WorldEmber Prep 2023

This will be my first WorldEmber, and it is already shaping up to be a fun one. I have only really been active here on WA since Summer Camp this year, but the hype and community support has been such a wonderful part of finally making some progress on my world building in a more organized way. You hear WorldEmber hype all year round and I am really looking forward to being an part of it this year.

That being said, preparation is always key to something so big...

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Week One Homework

For this year I have chosen to focus on the magic system in Oabos more in depth. Specifically I am planning to focus on Soul Mapping and the elements within a soul map. This will cover how elemental energies function and interact within the world, and how they can be read by a Soul Scribe.

I am pledging to meet the goal of 10,000 words within December, but am honestly hoping for a lot more. By December my capstone class will be over and I can focus on writing more for myself instead of for homework. The true goal is to write out each element and how they interact, regardless of how many words that truly takes.

I have already started in on some prep for WorldEmber throughout October. Roughly half of the articles written for Spooktober are stubs to be built out during WorldEmber. There are also stubs set up for each of the elements to work from. I am currently working on the sigils for each element, so that the appearance of each can be in place before the focus on writing starts in December.

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Week Two Homework: Mini-Meta

Scope

The scope of the soul map concept is all living things on Oabos. The magic system of this world structures souls into three rings representing the mind, body, and spirit of the living thing. The Children of Radiance who came from another world also had this structure imposed upon them. The original people who came to Oabos were not changed in any way, but their children were born with soul maps. Any being with a soul styled in this way is bound to Oabos.

Themes

A Soul Map is a physical representation of a being's soul, and can tell a Soul Scribe a lot about that being. There is a vast amount of information hidden is Soul Maps that even the most advance Soul Scribe has not learned how to unveil. This information becomes available throughout he story as characters grow, and Soul Scribes begin to uncover aspects of soul maps that have either been newly found or newly understood. There will be errors and assumptions in place that get corrected, but the world is also growing so soul maps are also changing over time. Humans coming to Oabos added the new 'elements' of intellect and flesh to Oabos. Compound elements are starting to show up in soul maps. Oabos is changing and the soul maps are a running theme of how much these changes are understood.

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Week Three Homework

In looking over the homepage for Oabos the thing that jumped out the most is how simple and boring it is. First impressions are huge, and the homepage as it stands doesn't leave any real impression. I am not able to do it just yet, but will be doing a full overhaul of the homepage. The new homepage will be focused on better displaying the themes of Oabos as well as having a much cleaner organization structure. I have not started the overhaul just yet because I happen to know I will be getting a drawing tablet for Christmas this year. I will be chipping away at small changes when I need a writing break during WE, but the big changes will be coming in January.

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Week Four Homework

Last minute prep was quick and easy this week. I have been wrapping up getting a visual down for myself for each element and working out how they will connect and interact. As part of the planning process I also built out a stub list for the articles I will be writing during WE. While these Soul Map articles are the main focus, there are also other stubs set up to be fleshed out as well. With any luck, starting next week I should have everything in place to simply open a target article and start writing!