item-description

name	item-description
description	Write item, object, equipment, artifact, or collectible descriptions that communicate function, world identity, ownership or history, tone, and discovery context within strict UI or inventory constraints.

Item Description

Use when a game or fictional product needs concise text for objects encountered by the player or reader.

Procedure

1. Identify the item's actual gameplay or narrative function, rarity or importance, creator or origin, current ownership, and what the player is allowed to know at discovery time.
2. Choose the description's job: functional clarity, flavor, lore clue, character voice, mystery, collection identity, or a deliberate combination.
3. Lead with the most useful or evocative information at the length the interface can reliably display.
4. Use concrete material, wear, maker marks, provenance, ritual use, or historical detail that connects the object to the world instead of generic adjectives.
5. Keep gameplay facts accurate and separate flavor from mechanics where ambiguity could mislead the player.
6. Respect knowledge boundaries and avoid revealing plot, faction, or artifact truths before the intended discovery.
7. Maintain terminology, naming, capitalization, measurements, and rarity language consistently across the item set.
8. Test descriptions in the real UI for truncation, localization expansion, readability, and repetition across many neighboring items.

Decision rules

• Small objects can imply world history without becoming miniature encyclopedia entries.
• Flavor should not contradict gameplay function.
• Mystery is not an excuse for meaningless vagueness.
• Repeated sentence templates make a large item set feel synthetic.

Quality gate

The description is ready when function and tone fit the item's role, world detail is specific and canon-safe, player knowledge is respected, terminology is consistent, and the text remains readable and distinctive in the actual interface.