Revision Note #2: Making a Setting Come Alive.
Cryptatown, the setting of "Cold Iron Crossing", is the unfamiliar neighborhood in your hometown you’ve never visited. It’s the fenced-off house down the block that probably belongs to a mob boss. It’s the the hole-in-the-wall restaurant you stumbled across that serves really good Phở soup. It’s the adventure that lies just around the corner, the secret you’d discover if you looked just a bit more closely...
To sell Cryptatown as a fantastical ’Otherworld’ where anything is possible, I tried to throw in as many eerie, eye-catching details as I could into the narrative: Living graffiti, Goblin Markets, silent film theaters that can show you the past, present and future...
I was particularly proud of the Lizardmen Heritage Center–a museum dedicated to the history of secret "Reptilian" masters that feature in so many conspiracy theories and New Age texts. I knew this location would be a major element in the story...
...and then I forgot about it. Completely.
Maybe I was juggling too many ’weird details’. Maybe the Lizardman Heritage Center isn’t needed to complete the plot of "Cold Iron Crossing".
I suppose I’ll just have to see if I can properly bring this setting to life...