Summer Camp 2024 Homework

Ooh boy, it's that time of year again! The last half of 2023 and 2024 thus far has been veeeeery slow when it comes to worldbuilding. I've been working on becoming an engineer, and who would've thunk that would take up most of my time and leave naught for my hobbies? Oh well, I've got a juicy summer break incoming, and I intend to do a bit of writing. Writing that's not related to construction project management! Woohoooo! I just hope the boring, emotionless tone of the construction reports I've been writing for the past year is not reflected in any new stuff I make...

Anyway, expect my homework to be half-assed, I still have some real work that needs doing.

Week 1: Getting organized

Assignment 1: Change

Consider what kind of changes would fit in with your world's themes, genre, and other foundational points.

I want to work primarily on my Freelands setting, and the entire premise for the state of the world is change. I asked myself "what if you drop a single nuke on a late-medieval-ish world?" and the answer is Freelands. Things are changing as a result. Politically, physically, technologically. Magically...

My D&D setting, Harmony, has been neglected a little more than Freelands. With little time to play rpgs, there's little time to create more for the world. I suppose the "change" here will have to be to actually write something. Anything at all. I want to develop this setting. We'll see how it goes.

Assignment 2: Goals

[...] Decide how many prompts you'll go for during Summer Camp. Then, download the pledge document and fill it accordingly!

I decided on silver last year, and made gold. Dagnabbit, I'm going for silver again!

Assignment 3: Getting organized

Get your categories and tags organized!

Whaddayaknow, I did this last year! Not bad getting my homework done a year in advance! I'm comfortable with my current structure, and won't be making any changes, except adding the summer camp tag to new articles.

Assignment 4: Updating Meta

Take a look at your meta, primer, and any other high-level document and update it according to the current state of your world.

I've taken a look... Not much is different and in need of changing, on account of me being pretty much MIA for so long. I'll take another look after SC!

Week 2!

Assignment 1: Refuge

Consider what kinds of refuge would fit in with your world's themes, genre, and other foundational points.

Good one! I'm not big on writing about great battles or conflict, but I do enjoy considering their consequences. I'm thinking consequences of war and disasters, and where people go to hide from them. I think this theme will allow me to expand on the aftermath of "the End", the event that set off my Freelands setting.

Assignments, the rest of them

I'm looking at these and thinking I've got them covered. As with a few of the things from week 1, these are things I have done or don't intend to get too much into. I have my buddies to look after my progess and accountability. As for style and CSS, I like to partake, but they're hardly the focus of this challange, or my focus overall. I'll pretty things up if I feel like it. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't!

Week 3: Belief

Assignent 1: Beliefs

Consider what kind of beliefs would fit in with your world's themes, genre, and other foundational points.

I simply love exploring faiths, superstitions, folklore, and so on and so forth. So much so that I have created extensive lore on it alreade (though not much of it is written down quite yet). Let's see what beliefs I can explore in my different settings:

Freelands

• Sanctism
  The largest religion in the world, where the people worship those who have performed miracles, and shun those/most that practice the rare arts of sorcery. What force is behind the miracles? The Divine of course. What is the Divine? Oh, that information is forbidden, and anyone who thinks or says too much about it is deemed a blasphemer. Divine worship is forbidden. Yeah, it's a little weird.
• Arkovskiy dual belief
  While the "Arkies" technically are as much sanctists as any other Crownmark nation, they have interpreted things a little differently. There are still saints to worship, and exploring the Divine is forbidden, but sorcery is not forbidden. They also worship spirits, seek to appease malevolent entities to avoid their whimsical wrath, and actually employ witches to help with that, which would certainly be an act of blasphemy in other nations.
• Auregel Paganism
  The people of Auregelmir worship a pantheon of ancestor gods, and has a whole lot of folklore and superstitions to go along with that. I haven't really given this one too much thought yet, though I hope summer camp will give me that opportunity.
• Others?
  There are of course other faiths around the world, such as the Yocil's sorcery worship, the druidic beliefs, the Watollan's native faiths... But unless I feel otherwise suddenly inspired, I won't be exploring these during summer camp.

Harmony

• Church of Harmony Pantheon
  Starting of with the largest world religion, I think it's time to actually explore the smaller cults of Harmony. Little faiths and congregations around the world that does not embrace the whole pantheon, but a single god, or just a few of them. These gods were worshipped long before they were consolidated into a single church. Some of these are actually recognized as being a whole separate pantheon of their own, the Chained Pantheon. There is always something to explore within the Church of Harmony.
• Hua Yan Spiritism
  I did get to explore this a little during SC2022, and I hope to pick up the thread again! Hua Yan is another world religion, most prominently practiced on the Akroasian continent. The people here worship grand spirits that match the harmonic gods in perceived power, but also smaller pirits whose domain might be a single tree or rock. Specifically, I want to write about the evil "Spirits of Old", particularly since I'm likely going to make them part of my next D&D campaign.
• What else is there?
  There's a lot. There are so many thing to write about. Things I haven't thought of, yet know that they exist in this world. I have continents unexplored. Who knows what beliefs might show up once inspiration strikes?

Assignments 2, 3, and 4: Inspirations

First of all, they asked for a map. Here's a map for ya! It's a little off center! Too bad for the OCD-folks out there! (Insert evil laughter here). Anyway, this is a map of the Freelands setting, one that I'm very happy with. It has some layers with markers and stuff on it, but the actual markers are a work in progress.

Soil and Sea

Open full size

The most accurate map of the known world, Soil and Sea was conjured by Archdruid Adalbert of Red Willow. It depicts the split continents of Crownmark and Lekone, the wast northern realm of Auregelmir, and significant portions of the mostly unexplored West.

The original map is richly decorated, sporting gold leaf, and a chesmium frame enclosed in onyxed marble. Carefully embossed and gilded in the frame is Adalbert's famous poem Open World.

As for my "bank of inspiration", nothing inspires me quite as much as music does. I doubt the connection between the music I listen to and the images it conjures in my mind makes much sense to anyone else. I don't even think the music I listen to "fits" my world in any way that seems logical or appropriate. Nor does the music reflect me. I remember a teacher once told me once he found out about my taste in music that I seemed too mellow for that kinda stuff. Oh well, sense or no, here are some tracks I've enjoyed and found inspiration in lately:

Week 4: Decay

Assignent 1

Consider what kind of decay would fit in with your world's themes, genre, and other foundational points.

Oh goody! I now have tremendous hopes for summer camp! Decay is the name of the MacGuffin of my main ongoing D&D campaign set in the world of Harmony. It's a magical weapon that has existed and influenced much of history. No doubt this week's theme will let me explore the influences of the weapon and its eponymous consequences. Done and dusted, nothing more to consider here, really!

Assignent 2: Optimizing environments

Yeah, this isn't going to happen. This summer I'll be going back and forth between my parents' house and my apartment a lot. Plenty of driving, some ferry rides, no consistent workspace. I'll get the work done when I can, where I can.

Assignments 3 and 4: Home, Intro, Author

I've looked over the pages, and I can confidently say that they are very OK. They don't need to be more. My target audience is primarily me, and I like 'em already!