. Sometimes the AI suggested a shortcut or a more interesting bend in the road, and if the suggestion made tactical sense, he'd follow the prompt and let the system subtly optimize a curve or create a useful blind corner. Other times, he ignored the suggestions entirely. One road he deliberately let dead-end into a gnarled oak tree that leaned just a little too far over the trail, creating an ominous landmark that would definitely stick in players' memories.
He switched over to the Color Palette tab and spent some time experimenting with different options. In the end, he decided to stick with the standard natural tones but added a faint red tint to the grass and leaves. The blood moon overhead was already casting everything in an unnatural light, so he figured he might as well lean into that unsettling effect and make it even more pronounced. "Yeah, weird is definitely good here," he muttered, locking in the changes and watching the landscape shift subtly to match his vision.
Finally, he opened up the Encounters tab. The display shifted to reveal bestiary options, behavior toggles, and patrol path settings—all the tools he'd need to populate his village with appropriately dangerous mobs.
He found himself smiling as he looked at all the options. "Time to fill this place with things that want to kill players."
He hovered over the interface for a moment, considering where to begin with the enemy placement. Before he could click on anything, the STORYBOARD tab pulsed twice with a soft glow, catching his attention like a notification he'd been ignoring.
Curious, he opened it up. The screen expanded into this layered interface that looked like a branching timeline or a really sophisticated quest editor. At the top, his chosen narrative hook glowed faintly with importance:
[Narrative Hook] – The Red Howl rises with each full moon, drawing bloodthirsty things from the forest.
Beneath that, new fields appeared, waiting for him to fill them in:
Origin Legend
A smaller prompt box blinked patiently in the corner:
"Define a local myth, inciting incident, or rumor related to The Red Howl."
Evan read through all the editable sections, nodding slowly as he began to understand how the system worked. "Okay, so this isn't just background flavor text—it's actually modular storytelling that feeds into the game mechanics. These story elements can echo out and affect how everything else behaves."
He tapped open the Origin Legend field and started speaking out loud, watching his words appear in glowing script as the system transcribed his narration: "A forgotten village at the edge of a cursed forest. Every full moon, something called the 'Red Howl' rises from the depths of the woods and hunts anything that moves. The villagers all vanished decades ago. Now, only monsters remain in the settlement—drawn to the moonlight and thirsting for blood."
The system highlighted key phrases as he spoke—"Red Howl," "cursed forest," "moonlight," and "monsters"—and projected faint behavioral templates and event triggers along the margins of the interface, showing him how his story choices would translate into actual game mechanics.
"Now we're getting somewhere interesting," he said, settling in.