How does one go about describing a war zone with the proper terror, fear, death, and just all around misery. I mean you can obviously go all out on corpses and blood EVERYWHERE! Also that woman was raped, and then murdered.
But i want more, and i need help.
The smell. War is 98% smell
Blown out windows everywhere is the #1 giveaway for recent combat. Empty streets signals upcoming or sustained fighting.
Blood stinks. It feels like warm KY before it congeals, there's more grease than you'd know in a human body. Brains smell like fruit-loops cereal, and bullets don't make neat exit holes.
Shit and piss.
People do defecate themselves when they are very scared, also the bowls empty when you die.
Vomit obviously
Depending on the time period heavy smoke, strong smells.
Blood and guts
>>44326663
Like the others mentioned properly describing smells can be very evocative. Try to focus on the collateral damage of the war zone. It's probably unlikely that your players have seen actual combat so it will be easier for them to see things from the perspective of civilians caught in the crossfire than the soldiers doing the fighting.
For starters try describing the picture you posted as you would a scene in an RPG you're running. I see maybe one dead body and a guy on fire in the background leaving you with plenty of stuff to focus on besides the gore.
>>44326663
If it's an on-going battle, focus on the feeling of chaos by describing how disorienting it is; the clanging of steel, screams of fear from the dying, battle cries, roars from the rocks thrown by siege engines flying overhead, bugle and drums blaring out signal tunes, all combining into a single deafening wall of sound that makes hearing anything specific nigh - impossible unless they're right next to it.
The ground is unstable, and finding a good footing is hard; the hundreds of soldiers marching or charging has trampled all the grass and vegetation, leaving a slick mire of mud that's not deep enough to sink into, but it sucks at their feet with every uncertain step. Body fluids can be added, but are optional; if it's just somewhere the army moved through, there shouldn't be much blood on the ground.
Have units running past the party every now and then; a calvary unit charging to press a weak point in the left flank, a group of halberdiers jogging by to reinforce the center, individual runners carrying arrows to resupply the archers or relay orders, ect. Show that there's more going on than the party can see.
The noise is key: battles are an ear - splitting cacaphony of sounds like a Mardi Gras, World Cup, Super Bowl, and political rally all at the same time.
>>44326663
A whistle blows somewhere up the line.
Everyone is tense, I can feel the breath of the man behind me on my neck, scalding hot in the frigid cold. My hands flex on the ladder, awaiting the inevitable order.
I hear a sob next to me. A boy from our platoon, likely not even in his twenties yet, stands gazing at the wad of skin and raw flesh hanging from the frozen ladder before him, a torn portion of his own ungloved hand.
Every distant detonation shakes the ground, hard enough to make some men lose their footing. The smell of urine stabs the frozen air, and another whistle blows, closer this time.
"Duck!" a voice shouts, and as one, those on the ladders above us bow their heads as a trio of Leman Russ tanks roll over the trench top. Dead weight slams into me from above, sending me crashing into the mud.
The mud of the trench floor sucks me down, submerging me.
I am blind, my eyes stung with the murky, rancid mix of mud and urine and something warm with a metallic tang.
The foul soup seeps into my mouth as I try to breathe, forcing its way down my throat. I gag and choke, eventually managing to throw the dead weight off and rise.
At last I can see what almost damned me to an Emperor-forsaken death in the trench floor.
The man above me, a sergeant by his pins, had failed to duck his head in time, and as a result the Leman Russ, completely oblivious to its casual slaughter, had crushed his head beneath its tracks, crushing it into a fine pate laced with bone and sinew.
I watched with disgusted fascination as his body continued to twitch and spasm below me.
The whistle blew once again.
I could see the platoon next to ours filter up and over the trench top.
Some of them slipped and fell, others were shot in rapid flurries of lasfire and punctuated explosions of solid rounds.
All were trampled underfoot by the stampeding beast of the Imperial ranks, a machine poked and taunted forward by the cruel lashes and blades of the commissars behind.
(cont)
>>44329440
(cont from last post)
I clench my bladder to keep from wetting myself. My stomach turns inside me, aching to throw up. But I can't vomit. I've already defecated my rations today. Some of the men melted snow to drink, but this world is not ours, and those who drank the snow-water became consumed by sickly boils, some as big as a man's fist.
That damn whistle blows again, a rudimentary and primitive replacement while vox is down.
This time it blows shrilly in my ears, causing them to ring. The battle chants and prayers of those around me come muffled. I scramble to the top of the ladder, sliding over and running forward blindly, lasrifle in hand, spurred on into the hellscape of mud and shell holes by the knowledge that if I stop, if I pause for one moment, I will be consumed and stamped to death by the sheer number of desperate feet charging behind me.
