Summer Camp 2023 Pledge

The quest for diamond and beyond.

World Meta Check

The meta was revised this year as part of my New Year's Resolution and after reviewing it I believe - aside from there being only one item under literature - it is good and still represents the goals I have for Linebound.

Organization

I still haven't organized my articles into categories because I haven't decided yet how to organize my world. I need to look at other examples of amazing worlds on World Anvil to find an organization scheme that works for me. Tags are new to me but I am going to make a glossary before Summer Camp begins so that all of my new articles in July will have tags!

Timelines and Chronicles

I have been improving the history of Linebound slowly this year using the Chronicles feature. I have a new map that is vastly imrpoved from the last but has created some new problems - such as separating two formerly bordering nations with a mountain range - that will require some creative - and hopefully interesting - solutions. The map is just not quite ready for the public yet.

Using Power

As part of my goals for 2023 I am going to finally write proper articles for the nations of Breharan. Now, prompted by the Summer Camp homework, the strengths, needs, and goals of these nations will be included in these articles.

Bral

• Strengths: Military, logistics, healthcare, defensive location.
• Needs: Fertile lands for food production.
• Goals: Use military force to take lands from Grara.

Burim

• Strengths: Iron, fish, entrentched upper-class, relations with Machine Priests.
• Needs: Fair pay, affordable housing, maintaining the status quo.
• Goals: Either to rise up against the powerful or prevent it from happening.

Grara

• Strengths: Food production, land, population.
• Needs: Infrastructure improvements, simplification of internal trade.
• Goals: Increase mining, rewrite or ammend the founding documents.

Orthlands

• Strengths: Horses, mobility, only borders Grara.
• Needs: To maintain their way of life.
• Goals: Reject incursions by foreign powers.

Tamazee

• Strengths: Fish, salt, good trade relations.
• Needs: Expand beyond their islands due to population growth.
• Goals: Acquire several skyships to travel to, inhabit, and fish for skyfish on other sky islands.

Zinato

• Strengths: Cultural influence, skyship construction, relations with the Machine Priests.
• Needs: Food, lumber.
• Goals: Establish outposts to obtain these things.

The Frontier

Linebound is all about exploration and pushing the boundaries of the unknown. During the last Summer Camp I established Yaliru's Throat and the spanning mushroom that grow there as two types of boundaries which the Orth contend with. However, the biggest boundary in Linebound is the namesake line - the point beyond which compasses no longer function. This limit of navigation is currently stifling further exploration and is often blamed for the loss of the first skyship and her crew.
The skies stretch forever in every direction and everyone has their own reasons for wanting to explore. Nations seek resources, the wealthy seek more wealth, healers seek remedies, and scholars seek answers. In Linebound though - however deep down it may be - all people seek only to satiate their sense of adventure.

Trinkets of the Past

The Time of Darkness was not one of accurate historical records and is now known only through the words of people passed down through the generations and the things they left behind. Long before even then there were the skyfarers who traveled on the backs of winged beasts and settled on Breharan. Only recently have historians begun to unearth relics of these ancient travelers and put together what life was like for these ancient sky nomads.
The most valuable relics in Darapur are documents - the most valuable being the original hand-written journals of Darosi despite the fact that the contents of those journals have been copied, printed, and sold for decades. In other nations valuable relics may be documents cementing land rights, royal relics, or the life quilts of respected people.

Words on the Wind

On the skies of Linebound there are many ways to communicate but none that are capable of reliably transporting messages over long distances quickly. Word of mouth is the most common method of communication, letters are common, some groups utilize smoke signals, and others leave hidden messages with flowers or markings.
On Breharan there are many languages and the history of each region determines the spread and number of each. Zinato has one regional language because the rivers have long had people and travelers along them, though regional variations of the language occur. Bral also has one regional language but that is due an active effort to replace regional languages with just one through the standardization of education in the nation. By contrast Grara has many languages because of the wildly varied history and stationary argicultural lifestyle, though a common language is developing among merchants.
The movement of most information is done on foot, horseback, and - by the Feathermen - on the backs of ketzlat. This process is slow and not consistently available to people in all communities and sometimes requires people to wait for couriers to arrive. Even slower is the wait between sending messages and recieving replies for those who live in the Colonies. I have written a short story - At War's End - about a war that continues after peace is declared because of the rate of disemmination of that information.

The Year So Far

Aside from a brief time when I was suffering the ill effects of a certain pandemic, I have worked towards my worldbuilding goals every day, often only a single timeline event or a few sentences of an article. I have also been working on a map of Breharan, though it is not yet ready. I hope to increase this pace through to the end of the year starting now in the lead up to Summer Camp.

Goals Finished

Redo the meta for Linebound.
Change the appearance of the world using CSS.
Write a new short story in the setting. Alternatively: Create an interactive story on Linebound.
Redo the world main page.

Goals Ongoing

Reorganize the world.
Make an adequate timeline.
Create at least a basic map of Breharan. This may be quite different from all the previous ideas of the size and shape of the continent.
Write the important articles like nations and cultures and expand from there.
Create an introduction page for new readers.
Complete Summercamp.
Complete World Ember.
Do something towards these goals every day or at least write something.