World Ember 2023

I aim to write 25 000 words on both the Arcturus galaxy and Mauray planet. Both of those are, i think, fun ideas. Both are very undeveloped currently. Mauray has literally nothing right now (as of when i wrote this article). So today i decide to fix that over the comming 2 months. Both are currently (and should be) almost like a mini seperate world inside the THF universe. Both have impacts on the wider universe, but the wider universe has little impact on either. Arcturus is a galaxy full of precursor archaeotech and megastructures. The themes I intend for this galaxy are precursors, meastructures and exploration, and sometimes even a combination of the above. Mayray will be my fantasy project. Although the wider THF universe is a (sort of) hard sci fi, precursor tech has an exception. And it is precursor tech that grants everyone on that world magic. And no, Mauray does not reside within Arcturus. It has nothing to do with Arcturus.
As of starting this, the world itself has 59088 words. As of world ember start, I have 66213. Thus, to achieve the goal, I need 91213. I am not sure what else to put here, but this is the first community challenge I have done.

--------------- Week 2: ---------------

So this week I am creating mini world metas for Mauray and Arcturus. The scope for both areas are quite obvious, one being on a planet and the other takes up a galaxy. I will be using the template for the main meta for this. I have omitted questions with easy answers.
Q: WHAT IS THE HOOK OR UNIQUE SELLING POINT OF YOUR WORLD? WHAT MAKES IT DIFFERENT? Mauray: the world is a friggin megastructure and yet has a fantasy setting. The terrain can shift, especially underground, and is not static. There is also a semi-hard sci fi faction (Hyperion Federation) above their world, watching it curiously. Arcturus: a lot of precursor stuff. With cool technologies (like the Alti time dilation devices). The HF also watches Arcturus and occasionally gets involved in their affairs.
Q: HOW DOES THE WORLD FEEL (PLAYER/READER EXPERIENCE)? Mauray and Arcturus are similar here too. Mauray: Probably something similar to the main meta, but without the overpowered universe aspects because technology hasnt advanced that far. In some cases, I want the reader to keep guessing about what is happening and hopefully cause them to continue readong through that. Others should inspire shock and awe, like how Suons are present on Mauray. How do they survive there? How did they get there? Arcturus: There should be a sort of wonder and awe because of the arcaheotech present. The reader should read through Arcturus, wondering what the next precursor megastructure or artifact will be.
Q: WHAT IS THE TONE OF YOUR WORLD I kind of want this to depend on the factions within Mauray and Arcturus, like in the wider world. Some factions are grimbright, some nobledark, and so on. Again, no noblebright factions.
Q: WHAT ARE THE RECURRING THEMES WHICH REINFORCE THE GENRE, TONE AND FEEL OF YOUR WORLD? Both have a lot of archaeotech. So much that there is always more to explore. The faction tones mostly just arise form the factions themselves. Brighter factions may have more advanced technology

----------- Week 3 -----------

This week I am improving my homepage. Currently, all I have is a fancy picture of a Positrino - Class Planck - Dismantlement Drone and a brick of text that is admittedly worded pretty cool. I looked at this blog ( https://blog.worldanvil.com/worldanvil/tutorials/pro-tips/5-tips-to-create-the-best-world-anvil-homepage/?_gl=1*4gy49k*_gcl_au*MjMzOTM5MDg0LjE2OTQ1ODY1MTY. ), and will format this section simlar to that.
Section 1: Know Your Audience
So, it seems I am opening with a rather strange topic. I actually made the THF universe for myself to enjoy. I have not intended to have others read it (but apparently something about my world is attracting viewers somehow). I still have no idea who, but for this section I will assume people like me will look at it, seeing that the world is designed for, well, me.
Section 2: Open With a Pitch, Why Should They Care?
The first thing the blog talks about here is the opening paragraph in the home page, called the elevator pitch. I already knew that this was important, but the one I already had was far too long. Additionally, the one I already have might be misleading. By questioning "how will a star nation cling to existance" sets a dark tone, but tone really depends on the faction in question. It is true that most factions must fight to keep existing. This section is going to take a lot longer to figure out so I have opened the elevator pitch blog linked within the one I linked above. It asks several questions:

Your genre bundle and your setting’s mood and themes

In my case, the THF universe is a military sci fi, somewhere between hard and soft sci fi. It also plays with technological advantages in war a lot. For example, FTL exists but is explained using theoretical physics. Many weapons have a sort of heavy scientific angle. Many factions have weapons called superluminal railguns which can hurl slugs at superluminal velocities (by implanting warp drives inside the ammunition).

One or two of the core conflicts of the setting

Due to the large timescale this world takes place over (45 000 years not including the ancient times, almost 1 billion including), there is little happening at any one time. However, I plan on adding a lot more historical events such as wars to the past. There are also quite a lot of wars that have happened within those 45 000 years that I made up already, such as the Unification War, Suon-Saelian war, Hyperion-HEX War, the Hyperquasar Annihilator War, the Fracture Wars. (I still need to go deeper into all of these, though.)

What kind of media is it?

Fundamentally, my audience is me. I play games using the THF universe for lore. As for the rest of my audience, they are looking at my WA i suppose? As well as my spaceship art? Other than that, there is currently not much else.

What kind of “fun” are we having?

A lot of war. Strategy (often using the various unique technologies of the HF) or if we want we can go deeper into the details and see what the individual characters are doing. I do also want more forms of fun than just war, but I dont have much of that yet.
I actually decided to keep my old paragraph because that makes me excited over my world. I added a new thing above it which is the actual elevator pitch, but the paragraph goes a bit more in depth, elaborating on the elevator pitch. I have now written the new elevator pitch.
Section 3: Introduce Your World, What Can Readers Expect?
My old elevator pitch actually seems to serve this role quite well so I kept it. Section 3 asks me to put some of the prose on the home page. I dont have much of that, though currently. I would also not call myself an expert on character writing, so this would be difficult for me to add. Sorry.
Section 4: Add a Call to Action
I added a few paragraphs under the introduction that hopefully should lead readers through the most fundamental stuff. I have made it clear where they should go. The blog did mention to avoid giving readers a large amount of decisions. I gave a lot, but also suggested a chronological order to read them in. This should hopefully avoid decision fatigue. I should get feedback on this.
Section 5: Format and Layout, Make it Easy to Look at
For this reason, i broke up the paragraphs. But i am going to need to do better than that. Ok, i have looked at the world settings closer and I can now see that we get more than just the one paragraph for formatting. I have moved my CTA to the right column. I should play around with positioning a bit more. But for now lets try and figure out the different text styles thing. Im experimenting with putting the elevator pitch in a quote block, but with the Modern Spaceships default theme quotes are hard to read as I have just found out. It is light blue text against a darker but still light blue background. I figured out how to use css to put it in a box instead. I made the box a darker blue.

------------ Week 4 ------------- This week we are doing last minute prep apparently. I have actually been doing this the entire time, I have ideas stockpiled, a daily schedule (that is as simple as just writing 1000 words each day) and, most importantly, a world map for Mauray. I have been putting a lot into it as I build my maps pixel by pixel using an image editor (specifically paint.net (not MS paint, a different thing)) I uploaded my map today and have started the chronicle. It currently stands waiting to be filled with lore. Now i just have to hope that chronicles count towards my wordcount goal of 25k. I am recording my ideas on a document on my pc files and so, i should be about ready for the storm that is world ember. Good luck to anyone else doing this as well.