Summer Camp 2024 Homework

So, this year is a bit unusual for me. My D&D group is approaching the finale of our campaign, and I have an idea for our next one. Unfortunately, it doesn't really fit in what I have set up for Irion or The Hunter's Dream, my two established worlds - it's much more in line with the typical sort of D&D setting. As such I am starting a brand new world for this, and will be using Summer Camp to help channel my efforts in developing the region the campaign will take place in.

Week 1: Change

Assignment 1: Thematic Changes

My idea for a campaign is centred around a city state that has been devestated by an earthquake and is struggling to rebuild and reestablish itself. Many of its elites were killed in the quake, leaving the city lacking in leadership and its outlying territories vulnerable to neighbouring powers.

Assignment 2: Pledge

My pledge is a bit of a weird one: I pledge to complete prompts that will further my goal of establishing the city and the story that form the centre of my campaign. I can't really fit that into the pledge document, but knowing the quality of summer camp prompts from previous years, I'm sure I'll have plenty to work with. My copper goal is deliberately setting the bar low so as to leave room for articles that work toward making the campaign work but don't fit any of the provided prompts.
Additionally, I plan to read at least a quarter of the articles written by people I follow, as well as to read one article published by a creator I am not yet following, for every day of Summer Camp. Of these, the new creator article is of higher priority if I don't have time to read them all. (I love all the worlds I follow, but oh boy, a quarter of everything might be a LOT of stuff, folks can be VERY prolific during Summer Camp!)

Assignment 3: Categories and Tags

I've set up a first layer of categories to help organize things, though as I start developing this world a bit more, I'll have to create secondary tiers to fit things - a couple of more obvious ones are already in place. I've also created an article that will list tags and their meanings - for now it will just be a list to remind myself, but in time I will update this to look more appealing.

Assignment 4: World Meta

I've created a meta for this world, and it currently stands at 100% completion. Check it out here! I've also made some progress in creating a name reference list, but currently have only completed a list for landmarks as yet. For character and location names, I may be relying onFantasy Name Generators and similar resources for inspiration.

Week 2: Refuge

Placeholder Character by Rashkavar

Assignment 1: Refuges

With my campaign being centred on a city state recovering from a natural disaster, there will be many such refuges: notable structures that survived the earthquake, emergency housing and shanty towns built to shelter the city population, people from outlying villages seeking refuge from aggressive neighbouring powers, and even criminal elements hiding from neighbouring authorities in this more chaotic territory.

Placeholder Item by Rashkavar

Assignment 2: Accountability

While I'm often not very active on the WorldAnvil discord, I am regularly quite active in discussions during Summer Camp, and plan to do so again this year. Additionally, as with most projects I take part in these days, I will be keeping track of progress in my journal, which I find helps keep me focused.

Placeholder Structure by Rashkavar

Assignment 3: Style and Layout

I've picked out a suitable style for myself, and selected a header and section break lines from OpenClipArt, as well as drawing some simple placeholder images for myself to use during Summer Camp for article layout purposes. Any permanent art I draw myself will definitely be done with much more effort than I put into these placeholders, but I'm definitely still working on my drawing skills.

Assignment 4: CSS

I don't know how to do CSS, so I will not be doing any CSS upgrades.

Week 3: Belief

Assignment 1: Beliefs in the World

Being a world designed to host a D&D campaign, there will be some form of polytheistic society with the existence and influence of the gods an undeniable fact. However, as this is a new world, I don't have a whole lot of established beliefs to draw on. Instead, I'll focus on people's responses to the earthquake.
Many believe the earthquake, with its effect so much more pronounced here than elsewhere, was a divine punishment. Some of these use this as an excuse for indulgence, reasoning that if everyone in the city is already damned, why not indulge in whatever vices one finds appealing. Others debate reforms, trying to determine what might have called down such a punishment and find some means to address that cause - the two largest of these groups have formed into factions trying to enforce moral purity or enact social reforms to care for the less fortunate in society. Still others believe that the punishment was not for the common people, but the many political elites killed in the disaster, and that the damage to the city was simply collateral damage. People in this group have been among the most pragmatic, devoting their efforts into rebuilding the city and moving on as best they can.
Another major category believes that the earthquake was a magical attack upon the city, and thus funnel resources into militarism. This faction enjoyed the greatest power immediately after the disaster, but the lack of a follow-up invasion means that more and more people are losing faith in this assertion. The Steward ruling the city is the most prominent proponent of this idea, and claims that the city's quick military recovery under his leadership has deterred the expected invasion. He also offers dire warnings that, if military resources are diverted to rebuilding, the as-yet unidentified enemy might finally have an opportunity to invade.
The last and smallest group believe that the earthquake was simply a natural phenomenon, with the city being unfortunate enough to be close to the very centre of its destructive power. Most of the proponents of this are forestfolk and academics, with relatively little political capital to influence city affairs. Some of those in this faction have proposed several new construction techniques they claim should be more resistant to any future earthquakes that might strike, though they offer no assurances when, or even if, a similar disaster might occur in the future.

