Party Finder: Summer Camp 2024
Someone remembered to bring pots, right?
Summer Camp is upon us once again, and that means another Month of Summer Camp Prep! I'll admit I haven't touched my world in a hot sec other than getting it set up as my 'website', so I've got a fair amount of clean-up to do on top of everything else.
But first, let's break this down!
This summer camp is going to be interesting for me: Not only am I accepting the inevitable and going for Diamond (again), but I'm putting together my cirriculum for my first year teaching Computers and Religious Ed at a local school! That's right, I'm (almost)1 officially a teacher! While I got a lot of resources from the previous teacher in the role, a lot of it I'm going to be building from Scratch, quite literally when it comes to the coding components! My thoughts on the matter are quite nicely condensed in this Spoiler (To come) for those interested in walls of text.
The other big challenge is on my leisure front. The Critically Acclaimed MMORPG FFXIV With a Free trial that includes the award-winning Heavensward and Stormblood expansions is releasing the newest expansion, Dawntrail, on July 2nd. In an interesting irony, this may actually help; I suspect I will be writing a lot of my articles while waiting in the login queue. Between Summer Camp, Course prep, and Dawntrail, I'm going to be balancing my time quite carefully.
Actually... you know what? I'm going to lean into the Dawntrail asthetic for this. I'm going to grab three to seven other people that both play XIV and are Summer Camp fans and see if they'll party up with me. Consider it a way to keep people accountable to their goals, share buffs, and provide rezzes when a prompt proves too tough.
Message me if you'd like to join the party! (If you have a particular class/Party role you'd like, great!)
And, you know, making sure I go outside once in a while. Maybe I'll start doing more work at the local library just to get outside.
What is Summer Camp?
What is Summer Camp?
Summer Camp is a month-long event held in July, sponsored by both WorldAnvil and its many community members! Participants recieve a series of Prompts each week during the Saturday Livestream, each along a particular theme. Badges are awarded for writing 8, 16, 24, or 32 Prompts, in any order the writer wishes. Summer Camp is when writers get to go crazy with the innovation and brainstorming for their world! There are also prizes for each prompt, sponsored by members of the community and/or notable companies related to TTRPGs and Worldbuilding! How do I Join?
So How do I get in on the Fun?
If you are a visitor and unfamiliar with WorldAnvil, be sure to check out their website HERE, to make your free account. Once you've created account, visit the (Thing here to check the competition tag). Take some time to set up the fundamentals of your world, your meta, and your organization, then check out the Summer Camp Prep page [url:https://www.worldanvil.com/community/challenge/summercamp-prep-2024/homepage]HERE!What's Special about Summer Camp This year?
Party Finder Open
Tank 1
Tank 2
Healer 2
DPS 1
DPS 2
DPS 3
DPS 4
Week 1 Assignment
Week 1 Homework
Week 2 Assignement
Week 2 Homework
Week 3 Assignment
Week 3 Homework
Week 4 Assignment
Week 4 Homework
I sadly had to sit in mute for the inital homework stream, as I had another event going on at the same time. Why does everything happen at 1 PM on a Saturday?
Anyway, we've got four assignments to get us rolling!
Assignment 1:
Consider what kind of changes would fit in with your world's themes, genre, and other foundational points.
Assignment 2:
Based on this, decide how many prompts you'll go for during Summer Camp. Then, download the pledge document and fill it accordingly!
Assignment 3:
Get your categories and tags organized!
Assignment 4:
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 Love, LOVE the idea of Change as a theme! No world is ever truly static, and if it is, changing the status quo is part of the main character's goal! The Mortal Lands is still recovering from The Night of Falling Crowns, a catatclysmic event from twenty years before that brought every throne low, and with it many countries and kingdoms. I've been itching for a chance to flesh out how kingdoms changed in the face of this calamity, wether for better or worse. What towns adapted? What countries did not? How have cultures changed as refugees flood the remaining bastions of civilization? I'm aflutter!
I will, of course, be going for Diamond status once again. I'm not even going to try to pretend to pace myself this time.
Next up is the stuff I need time to work on; Tags and Categories, and the World Meta. I'll admit I haven't touched the meta much since I first built the Mortal Lands, so it could probably use a touch-up. The hardest one is going to be the Categories and Tags; I keep forgetting to mess with Tags, to my detriment. It's time to change that. I also need to make the official Summer Camp Category; for those going for fabulous prizes, we can't touch our articles after July 31st, until judging has completed. A special category helps sorting those out makes 'no touchy' a bit easier.
