When game mastering, one is supposed to try to involve all five senses to help create verisimilitude.
So when describing Golarion, how do you address these questions:
- What do people eat? Is there a culinary style? (If so, what is it like?) What crops/foods are available?
- What do the people dress like? Specifically, what do the upper class dress like? What about the merchant class dress? What do the poor dress like? What about hair styles? Are beards common? What kinds of materials are used? etc. This is, of course, for both genders.
- What does the area smell like? Do the people, especially the upper class, bath frequently? How much is perfume used? (If so, what kinds?) In a city/town, are characters in danger of being splashed when people empty their chamber pots)?
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To Answer I would need to know what part of Golarion you are asking about. In the lands of the linorum kings, people bathes yearly I think (brought up in winter witch), some places bathe regularly, others use incense to cover their odors (in one of the Jaggare/Radovan stories- I think it was prince of wolves meeting the nobility).
Dress and food vary according to the environment and flora/fauna native to the area. If you pick up a book and look at the taverns, many describe and food and drink only native to the area.
For dress, again, I would find books that deal with that area, and look at the pictures..
Remember Golarion is much like earth, people in the Middle East don't dress/smell/eat the same way as natives to the Americas, China or Europe, neither do people from Qadira dress/smell/eat the same as people from Arcadia, the Dragon Kingdoms or the Inner Sea
I was originally thinking about Westcrown.
I was looking at late Renaissance Italy (with a very active Church inquisiton), since Westcrown has kind of a Venice feel. But the costuming and social etiquette would not be the same at all.
But this is a larger problem. Golarion has some similarities to Renaissance/Enlightenmnt Earth, but it is very different also.
And there are so many little details that help make a world/city/character feel "real." So, that is why I was asking how othr GMs have been handling this aspect of description.
read setting books to find what should be in the environment. In the ask James Jacobs thread I asked about what lived in the Kestrel river of lastwall and got the answer of trout and something else. I also have rabbit and other things. Thinking about making venison also avialable also. I also have oatmeal available in lastwall.