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Author Topic: Constantins Fishing Lodge  (Read 483 times)

ObsidianOrb

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Constantins Fishing Lodge
« on: November 06, 2020, 04:50:11 PM »
A few things about the fishing lodge that I feel could use some adjustments. With just a short time examining the lodge, the patron, and the surrounding area, some things that I noticed.

1) Constantin's description is very short and abrupt, and it reads awkwardly. I'll post the description and a suggestion below.

Quote
This man appears to be fairly friendly. Although advanced in years he looks to be quite strong.

Suggestion: Constantin Antonovich is friendlier then the typical Barovian locals, his face is worn with age, and his hands are calloused after a lifetime of working as a fisherman on lake Zarovich, the old man may have lost his hair and teeth but he still looks strong, and he moves quicker than you might expect. He's well liked by fishermen and his other patrons.

In his old age he makes a living providing simple food and rooms for the night to the fishermen working the lake, and to travelers passing by in need of rest.


2) When you read Constantin's conversation, he calls it a fine establishment, I believe it was written as a joke on his part, because its a dark and dingy looking area, it's also surrounded by wolves, worgs, werewolves, Shadows, and the lake is inhabited by monsters, but I didn't actually understand that it was a joke until I thought about it for the purpose of this post, there isn't a lot to imply this in the text. A reference to him winking, or offering you a friendly smile, or him laughing and joking would be a big help to get this across, it also fits his current description.

3)He offers you a menu, it's not clear if that's part of the joke, or if he is supposed to be giving you an actual menu. There isn't anything to suggest that he is making a joke at this point, so I am going to assume that he is giving you a menu to read, but how is he able to provide a menu? A menu implies it's a restaurant, that he can plan what food he is going to prepare ahead of time, and he gives you a choice of what's on offer, it would make much more sense if he offers you whatever was caught from the lake that morning.

the items available to buy are...

Fish - A fish, for 13gp. Oddly this is more expensive than the other dishes, that have other ingredients.
Ghivechi - A meal for 9gp, this is cheaper than the lone fish.
Pastravla - Another meal, for 9gp.
Sarmale - In short the description is something along the lines of "A Barovian delicacy made from pork and cabbage leaves". This doesn't make any sense being sold in a fishing lodge.
Patricieni - A Barovian specialty consisting of spicy beef sausages, often eaten in a roll like a sandwich or potatoes - Seems out of place, as does the Sarmale.
Placinte - A sweet pastry filled with fruit. Yes, there is an orchid/distillery close by, but just like the pork and the sausages, it seems really strange that he sells sweet pastry at all.
Food rations - I think that given he has a lake on his door step, and his lodge is full of fishermen, it seems odd that he sells food rations.
Tsuika - There are three different bottle for sale, each coming from a different distillery, however this isn't easily noticeable at first, because each bottle of Tsuika has only a slightly different description, and all three are just called "Tsuika", so it looks like players have just sold two bottles of generic Tsuika to the store that day. The descriptions of the bottles would be improved if each distillery produced a different kinda of Tsuika, taste, production method.

4) If you think about it, the rooms he has to rent, being taken up by tough fishermen (the lake is full of sea monster's so these guys are going to be pretty tough), the rooms upstairs really should probably be fairly unpleasant, they would probably be run down, seeing as Constantin doesn't have any help running the place, and the lower area looks dark and dingy, but the upstairs is very bright because of the 6 golden candelabra's, the symmetry looks odd, and they are heavily stylized gold candelabra's, which look like they belong in a castle or a wealthy mansion.

5) The sound affects inside the fishing lodge are a mix of male and female voices, I haven't looked at the sounds in the toolset for a while, so I am unsure if this would be possible given the choices available, but is it possible for the sounds to be mostly, if not all, male? There aren't any female patrons present, and canonically the lodge mostly serves the fishermen who couldn't get home before dark. I believe there are some drunken rowdy men sounds that can be placed.