When creating the story of our environment, we first decided upon our own hero assets.
My hero asset was the candle staff, Jack’s was the altar itself, Tom’s was a broken pillar, Minnie’s was a mask and Dylan’s was an urn.
Once our hero assets were decided, we all agreed upon the following to be the story for our environment :
“Note: One major difference between our environment’s world and real life is that the Egyptian Gods were worshipped far more intensely in this fictional environment than in real life. To the extent where even the most obscure God had several temples and altars made to worship them exclusively.
An Egyptian altar room created late into the ancient Egyptian rule, after the initial interactions between the Egyptians and Roman empire. During this period an altar was created using resources traded between the two nations.
This Altar was created for worshipping the God of the moon and time: Khonsu; and had the story of Khonsu engraved onto four pillars, to be viewed as one traversed the altar room and gave offerings to the God.
This altar room had a lot of symbolic elements, including a collection of torches, which were once held by Khonsu statues, an urn of a being once thought to be Khonsu in mortal form, and the altar itself, which has a depiction of Khonsu with his bird / falcon-like head.
Not long before the fall of the civilization, a criminal broke into the temple, stealing most of the valuables left by devout worshippers, and ravaging the area as they went. The only piece of evidence left at the scene was a feathered mask, left below the hole used to access the temple in the middle of the night.
After the fall of the Ancient Egyptian civilization, the temple and altar room were left abandoned, and claimed by the sands, only recently being rediscovered. among some other elements and treasures, and a single surviving urn and torch. It was revealed that a being of great importance was buried behind the altar, which has mysteriously been left nigh undamaged, with exception to some deep scratches on the sides where it was carried in by slaves. A mask was left under a hole in the roof of the temple, with moonlight beaming directly onto it, regardless of how long it was observed, the light continues to shine upon it.”
We agreed to have the environment set in the future when archaeologists discovered it. This not only made the environment more interesting with equipment such as lights being left around the place, but we also thought about how to light up the environment. Since our environment is underground, it was obviously going to be dark, with the only natural source of light being a hole in the top of the ceiling.
Therefore, having proper lighting equipment to not only make the entire environment brighter, but to focus the viewers attention on certain places, such as our hero assets was essential to the success of our environment.