Environmental Storytelling In Practice

Part two - Narrative Stratigraphy 1

Now we have our world building content, let's start working towards infusing the region with this history. We know the playable area is a large pine forest growing over several hills, with a ruined fortress at its heart. We know the story but, how might our players discover it too?

Narrative Stratigraphy

First, a quick refresher. In archaeology, Stratigraphy is the study of soil layers (or strata) in an excavation. By examining these layers, researchers are able to determine the sequence of events and activities that have occurred at a site over time, revealing the cultural and historical changes that have taken place, sometimes spanning hundreds or even thousands of years.

Where Narrative Stratigraphy differs is that we are reversing this process as designers. Instead of uncovering the different strata levels, we are artificially constructing them. With this technique, each stratam aims to present to the player a selection of lore "pieces" to unpack.

In a truly immersive story-world experience, players are not spoon-fed the lore but instead swim through it as if inhabiting a world that has always existed. Our goal therefore is to create environments that feel lived-in and real. By layering our narrative strata, we create a world where players can uncover both plot and lore through exploration and interaction, piecing together the narrative in their own minds.

Gathering The Pieces

Let's now gather our lore "pieces" from the previous essay's content and categorize them.

The lore we want to layer.

You'll notice that in this particular example, the majority of our lore pieces are contained in Stratum 2. This is fairly normal as typically, you'll have a "hero story" you want to tell. It's also pretty typical for the oldest and youngest Stratas to have shorter collections of lore pieces. For our oldest, we want to create a sense of "history lost to time." We want our players to gleam a basic sense of that period, but not so much that they have a clearly defined timeline. This is because we are trying to create intentional plot-holes that allow for player speculation, encouraging them to take their theories into a meta-textual space (I.e. Reddit), where fandoms flourish around mystery and questions. For our youngest Stratum, having only a few lore pieces is a result of it being either the period of the player, or the period shortly before they arrive. Keeping this Stratum mostly clear allows for emergent storytelling to flourish. Our players are both learning the embedded historical story, whilst simultaneously creating their own.

Understanding How The Player Moves Through The World

In terms of the physicality of the area, there are a few key locations we'll want to focus on.

What we want first is a Central POI (point of interest) that will act as a kind of player nexus, drawing them towards it. The idea is that our players will "orbit" this spot, getting closer and closer, picking up lore details, until finally exploring it themselves, gaining key details to build a mental picture of all the clues now in their heads. Along the way, smaller POIs feature and draw players in. These "Mini POIs" maintain a line of sight with the central POI, so that it is always in the back of the player's mind.

Our central POI will be the ruins of Drakmar's Fortress, and what we will focus on the most once we get to the construction phase of this article. A map of the area might look something like this:

All hail! Microsoft Paint!

Assuming the big

Stratum 1

Beginning with the lowest/oldest Stratum, let's convert some of our lore pieces into

Artifact Types

Looking at the table above, you can see I've started categorizing some of our lore pieces under different artifact types. You'll also notice overlap in terms of what belongs where. This is because "Colonialization of the Shepherds" could be represented both through Items and their placement and through enemies and their placement. I've also left the NPC column blank for this one. This is a personal choice. You might want to include NPCs for this stratum if say, you had an immortal character from that time still wandering the area.

Stratum 2

Like Stratum 1, the components of Stratum 2 have the potential to be spread across the entirety of the region, and while we will touch on this, the focus remains on Drakmar's fortress for this article.

As our player exits the forest, and stands now before Drakmar's ruined fortress, they note it is a crumbling shell of its former self, the walls blackened and scarred by fire. Jutting out of the ground around the tower, are examples of Visual Media: human remains, armour, weaponry and rotting military flags. A closer look at these reveal a specific family crest painted on the rusted shields and decaying flags. The player can now conclude a great battle took place here. The family crest denotes an allegiance to a specific side. Eagle-eyed players could also potentially ascertain that since there is no example of an opposition here, that they removed the bodies of the dead for burial. The fact that one side's bodies were left behind, could also suggest they were the losing side. But who is who?

This area also contains a large number of undead enemies. These enemies aren't initially hostile. They only attack in response. These undead enemies are dressed in similar (though more traditional feeling) garb as the peasants encountered by the player in the Villages. They appear badly deformed – some have broken or missing limbs, others wear rusted instruments of torture, desperately attempting to remove them. They are Drakmar's victims.

Leaving them alone, the player enters the fortress through its front doors - which hang open as if violently broken down by a battering ram. Paying attention to what still remains of the fortress itself, the Player might encounter further examples of Visual Media: architectural decorations and mouldering oil paintings depicting the same family crest from outside. The player can now assume the human remains outside are connected to the fortress. Soldiers of the fortress's Count.

Continuing deeper, the player encounters a new enemy type. Undead soldiers bearing the Count's crest try to block their progress. And as they push past them, they encounter the undead devious servants who aided their ruler in his abductions. These servants carry torture devices as weapons - the same ones that the peasants outside were struggling to remove. Items in this area are associated with torture and appear well-used. Their descriptions (Textual Media) hint at a horrific past, occasionally naming key characters like Lord Angelo, or referencing the sins of Count Drakmar.

In a room at the top of one of the Fortress's towers, the player discover an affluent living chamber. Judging from the portrait that lies trampled on the ground, this was the room of the Count. His quarters have been ransacked. Several skeletons are sprawled throughout. Most depict the count’s crest but two depict the crest of another – a crest the Player may have seen before, at one of the Minor POIs in the forest - on a memorial statue of Miriam. The Player should now have enough to conclude that Lord Angelo and his army laid siege to the Fortress, and made it at least as far as his quarters.

On the opposite side of the room, a large open window frames the courtyard outside. Across that courtyard is a second tower, where a skeletal figure appears to be chained high up against its walls. Finding an entrance to the courtyard, the Player cuts the ropes suspending the figure. The skeleton, when it falls, is still garbed in the tattered silks of a noble. An Item is found on it: a Human thigh bone covered in hundreds of little scratches and divets. This item's description describes the bone as being marked by the beaks of carrion birds.

At this point, the Player is attacked by the boss of the fortress: a gigantic vulture. Upon defeat the vulture drops “The Heart of Count Drakmar” another item that states in its description that the Count was disposed of in the same way he disposed of his own victims, and that the darkness in his heart was compounded by “that which lies beneath.” It would be this clue that leads the player to discover the Stone Circle in Stratum 1. To further strengthen the link between the ancient deity of the Shepherds and Count Drakmar, we might place a reference to the count in the ruins of the Stone Circle. This is the superposition caveat I mentioned earlier - a curve ball deliberately placed in seemingly the wrong location, in order to complicate the timeline, whilst hinting at an extra level of lore.