Wellsy's SC24 Prep

Hello one and all. This is my submission for the Summercamp 24 prep and I've been waiting for this to come round. I had a lot of fun last year so this year should be a ton of fun.
For the first half of this year I have been focusing on developing my pre-existing content which is great but I am itching to create new ideas to plonk into my world, and competitions like this are a great way to do that :)

Week 1:

So this week was all about prep, which I have managed to act on. I have been able to tidy up a lot of my tags for articles so they are coherent and actually spelt correctly as well as cleaning up the category list. Getting rid of any empty ones and condensing others to make less folders to search through.
Looking at my meta I have come to realise my ideas for the world have shifted slightly. Its still about exploration but I now have a larger focus on making ideas coherent and how they will affect other parts of the world. Which is nice to see my ideas evolving and changing overtime. Which fits nicely with the theme of change introduced in assignment 1.
Finally, cause of my full time job and inconsistent schedule I'm only committing to 8 articles for the challenge. I hope to smash off way more than that but I'm not going to go overboard.
Look forward to reading all submissions and good luck to everyone this year!

Week 2:

Refuge is the theme of this week, an lookign through my world and more specifically the history of the main continent. Two events stand out in relation to refuge. The first is the Minauran slaughter and where the people went after they lost their homes, families and livelyhoods in the event. Where would they go? How might they feel? What would they create?
The second is the ban on portal magic and realm travel. This literally starts new era and I have done very little with its effects on how it shapes the world. The closer we get to Summer Camp starting, the more I feel a certain period of time becoming into focus. Hmmm...
Assignment 2 is about community and I considering I am a shy person in real life and online this is a bit of a challenge. But I am pushing myself to join and add a comment or add a question to reddit groups like r/TTRPG and r/WorldAnvil once a week. Just to build some comfort in gaining an online presence.
Finally assignment 3 describes exactly something I have in the back of my mind constantly when writing articles. I want detail and meaningful text, but also to present it in a way thats more appealing than a block of text. And I have found the best way to do this is look at other articles and worlds to see how they do it. So I will be stealing some layout designs (sorry, not sorry).

Week 3:

Okay people I am back for another week. Now I hope you have all been doing well with prep. This week I feel like I had to think a little harder than usual with the theme being beliefs.
I came at this from the approach of asking what beliefs are so common they almost seem fact? Things like, using dark magic corrupts the user. But why does it corrupt the user? Does it actually corrupt them or is something else going on. Also going through the timeline of the continent Cytal, I kept thinking about things that different eras would believe. Things like prophecies and the power of the godly beings in the world. How many people would believe in fate, destiny and predetermined lives and who would dismiss it? Making me think perhaps the population who believe in this kind of thing is dwindling as time progresses. Finally there is an event called 'The Fall of Maerah' that I have purposefully shrouded in mystery. Now I know what happened but I wonder how many false fables and myths there are surrounding this event??? Something to consider.
As for inspiration, I opened up my pinterest account and did a full hour of looking at pretty pictures. Cause I feel like I struggle with describing details of characters, monsters and cities and a visual reference would be rather handy. As for other sources of inspiration?? Well my Spotify is full of soundtracks from games like FEZ, Journey and Gris. All games that are more explorative in nature and I feel fits the theme of my world of exploration.
Then there is books like the Discworld series and the Kingkiller Chronicles that I have read. I have enjoyed and I want to inject some of that into my worldbuilding. Like the nonsensical hoo-hah of the Discworld books as well as the idea of energy transfer from Patrick Rothfuss' series.
Oh I'm getting excited folks, two weeks and then it begins!!!

Week 4:

THE FINAL WEEK! So, it's not long now until Summercamp begins and I can safely say I am looking forward to it. I always feel overwhelmed before a competition incase I don't get any motivation but as soon as it starts that immediately goes away. And I am not short of ideas, as each week I've been trying to create an idea for each article templates giving me just under 100 ideas to choose from in the future. And I can't wait to get stuck in and write them up.
But let's move onto this weeks assignments. Decay, interesting theme but I couldn't shy away from the typical idea of decay leading to me think about fallen villages, forgetten gods and toying with the idea of rapid decay as a condition. Trying to stretch my creativity though, I remembered a deity and organization that was involved in an old campaign I played in the deserts of Cytal. And the more I thought about it, the more they would fit really well into the ideas of decay, falling from grace and descending into chaos so I have a feeling they will pop up as articles in the near future. I might even polish my notes for the campaign and share them here after summercamp for you all to read!
As for the other assignments, I already have a pretty good setup for writing, maybe I need a few more sticky notes on the wall with funny and inspiring words of wisdom just so I'm not looking at a blank white wall. But overall my space is tidy and I like it. I did however go and update my homepage introduction. Just to reflect what Violem is really about. Which is simply expanding my ideas and sharing them with the world for the sheer fun of it.
So yeah, that's it. Good luck to everyone this year in Summercamp and enjoy the process :)