Summer Camp 2024 Reading Challenge

I'm going to add a bit more introspection into this, so I'll be doing a top 5 list of favourite prompts, most challenging prompts, some notes about each, and showcase an article from someone else I consider to be a standout example of the prompt and why.
Nobody gets more than 1 article in this list (unless I don't catch that 2 worlds are by the same author) so as to spread the love. Chances are all 10 of these authors have many other worthy articles, but if I don't make this a rule I risk all 10 going to the first 10 notifications I read, and they might all be the same person!
After that, I'll do some goal setting and let you know what the plans are. Unlike Irion and Hunter's Dream, Eshor is being written primarily to house a campaign I'll be running in the somewhat near future (I think our current campaign is in the final dungeon crawl, and I'm on deck after that...though given the rate we're progressing that might mean I'm starting around summer camp next year!)

Favourite Prompts

Challenging Prompts

5: A building considered a refuge against the world

5: A geographical region that is expanding

It was nice finding a way to add a spiritual retreat to the world. Things are a bit depressing and broken in Caelester, and this was a way of having a closed off bit where folks can relax and take a load off.

I struggled with this one for a bit, until I did a wikidive because someone told me cashews had fruit. And learned that the biggest cashew tree covers an area of at least 7300 square meters. The Everwood comes from a couple of trees that spread like this, it's just scarier because magic.

Hanhula's articles all stand out for their polish and depth - far beyond what most of us manage to write in Summer Camp! I quite enjoyed this as an outside-the-box idea for a refuge, and there's a nice poetry to the symbolism of fire here.

Rumengol's article is delightfully ominous. Storms must be terrifying in a world of sky islands, especially an everlasting storm on this kind of scale, capable of swallowing up whole islands. Gives me the same kind of chill I got when I learned that Jupiter's Great Red Spot is large enough to swallow up Earth in its entirety!

---

4: A profession that is considered dirty

4: A sub-culture considered larger-than-life by some

I managed to find a bunch of things to tie in with these guys - 4 of the 8 decay prompts tie directly to their guild, and they also tie into some advanced tech in the city and some of the political storyline I've been fleshing out across around a third of summer camp!

I always struggle with ethnicities, always feels weird to get into the headspace for them. The two for this year weren't as bad though - one fit the common people of the city I'm focusing on, and the article below is very much the inspiration for this prompt.

I really enjoy Tyrdal's habit of including a short bit of prose in most of their articles. The Bronze Warden is also just a neat idea - having the "dirty profession" be something society fundamentally relies on is a pretty solid take on this idea (mine falls in that category too), but this one's a pretty novel version thereof.

An idea good enough to steal! err..."borrow." Janet came up with a really fitting response for this prompt in almost any TTRPG setting, while also being somehow like it's an out-of-the-box idea. Lots of interesting specific details here, too! Very enjoyable read!

---

3: A hybrid species intentionally bred

3: Slang or a language associated with a religion or belief

I had so much fun writing about these crabs. They're so silly. I also really enjoyed the natural version, which is just as silly.

Language articles are something everyone struggles with, I know. I also struggle with religion stuff, both in general and because, in this world, I'm leaving the pantheon open to discussion with my players. Fortunately, with all the parallels to southern European history, I could do something based on Church Latin

I really like how Tillerz twisted the prompt here - rather than a literal hybrid, it's a combination of a stone golem with people's souls. This creates a very cool and ominous group of creatures, who now seem rather displaced in time, having outlasted the cultists who created them as servants.

Amélie's presentation style is a neat way of providing detail without it seeming overwhelming - and this one honestly goes into more depth than I've seen anyone go to with runic magic systems. Very cool article!

---

2: An evil spirit or divine antagonist

2: A conflict that involved a changing environment

A prompt that says "Are you looking for a BBEG?" Great idea, so many ways to take this. I had this idea of fields of necrotic energy left over from some major necromancy shenanigans, so I just leaned hard into ancient evil lich.

This bit, and the many prompts related to it, have be a bit worried I'm getting too political. I had the Steward idea from the start, and when I wrote the Cannon article I knew I had to have him pull a Napoleon at some point.... But yeah, this whole plot thread might be a little too dark.

