Sep 14 2008
Coral Reefs: Research Resource
Coral reefs make extremely exciting areas on games because they can be filled with color, variety, and all sorts of interesting creatures. In the real world, coral reefs play a very important part of our ecosystem, and the amount of diversity in this biome rivals that of the rain forests. Thus, a designer can actually go crazy in creating strange beings for a coral reef, and it takes very little suspension of disbelief for a player to be involved in the area or to accept the area no matter how fantastical it may be. Knowing the basics of how a coral reef exists and the purpose it serves in our ecosystem will allow one to build a better, more believable world.
The children’s book, A Home on the Coral Reef, is a great place to start researching. It’s simply written, pack with interesting tidbits, and covers the basics of the biome.
Some of the books that are our childrens’ favorites to bring home from their school library are ones from an older series of books called, “Nature’s Children” put out by Grolier. They have books on a pretty cool variety of animals and they’re well done. We’ve all learned something from each of them.
I’ll look these up. They might make for awesome resources.
I have a Biology textbook from an advanced ecology class that I usually use. It’s my favorite resource, but it’s written based on the reader having several advanced biology courses. Thus, I don’t recommend it for people who don’t have bio degrees.
I know that one of my most memorable gaming experiences was on the “Isle of Dread” an old D&D module where one of the most intense encounters was on a coral reef just of the island. The characters had to dive down to try to recover some treasure and while we were diving we were attacked by underwater sea snakes.
The coral reef made for a very memorable experience.
What did you guys use to stay under water? Was it a spell or a magic item?
I love coral reefs, but part of the fun is putting in the props for them to actually adventure down there.