Summer Camp 2024 Homework

Week the First

The latest story in this world is new enough to need a lot of setting work before it goes anywhere. I will likely work on other parts of the greater 'verse as well, but this corner of it shall be my focus for SC '24.
The working title of that story — whoo, title reveal! — is "The Angel of Winterbourne".

Theme Change

Change is a great theme for TAoW, 'cause there's plenty of that and I have yet to figure out a) which changes actually make sense, and b) how those changes affect the storyworld.
Here's a selection of established and possible changes taking place.

• The Lightbearers splitting off from the Sunforged. Or, what happens when the dominant religious group is challenged by heretics from their own ranks.
• There might be a whole side plot about the rich and the criminals, all trying to take advantage of the unrest in Winterbourne, and possibly in other parts of Razduna.
• The leader of the Lightbearers goes through some major changes, starting with Sun-Dweller choosing hir and ending with hir death.
• The aftermath of the Lightbearers losing their leader. Or, how the fallout from a religious conflict impacts the politics and society in Razduna.
• The revelation of Sun-Dweller's real plans when the other Lightbearers confront them. Or, what happens when the local deity turns out to not have their followers' best interest at heart.
• The return of the Sulna system to the interstellar community, as their divinely imposed isolation ends.

Prompt Critical Goals

16 prompts sounds doable, though it depends on the topics (and my day job).
I won't bother polishing articles beyond a decent layout; this part of the 'verse is still very WIP. There won't be any art, except maybe the occasional rough sketch.

Cats & Tags

I write my notes and rough drafts in Obsidian, and I do most of my project organization there as well, including categorizing and tagging.

Categories are currently about the same as in Obsidian, and as long as they work for me, that's how they stay (otherwise I get confused).
Tags need an overhaul, but I haven't decided yet how I want to handle that (currently trying things out). There's no point forcing this sorta thing; that way lies frustration and hours of undoing bad ideas.
At least the tags for the alphabetical index are fine as they are.

No Meta

Frankly, the World Meta looks super useful, but it does not work for me in the slightest.
This is not how my brain operates, and it starts screaming when forced into shapes that don't fit. (Since it has already done plenty screaming for other reasons lately, I refuse to tolerate any more of that.)

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Week the Second

Refuge

Again, a great theme for this story.

• For the protagonist, joining the Sunforged was a means to find refuge from a hostile society. Later, the Abyssans (and especially Wrath Sings-to-the-Void) provide the same.
• For quite a few of the Lightbearers, this order also provided them with a refuge from the uncertainty as Razduna was going through unrelated changes.
• During the expedition to Nightside, the temple is both the destination and a refuge from the hostile environment.
• Sun-Dweller isolated the Sulna system to make it a refuge of sorts, though by now it has become more of a prison.

Accountability? I Hardly Know 'Er.

I might post my progress over on Cohost. I neither want nor need the added pressure of others expecting me to hit an arbitrary goal, so that's a decisive maybe.
That said, sharing my SC posts on what was intended to be the project devlog sounds like a sensible idea. The worldbuilding posts there have been very sporadic lately.

Layout, but with Style

This is something I'm always working on anyways. Nothing I can improve on a whim; I don't have the energy for a big overhaul right now. It'll happen over time as I figure things out.
The CSS looks fine for now and I don't expect anything beyond the odd minor tweak.

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Week the Third

Did youzall foresee what kinda story I'm going with this year, or am I unknowingly jumping on a trend here, 'cause this is starting to get weird...

Belief is a Whole Theme

Religion is, if it wasn't obvious by now, one of the central themes here. But there are other relevant beliefs as well.

• Sun-Dweller is the main deity of the Sulna system. They used to be physically present early on, but have since withdrawn to the Solar Forge (their main temple on Dayside).
• The Lightbearers were inspired by the Order of the Cleansing Light, who worship Render of Veils, one of the ancient Machine Gods of Abyss.
• Many Razdunans believe that the worlds beyond Sulna are hostile in some way or another. And while that is certainly true for some, the majority has no ill intent toward them.
• Nightside is also considered hostile territory by most, and not only because it's dark, freezing cold, and very dry. Allegedly, there are dangerous creatures roaming the frozen wastes, and the few Nightsiders (most of them members of the eponymous subspecies of wastelanders) in Razduna are looked upon with fearful suspicion.

Real Life is a Boring Dystopia

There's not much of real life inspo at the moment, considering that is still kind of a freshly nuked wasteland and this story was always supposed to be somewhat escapist.
I do have a bunch of music, ref pics, plot hooks, character ideas and the like from earlier prep for this story, so there's that.

Screenshot of a post on Cohost by spacetrash

I'd also love to cite Cohost's electric arc worshippers and their tragic but inevitable schism into sodium vapor lamp cult vs. mercury vapor lamp cult as inspo, but I had already written pretty much all of this up before any of that went down.
As an incidental bonus, sodium vapor lamps are orange-red and mercury vapor lamps are bluish-green, which fits the Sunforged vs. Lightbearer color schemes pretty well.
What it did inspire was a considerably less lethal variant of the Cleansing Light. I'll get into that in its own article, as it will be relevant to this story even before the Abyssans get involved.

Here be Dragons?

And speaking of reference pictures, I do have a fairly sizeable collection of those. It's like my personal dragon hoard, and I don't even remember what half of them were for.
As for my own art for this story, I have made a few pencil sketches and I shall make (and post) more. I've also played around with Heroforge, mostly for color schemes, 'cause painting is not happening lately.
As for maps, I have yet to decide what Razduna looks like. In fact, I might even put the planet into another star system altogether. That said, floor plans are in the works right now, because I do need those early on. Dungeondraft has proven very useful so far. And of course, a (partial) city map is bound to happen at some point, too.

Inspo Review

This is actually something I need to address before Summer Camp. I have inspo-related question marks all over this thing because it's been going through a lot of changes since I started it last year.
Some of the original inspo material is not up to date anymore, while I need fresh ideas for other parts (eg. Nightside needs an overhaul).
Either way, have a song from my writing / worldbuilding playlist.

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Week the Fourth

Decay Remains a Theme

Every time an Entropist keeps their body alive through something that should kill it, something else dies in their stead. That is why we be called heretics.

Wrath Sings-to-the-Void

Decay is a theme, especially the moral kind.

• The Sunforged have been around for generations, and they've grown hedonistic and slow to enforce their rules. This is also reflected in the state of many of their buildings, and the city of Winterbourne in general.
• The Lightbearers are Sun-Dweller's means to shake the Sunforged out of their complacency and moral decay, and to return them to their former glory. (How ironic then to choose the Entropists as inspiration.)

Environmental Optimization

Aside from giving my apartment a belated spring cleaning, there's little else I can do.
Buying nonperishable foodstuffs in advance sounds like a plan, everything else is about as structured as I can make it in the still somewhat unpredictable situation here.

World Site Reviews

I'll have to remember to post new articles on the homepage, aside from that it is what it is. I have neither the energy nor the time to do anything big at the moment.
Nothing on the intro and author profile side either for the time being.

Camp Chill (ID 4574878) by Rin Garnett

I shall join Camp Chill 'cause that sounds like A Plan after a literal hell of a year.
The Guidelines:

• Remember the prompts are suggestions, not requirements.
• Write what you're passionate about, leave what you aren't.
• Relax when you feel tired.
• Fight off any pesky brain-squitos trying to make you doubt your work.
• Don't abandon your non-summer camp goals! Write that article you're itching to write, even if it doesn't fit any prompts.