Lasfire peppers our ranks, I squeeze my eyes shut as the rounds pass over and around me. By now the rolling death machine of our own lines has caught up with me. I glance to my left and see bodies. Guardsmen, Officers, Commanders, Commissars, some of them dead, their limp, puppet-like forms carried forward by the fervor of those behind.
Something snags my leg, it hurts like hell and I can feel something wet slapping against my ankle, but I can't stop, if I stop, I die. So I continue on, every labored step takes more effort than the last.
I can see the line of Leman Russ tanks before us, carving a path, their cannons recoiling with vicious firepower. The noise takes a second to reach my eardrums, but when it does it is deafening.
I'm practically dragging my own leg now, it hurts so much, but I know I can't stop.
The Emperor watches me, so the Commissar says, and if he is dissatisfied he will surely release me for darker powers to judge.
Tears streak my face, hot only for the briefest of seconds before the cruel cold freezes them to my skin.
(cont)
>>44329729
(cont from last post)
Fire ripples the air as the Leman Russ to the right explodes in an incandescent bow wave that warms me to the bone and fills my nostrils with the scent of singed flesh and hair, throwing me to the ground atop the corpse of some other poor sod.
I try to find my feet, but those behind me charge forward, kicking and slipping and trampling over my prone form. I feel something snap in my chest, breath comes raggedly to me now, but there is no pain.
My leg, on the other hand, is still on fire, but I dare not look, already knowing what I will find. A chunk of my thigh, not snagged but torn away in a hail of enemy fire, swinging against my ankle by a flap of torn skin and screaming nerves.
Finally, the worst of the stampeding Guardsmen pass, and I can at last push myself up. The corpse beneath me wheezes as his stomach caves in beneath my hands. His blood smears my uniform, along with the urine and excrement and every other substance accumulated since my fall in the trenches.
I look up, painfully aware of the sudden silence that surrounds my immediate position. The percussive thuds and whines and screams of war echo around me, but fog obscures my vision so thickly I might as well be a continent away.
The world around me is suddenly bathed in red, and my hearing is assaulted by a grinding engine noise. The Leman Russ reverses towards me at an astounding rate, fleeing some terror as yet unseen by my eyes.
My leg, finally realizing it should not be able to support my weight, collapses beneath me. The ground vibrates with the sickening motion of the reversing tank.
Instincts older than my body and more primal than my mind kick in, and my fingers claw the mud beneath me, trying to find some purchase to drag me away from the merciless treads grinding towards me. I kick with my good leg, finally managing to gain some purchase, and propel myself to the side.
(cont)
>>44330006
I extend my fingers to drag myself further, but the throaty engine noise behind me is suddenly accentuated by a sickly snapping noise, a blinding pain in my one good leg, and an ear-wrenching scream which I realize is coming from my own mouth.
The Leman Russ continues reversing, completely oblivious to the fate it just dealt me. Booted feet follow, precious few compared to the horde that had urged me forward.
A Commissar follows, pot-shotting those stragglers foolish enough to remain in his vision, vainly trying to restore some semblance of order in the futile hope that the battle might yet be salvaged.
"Help!" I cry out, heedless of how high and feeble my voice sounds, "Emperor's sake, help me!"
Nobody stops, nobody even looks.
So consumed in their desire to flee are my comrades that none can bear to carry my weight.
Another Guardsman runs past, this one stops, stares at me.
"Help..." I utter feebly.
The man moves to help me up, but a stark scream nearby changes his mind swiftly.
"Sorry, Edrin." He murmurs to me before hurrying on, not even doing me the mercy of shooting me.
My heart sinks and my lip trembles as darkness clouds the corners of my eyes.
I don't want to die.
>>44329440
>>44329729
>>44330006
>>44330181
Good stuff.
>>44329440
>>44329729
>>44330006
>>44330181
Ahem, that's how.
The mood is important, the desperation and a good sense of futility also help.
Try to keep the enemy obscured for as long as possible. A good majority of deaths in war happen long before your soldiers come anywhere near the enemy troops.
Most importantly, make it seem as though death is described as more of a morbid curiosity or just a feature in the scenery, rather than romanticizing or martyring it in any way.
In other words, no "brave heroes" and no "poor lost souls".
Death as something that is detached or just a part of the landscape is often more impacting to players, because of how it implants the notion that nobody cares what happens to the guy next to them when you're in the meat grinder.
Overall, describing the desperation and the poor state of the men does more than just describing a mountain of corpses. Of course, there's always going to be a sperg or two who just don't give two fucks, but you can't please everyone.
>>44326663
You get a sort of sense of tunnel vision when you're in combat. You notice everything but nothing really makes sense except what's right in front of you. Sounds and smells are overpowering. Don't be flowery in your descriptions. You want your mind snapping from one detail to the next. Information overload.