Assignment 1:Consider what kinds of refuge would fit in with your world's themes, genre, and other foundational points.
Assignment 2: Find a community—whether that’s our Discord server, Facebook Group, your RPG or friend group, or something else.
Assignment 3:Find ways to improve styling and layout in your world!
Assignment 4:If you’re a CSS wizard, maybe take the time now to give it a polish!
Laughs in eternal CSS pain
The theme of Refuge also fits really well in my world! the city of Poartlind, in particular, was considered a place of refuge during the Night of Falling Crowns, as it was the capital of one of the only countries to escape unscathed. And, considering the strong Catholic overtones of my world, there are refuges of all sorts hidden in every corner of the Mortal Lands. Even the Eternal Battlefield hides some hidden safehouses and refuges.
A refuge doesn't have to be a hidden, physical location either! It can be music, it can be sports or a good friend's kitchen or a beloved story. I can't wait to see what prompts are used in this selection!
And look! I'm technically ahead of the game on the accountability assignment! now I just actually have to find some people to join my party.
And as for the CSS and styling cleanup...
tiduslaugh.gif
Week 3 Homework
Theme: Belief
Assignment 1
Consider what kind of beliefs would fit in with your world's themes, genre, and other foundational points.
Assignment 2
Create a bank of inspirations! Quotes, music, description of experiences and shower thoughts, etc.
Assignment 3
Find art and pictures that inspire you, and grab a map if you don't have one (and need one).
Assignment 4
Check your inspirations again. Are they still relevant? Can you find any that better represent the current state of your project?
Loud squeeing noises
This. Is. PERFECT. I've been wanting to expand the belief system for ages, now that I've finally got some mature development as a Catholic (and know more than two basic prayers and the rough order of mass.) Since my world and stories are Heavilly influenced by Catholic theology, being able to expand on this is going to be fantastic!
I do want to explore other systems of belief too; especially when it comes to the Reclaimation, the Mortal Lands equivalent of the Reformation period. And the myriad of splinter faiths that came out of it. And are still splitting off anytime there's a major point of contention. And of course, there is more than one's fair share of agnostics, atheists, and strange cult followings.
I need to desperately update my inspirations. And by inspirations I mean 'IPs and properties I'm trying not to blatantly rip off.' I've also added some new inspirations, especially in the music department. I've been listening to Colm R. McGuiness a lot recently, and I've been so inspired by it. I'm planning a couple day trips to local parks/museums that will hopefully bolster my inspiration bank. I won't put a lot of it here simply to save on space, but I've got a decent bank of photos from my travels.
Thankfully, I've already got a map! It's even been updated somewhat recently. I can't wait to see what I get to add to it this time.
Week 4 Homework
Theme: Decay
Assignment 1
Consider what kind of decay would fit in with your world's themes, genre, and other foundational points..
Assignment 2
If you like special tea when you write, stock up for a month. Tidy your office, make a “do not disturb” sign, and think about any other last-minute strategies to optimize your writing space and time!
Assignment 3
Review your world homepage to hook potential readers!
Assignment 4
Take a look at your author profile and pillar articles on your world and polish them!
And here we go, into the final stretch!
Decay's such an interesting theme! Summer camp always has a theme that is 'darker' in tone compared to the others, to appeal to the Worldbuilders with 'dark' or 'grim' worlds. Everything dies and fades eventually, so while It's a topic I haven't considered much before I'm looking forward to exploring it when Summer camp hits.
I've got plenty of Tea stashed up, although my desk could use a bit of a tidy. My World homepage actually got a clean-up recently thanks to a sage Seminar, and I'm fairly happy with my introduction article! Now it's just going over the last couple of little bits before It begins...
I'm compiling all The assignments and Homework in this lovely series of Tabs in order to keep this page from stretching on into next year's summer camp. Click on a Tab to see what's going on within!
by Rachel B. and World Anvil's Summer Camp Team!
I'm not sure it's up to other people to decide what you do or don't have an appetite for. You're the one who knows how much energy it takes for you to go through 300+ settlement articles, and you're the one who can best predict how you'll feel about that come August. It seems a reasonable to request a theoretically-less-popular prompt after the last two years. If nothing else, it will give you something different to judge. Then again, if you've gotten used to it, maybe it's easier to go through 300+ settlements compared to 200+ [insert other template here]. No matter what, you have to enjoy what you're reviewing, right? Either way you decide, thank you for taking the time, effort, and energy to sponsor. It's greatly appreciated by the whole community!
Speculative-Fiction Writing