I often write boxed text for new in-game events and locations. I find it easier to think through the sights, smells, and other sensations during GM prep and write them out, rather than improv’ing when I’m trying to write a game. Here’s one such moment.
As you sleep, you feel a cold hand gently shake you.
When you begin to rise, you feel the hand grasp yours, and lift you out, out of your body and into a fuzzy space between this world and… another one, much darker, that chills you to your very soul.
As you stand, you look down at your hands, slightly translucent, lit in dull grays and blues. You move it, and it seems to take a fraction of a second before it responds.
As you adjust to this place, you feel a presence. Or, to be more accurate, the lack of a presence, a dark and cruel thing that sucks the joy and goodness of life from whatever spot it occupies.
“I felt you draw on great power tonight. And I felt you in the presence of a great power, a power that has existed for millennia, who has walked many worlds beyond the veil. I trust you have not brought us into an entanglement that may… harm our mutual interests.”
“This creature seems to have a natural hatred for both mortals and gods. Perhaps you should learn from that. The gods are powerful, cavorting in their safely-contained worlds, granting magical power to material creatures liberally, demanding nothing in return. Like giving children toys that could consume the world in fire and ice. It is the height of hubris, wouldn’t you say?”