Now, have your players roll.
>>44330400
This. A lot of war vets describe it like this.
I personally recommend Sebastian Faulks' Birdsong for good descriptions of war.
Shit depressed me every time I read it.
>>44326663
Have smoke and mist fill the room, spill blood, shit and dirt on the floor. Maybe some random animal entrails too. Have random explosion noises come from multiple speakers installed everywhere.
The players must have not bathed in the last week, nor brushed their teeth.
They must also be sleep deprived, drinking some alcohol is also a good choice.
Random pieces of glass gotta be scattered on the floor.
The furniture must be broken, the walls must be dirty, burned and scarred.
Put a shrapnel bomb on the bathroom, the first player that goes there is gonna get fucked, maybe anyone who stands too close to the bathroom door.
There is no first aid kit, only some dirty towels and booze.
You succeed rolls by not dying in the russian roulette.
The roulette is done with a pistol.
OP here, i feel asleep. But this is all awesome stuff guys. Thank you.
>>44331308
Did you enjoy my bedtime story, OP?
Edrin didn't.
>>44331308
Fell*
>>44326663
Entry No. 86.
Forced requisition from walled settlements is proving a tiresome though necessary exercise. Our unit took part in an unremarkable battle against local apostates. The grey mud, churned from the late evening rains, made it a slog to negotiate arrow fire in plate. A lass whom Yurgen took on as a squire was hit by a cannonball, her intestines and liver bursting through her ribs. We gave her share of bread to our hunting dog.
>>44326663
Lot of dead-eyed quiet people, just staring vacantly ahead.
>>44331737
Basically, make the horrible mundane. At least to those right in the middle of it. e.g. that's what made the movie Fury memorable for me.
>>44326663
See the game your picture is from. A lot of the smaller stuff from two of the regions. That was pretty brilliant in my view. The second one had that in smaller doses in Prologue and Act 2 as well.
>>44326663
The worst thing in a battlefield isn't the smell, or even the bodies mutilated by artillery. Its the ones that are shot. The way the look almost like sleeping. Calm and quiet. It gets to you in a way nothing else does.
>>44331471
>>44326663
Context is important. If the first time you see a place, it's a wartorn hellzone then it's not shocking. What IS shocking is finding that the Shire has been turned into fucking Mosul, that an idyllic (or normal if not actively pleasant) location with vaguely-familiar faces has been disturbed.
Next, don't make it uniform. One of the most traumatic aspects of mass loss of life is "why did certain people die and others survive?" Nothing kills the idea of a just and ordered universe like a war in which some good people die, some bad people die, but mostly innocent and uninvolved people die. Survivor's guilt is heavy shit, mang. But you can bring it into the moment too. They can save some people, but not all. They might help the old man out of the burning building but the kindly matron is ripped apart by a mob. Death is unavoidable in these times, and it moves among you seemingly at random. The king might die as his guards turn on him in the panic.
But most importantly, this shit doesn't stop. The death isn't done just because the swords have been put away. Farmlands have been put to the torch so a famine is hitting pretty quickly. Wounds are festering, orphans wander the streets, winter sets in and what little shelter is left becomes crowded with vagrants. People turn to crime to survive. Those who live learn to hate in a deeper, fiercer way than they ever did before. From the ashes of one atrocity grows the seed of the next.
>>44332740
This.
Random people being ruined in the midst of war is more harrowing than the fighting itself.
I guy I went to school with had an older cousin that fought in 2 tours of the Iraq War.
He never saw much actual combat, and the few skirmishes he took part in were brief. The one and only thing that got to him was his squad was going through a bombed out city, and he saw no people the entire time. Then he sees a dog ripping and chewing a small shoe, the dog was the only alive thing they saw in the city so naturally he walks up to it. When he got within arm's reach he saw a child's foot still in the shoe, and the dog took it and ran away. When he got back to the states he couldn't wear shoes anymore, and hasn't worn them since. Dude said every pair he looks at now has severed feet in them.
The idea of poor, uninvolved people getting annihilated is ultimately what makes war terrible to most.
>>44326663
Read a description of any random battle in the first world war. Not things historians write, letters and diaries. Things written by people that were actually there.
One amazing description of the battlefield I read talked about wounded men who had dragged themselves into shell holes for cover, which was pretty common. They would call back to their lines for help because, once they got down into the holes, they realized they didn't have the strength to pull themselves back out of them. Later that night it started to rain, and the writer described listening to his comrades screaming and pleading for someone to come and get them and, one by one, the screams being silenced as the shell holes filled with water.
>>44336811
:^(
>>44326663
Call me a faggot, but I got a good inclination of warfare writing by reading fanfics with realistic warfare in it. It works.
