Sdesc Words List

[Twilight]

Whenever I start a character, and am not sure of the Sdesc that I want, the first place I got is Darklyn's page:

http://www.dhorizon.org/characterBuilder/

Its a great page, and has a wealth of examples, but after awhile even some of those seem routine.  What I'd like to accomplish in this thread is two-fold.  First, if you have any websites you go to for Sdesc word inspiration, if you would share them that would be great!

Second, is to list Sdesc words that aren't found on Darklyns, to try to come up with a list which might provide inspiration to others that goes beyond the "regular".  I'd like to ask people to keep to a few guidelines with this to keep things simple and clear:

1.  Please avoid listing color-eyed, color-hued, color-skinned, color-haired or whatever-tattooed.  I think most people can come up with these, so maybe they all don't need to be listed.  Adding a weird color, like cerulean, which would be combined to come up with one of the above is great.  Or adding in weird combinations, like krath-eyed.

2.  Please avoid listing Sdesc words you've used on your past few characters.  Please avoid listing unique or rare words of other PC's current or recent characters.  NPC Sdesc words should be fine, I think.

3.  Please list as one attribute.  So, listing "krath-eyed" rather than "the burnt, krath-eyed man".

Off the top of my head:

krath-seared
wind-savaged
flabby-jowled
grime-smeared

[Mr.Camel]

I usually take a word I like, say 'muscular' and look up the synonyms(sp?) on www.thesaurus.com and choose a suitable one.

[spawnloser]

I write my main description up first, and then look through it and figure out which traits I want to emphasize as the most noticeable.  With one character of mine, her hair was the bomb-shit, if I do say so myself...so I emphasized it by giving a description of it in the sdesc, coming up with suitable words, as Mr.Camel said, by thinking up one possible word that could describe it and then going to thesaurus.com to find one that I think fits the image I'm going for better.

Also, for everyone that wants to include the color of anything in their character's sdesc, I HIGHLY recommend using thesaurus.com so that you can have a slightly more unique word, eliminating a fiasco I was in once when I was hanging with two people that had sdescs with that were different, but the keywords were ALL the same (ex: a red-haired, pale-eyed person and a red-eyed, pale-haired person)...and didn't know their names yet.  It was quite frustrating.

More interesting keywords that I can think of... (the descriptors for some are easily mutable, keep that in mind.)

agafari-tressed
pymlithe-orbed
rangy-limbed
substantially-girthed

Some of the more common that I've seen sdesc terms, I will list below with replacement words.  Keep in mind that some of them have different connotations and you may want to check definitions...also, some of them have been done, but I include just because they have specific connotations which may go along with the look you're looking for.

-thin:
attenuated, emaciated, cadaverous, rarefied, fragile, slender, sylphlike, trim, spare, lithe, skeletal, lanky (also see tall), rawboned, lean

-pale:
ghastly, haggard, pallid, pasty, sallow, ashen, bleached, blanched, sickly, waxen

-blue (don't just be blue...find the shade you want your character to have):
azure, beryl, cerulean, cobalt, indigo, sapphire, teal, tourquoise, ultramarine

-tall:
towering, altitudinous (I just like that word), lofty,  lanky (also see thin), rangy, soaring

-short:
compact, diminutive, petite, runty, slight, tiny, wee, bantam, miniscule, minute, undersized, stunted, meager, piddling, runty

-large:
capacious, enormous, immense, substantial, titanic, husky, prodigious, vast, ponderous, ample, commodious, colossal, mammoth, sizable

Of course, there are other words that could use this assistance...and y'all can go to thesaurus.com your own damn self for any other words.