Assignment 2: Inspirations

There's a metal band from India I've been listening to, called Bloodywood, and their music features a number of lines that are excellent potential inspirations for characters:

• "I may fall, but I'll risk it to fly 'cause I would trade the ground just to kiss the sky." (Aaj)
• "I uproot myself today from a life of unfulfillment. Today I am reborn." (Aaj)
• "Try as we may we can never deny, we can get back up if we're still alive" (Jee Veery) - less a specific character, more the mindset of many in the community.
• "Stuck in their web, we struggle for sanity, trapped in an illusion of a better tomorrow" (Gaddaar) - this line and honestly most of the song are a good way to channel rage against leaders who continuously fail to benefit their community. Knowing who I'm playing with, I'm probably going to need an anarchist faction of some kind.
• "I am not voiceless, I am endurant; I am not a stray rock, I am the founding stone of a mountain; I am not weak, I am forgiving" (Endurant)

(Purely as an aside, I highly recommend the music videos for all of these songs (names are in brackets), as well as at least Yaad (though it's lines are a bit too specific to be as good at being character inspiration). Bloodywood's music is generally pretty wholesome in general.)
There's also the inspiration section of the World Meta, which has some more general inspirations - though I must say I do prefer not to lean too heavily on inspirations that are remotely in-genre - I find it's all too easy for me to cross the line from being inspired by a work to being an imitation thereof.

Assignment 3: Art and Maps

As this is a brand new world and it won't really be until I get started that I'll have much of an idea what kind of art I need, I'll be relying on placeholder images (as prepared in Week 2) for now, and only adding in permanent images if I have time to find or draw them. I do intend to keep up my drawing practice this month and next, though - it's possible some of that art will make its way into an article or two. Just don't expect a masterpiece - those placeholder images definitely aren't my best work, but I'm only about 3 months into picking up hobby sketching from when I was little (and I wasn't some virtuoso of the pencil back then, either) so...I'm far from a master of the art form.
I had hoped to have at least preliminary maps prepared for both the city and the greater city state, but it seems I have run out of time. However, my sketchbook remains at the ready if map inspiration strikes, as do some pre-AI map generation tools if I find myself needing some on-the-fly map-related inspiration.

Assignment 4: Review Inspirations

As this is a new world with new inspirations, there is nothing old to review.

Week 4: Decay

Assignment 1: Decay in the World

The city state I'm building out as suffered from a number of forms of decay, stemming from the earthquake that struck in the recent past. With much of its infrastructure destroyed, trade in the region has largely been routed around the city, leading to a decay in economic capacity, which has made the reconstruction much more difficult. There is a moral decay in the leadership, having gone from a benign and popular monarchy to a despotism reliant on military force to maintain power.
I've also been considering if and how to implement guilds. I suspect that most guilds would be seen as potential rivals for power by the Steward, and thus would largely be banned (with a few exceptions for guilds like the Nightsoil Collectors Guild, as, uhh, some services kinda have to function in a city of any reasonable size). However, it's kinda hard to get rid of such groups, so now there's underground guilds, including a new "Collector's guild" (previously a group of thieves and extortionists) who collects guild fees and an added "service fee" for these guilds from various practicioners of various trades who don't quietly recognize the continued existence of the guilds and the fees owed to them.
Relations with neighbouring powers are also decaying due to the lack of proper policing in the city-state's outlying territories. Bandits have adopted this territory as a safe haven, and some powers have even sent in expeditionary forces to "temporarily" occupy and patrol territory near their borders.

Assignment 2: Writing Optimization

I need relatively little to keep me writing, aside from a lack of distractions. The one thing that I change for this month is my laptop setup for writing on-the-go. My laptop has a keyboard that often skips keypresses, but given it would cost more to repair the keyboard than it would to replace the entire laptop (a very cheap netbook) I put up with it for chatting in discord and the like. When writing, however, this problem is far less tolerable, so I have switched to a larger laptop bag that can handle a wireless keyboard, so I can write using that when out and about. As I live alone, there are limits as to how many distractions I can avoid for an entire month - housekeeping and grocery shopping cannot be done that far in advance (unless I wish to live off survival rations, which I suspect would not have a positive effect on my writing), but I am well stocked on those essentials that can be stored for that long.

Assignment 3: World Homepage

I have written an introduction for my world, now available on the homepage. My plans for more complex formatting include an overview map of the focus region and a collection of introductory overview articles, but as these have yet to be created at time of this homework's completion, these features have yet to be included.

Assignment 4: Author Page

I've checked on and updated my author page. Didn't make many changes, as not much has changed. It's not very detailed, but I'm generally a private person and don't really like filling my profiles with huge amounts of personal data.

Final Thoughts

There are two things I wish to mention regarding Summer Camp, and my writing projects in general.
Firstly, want to acknowledge that I live and write on the unceded traditional lands of the K’ómoks First Nation, the traditional keepers of this land. Their stories cannot be found here, as it is not my place to retell these stories.
Secondly, I do not, and will not, use AI generation in my works. All writing found in this world, and any of my worlds, is mine and mine alone (though I certainly cannot claim to be an entirely original writer, I am influenced by the writing of authors I have read and the stories I have heard told, as every writer is). Any art found here will be either art created myself, art created by commissioned artists, or art distributed on a Creative Commons or similar unpaid non-commercial license. I will use algorithmic tools and art programs for inspiration and to help draft certain types of images, as these tools use concepts and art assets that were deliberately chosen for this application. If there comes a time such that the current crop of AI generation tools can be curtailed to prevent the theft of different artists' intellectual property in their training, and their training data is made open source such that compliance with such regulations can be positively verified, I will reassess my stance on my use of AI generation tools to assist my work. I do not seek to impose this level of restriction on anyone else, but instead ask that those using AI art assets find some way to help support human artists who produce similar forms of art if they have the financial means to do so.