WorldEmber 2023 Homework

Week One: Pledge Your Goal

Iasterene is my first world so for this WorldEmber I plan to develop the lore and history of the world for both the geography and the people. As I am also running a DnD game in this world, I am also going to write the first season of the campaign One Shot Adventures. I hope that this challenge will allow me to greatly expand my world and explore the parts of worldbuilding that I most enjoy.
Keeping this in mind, I plan to write approximately 300 words a day so as to well-balance work and worldbuilding. Having this more manageable daily target will allow me to complete my 10,000 words whilst avoiding burnout.

Areas of Focus

When I first published my week one homework, this section was a bullet point list. However, I feel like I should expand on each of the areas I want to write about so that my goals are more specific and I don't go off track during the challenge.

The history of the great war

My first area of focus is the historical war that created the present day political tension in Iastarene. I want to use this as an opportunity to work on something a bit outside my comfort zone as I don't really know what I'm doing when it comes to designing the military of a fantasy setting. However, to contrast this, I also want to write some diary entries from various characters involved in the war so as to build my creative skills. As this is something I am more familiar with, It means I'll prevent myself becoming overwhelmed by solely focusing on something I've never done before.

Geographical locations across the continent

Although making maps does not count towards WorldEmber, I want to create a linked map with articles for all the main geographic locations in Iastarene. I want to focus on building the main locations that will feature in my campaign whilst also building my descriptive writing skills. I'm going to link the map here so that I can view it's progress over the course of the challenge. (It's also definitely not because I want the columns to be the same height and maps take up space)

Iastarene

Open full size

The sky is dark and the air is cold. The sea whistles in the wind. Iastarene is the harsh island community in which your story begins. In the aftermath of a continent shattered by war, you must choose your own path of survival.

In depth character articles

As none of the players in my current D&D campaign want to use World Anvil, they've said I can take the information from their character sheets and backstories and write an article on each of their characters. I don't know whether or not I'm actually going to do this during WorldEmber or not because a lot of their backstories are already written but haven't been integrated into the world yet. I might write the articles without any prewritten information included and add it after the challenge is over so as not to affect my wordcount.

Week Two: Prepare Your Area of Focus

As already established in week 1, my focus for this WorldEmber is to develop the lore of both the people and the geography of my world. I realised after completing last weeks homework that I've set myself a rediculously broad theme so will be using this week to narrow down and refine the specific aspects I want to write about. For the people, I want to focus on the war between the dwarves and the selkie-folk, thinking about politics and military but also about the impact on the lives of the ordinary citizens of the islands. In terms of geography, I want to write about the creation of Iastarene both scientifically and according to the various religions. I also want to write articles for the major settlements and create a fully linked map to document them.

Mini Meta

I've never written a mini-meta before and, if I'm being honest, my main world meta isn't that detailed. I focused on the scope, mood and goals as I felt they were most relevant to my WorldEmber project. I had considered including a section for themes but didn't feel like I knew what I wanted to write for it. If I work out what I want to say, I might add it in at a later date.

Scope

The People

This will affect the whole world over a period of the 500 years previous to the present day. It will deal with the inter-racial relationships between the Dwarves and the selkies whilst also exploring the effects of widespread war on the other peoples of Iastarene. Because my world is very new, there is very little written history at the moment so I want to use WorldEmber to develop that history. This war is a key part of the founding of the current political and economic situation in Iasterene so it seems like a sensible place to start.

The geography

I've realised that I've labelled this section 'Geography' but realistically, my second Worldember focus is on creation myths. I want to explore the differing views across the different races and religions of Iastarene and how that impacts their general worldview. So as to not become overwhelmed, I mainly want to focus on the Selkie-folk and the Dwarves as they are the people I will be focussing on elsewhere.

Dungeons and Dragons

Although not as important as my other two areas of focus, throughout the month I want to continue writing the sessions for my Dungeons and Dragons game. I want to plot and write the first story arc as I currently only have the first session written. This will also allow me to keep motivation throughout the challenge if I'm facing writer's block for either of the other two sections.

Mood

Iasterene is a dark fantasy world with a few links to Celtic mythology and I want to honour that throughout this challenge. I often find that when I come up with idea it often deviates from the way I want my world to feel, so, I want to try to be better at writing with this in mind. Alongside this, I want to focus on what I want the reader to feel if they look at my world. Because I've always previously written just for myself, this WorldEmber, I want to write with an audience in mind.

Goals

As this is my first WorldEmber and my world will be barely two months old at the start of the challenge, my main goal is just to write a lot more content for my world. I often struggle to set myself goals as I know I can change them whenever I want, so having WorldEmber and knowing that there is a whole community of people working towards a similar goal helps me to stay motivated. Although this is not a directly worldbuilding related goal, I have a lot of important deadlines coming up next year and often struggle to take healthy breaks from my work to do something I enjoy. I'm hoping that I can use WorldEmber to allow myself to take breaks from my work whilst still feeling like I'm being productive.

Category Organization

I have chosen to organize my categories within one WorldEmber category from where I can reorder them again at the end of the month. When I'm working, I like to be able to have all of a project in one place so that I can keep track of whether or not I'm meeting my goals.

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Inspiration

As I haven't been a part of the World Anvil community for very long, I'm sure that there are 100 of worlds that deserve to be on this list that I just haven't seen yet. However, that doesn't mean that I haven't seen some awe inspiring worlds already. Please don't be upset if I've seen your world and it doesn't make my (very short) list. I could honestly create a full article on worlds that inspire me but the two I'm going to feature here are 'Solaris' by Annie Stein and 'Cathedris' by Stormbril. Both of these worlds are so incredibly breath-taking that I honestly don't think I could describe how in awe I am of their creators.

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Week Three: Welcome Your Readers...

I'm going to be honest and say that I don't have a lot to write about this week. The homework was to review your homepage and from that a full CSS redesign occurred. I started using World Anvil a few months ago but only recently got a guild membership, so making my world unique with CSS was definitely the goal. I also worked on making my homepage share the main sources of information about my world and direct people to the articles I wanted them to read. It is however, a work in progress so stay tuned for future updates!

Week 4: Last Minute prep!

It's the final homework before WorldEmber! However, I've also got some rather sad news. At the start of the month, I pledged to write 10,000 words but I no longer feel this goal is attainable. I have been suffering from ongoing tiredness and for this reason I need to focus the energy I do have towards tasks other the worldbuilding. I do still intend to take part in WorldEmber but my new and revised goal is to just write what makes me happy when I have time to. However, as much I was looking forward to the challenge, I also know that my health is more important. Because of this, the only last minute prep I'm doing is to create a WorldEmber playlist. I hope you enjoy!

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Conclusion

Well, I don't think this WorldEmber is going to go as I expected at the start of the month but I'm still hoping I'll enjoy writing what I can. Also, I will try to read as many other peoples articles as I can as I know that this community is going to write some amazing content. I am very excited for this challenge and hope it will allow my world to grow into what I imagined when I first started using World Anvil. But, until then, good luck to everyone else participating!