A very cool set of takes on the classic Lord of the Wild Hunt figure of mythology from Conductor. Always neat seeing a new take on the idea, and here we have it written quite neatly into a number of notable real-world mythologies. I like what the mix of interpretations implies here: it's real, its scary, and nobody actually has a good idea of what it is.

This is just a really epic clash between the elements. A scale of magic most writers shy away because it's so hard to capture power on that kind of scale, but Aeuvex has managed to do so brilliantly. Was very much hoping to see someone play this prompt straight (actual changes to the ecosystem and geology of a place rather than a change in the political environment like I did) and here, they've done so extremely well!

---

1: A sickness that caused societal upheaval

1: The practices and ceremonies of worship

Everyone loves a zombie outbreak!. I know they've been done a lot, but I felt like having it be an occasional thing that just happens because someone messed with necromancy the wrong way is a neat take on it in a fantasy setting. I also just...tend to like coming up with awful conditions - my degenerative disease is a proper nightmare too, while also being fantasy enough to not feel too much like real world dementia (a rough topic for many, myself included)

I struggled with this one for a while, but I feel like the offerings I came up with worked out pretty well. As someone who's whole family is agnostic/atheist, I really don't have a lot of experience with religious worship. And I kinda made my main politician the most detestable person I possibly could, so that kinda stifled that angle too.

Thei's writing always manages to have a mysterious and ethereal vibe to it, even with articles like this that give a fair bit of detail. Love how he nails giving just enough information to make it feel satisfying while still leaving the reader wanting more!

A huge article with a tonne of details! Loyalair's writing really manages to breathe life into a fictional religion in a way that a lot of folks, myself included, tend to struggle with.

---

Reflections on Summer Camp

Summer Camp has set me up really well for establishing Eshor as a campaign setting; with 43 articles done (one not a summer camp prompt), I went way beyond what I'd hoped for, and honestly, way beyond what I've done in previous years. A good chunk of the credit goes to the excellent prompt choices this year, and I'll admit some form of these ideas existed already (for example, I already had the idea of doing a zombie uprising in a city, but the original idea was a necromancer messing with a graveyard, not the Rising Sickness), but yeah, this was huge.
It took me from having a vague idea of an urban fantasy campaign that was dealing with the aftermath of a major disaster to having a city, a minor villain my players will love tearing to peices, a big bad evil guy, and a bunch of lore. (I look forward to finding a way to fit in a Craftsman's Crab somehow.)
It was a great event, even by the high standards of World Anvil's major competitions! Many thanks to everyone who had a hand in organizing it!

Goals

Broadly I have 3 major goals to tackle:

1. Work on developing this lore into a campaign, including establishing a narrative arc and mechanical systems for things like Rising Sickness, Decay Fields, and so on. I've even got ancestry shenanigans to figure out, considering I'm making 4 very broad categories and allowing for lots of variation therein.
2. Figure out a better system for organizing everything. I set up some categories in June that I thought would be helpful, but some of them are already a bit of a jumble. I've also never really figured out how to use tags for organizing - lots of people quite like them but I've never really caught on to how they work. And obviously this is a problem that will continuously get worse unless I put in the effort to maintain it.
3. Make everything more presentable. I had hoped to do some work on this front during Summer Camp, but as ever, I let the drive for releasing articles push me to just get words on "paper" rather than completed and polished articles. I don't know how folks like Hanhula do it. (Though of course, having considerable experience with the formatting tools available definitely helps; I've never really knuckled down to learn everything.)

But those are broad and vague generalizations, more a framework of where I want to go rather than anything trackable. So...here's the plan - 3 goals per month up to the end of 2025, plus a word count goal for each month leading up to WorldEmber.

August:

• Ancestry overview
• Devise a better organizational scheme
• Experiment with page layouts
• 2.5k word goal

September:

• Work out mechanical details for Summer Camp articles
• Apply tags and categories to all articles according to new system
• Decide on overall narrative arc and starting adventure
• 2.5k word goal

October:

• Come up with two adventures
• Create a city map of Caelester and start a region map for that part of Asuria
• Edit existing articles to improve layouts
• 2.5k word goal

November:

• WorldEmber Prep
• Edit articles to add links and create stubs
• 2 more adventure ideas
• 2.5k word goal

December:

• Take part in Worldember (at least the 10k word goal)
• 2 more adventure ideas
• Remember to tag and categorize articles

January 2025

• Regroup and Reassess