Summer Camp 2024
Goals
Goal: Gold
You can see the badges I got in previous years to the right. I am not really one for writing based off of preset prompts. in 2022 I only got around 12 articles finished, and in 2023 I barely got to silver by the last day. This year I am going to attempt to make it to Gold. Just like last year I spent a lot of time preparing a bunch of material that I can twist around to fit whatever prompt comes out, and hopefuly (Knocking on wood until my knuckles turn red) lightning doesn't strike my apartment and make me homeless for three months again!
Reading Goal: 150 Articles
Just like last year (151 read), and 2022 (342 read), I have a goal for reading articles during the next month. I set this goal for myself as a constant reminder because otherwise I'd forget to interact with anyone else's work at all! I need to set an obtainable goal, especially if something happens (like, say... a lightning strike) midway through the month like last year that stops my participation in Summer Camp. Also, as I said many times in the past, I work for a living... Because of that, my goal for this year is set at 150 articles for the month of July.
Link all articles together
Some WA users are very good at doing this sort of thing, and at the end of the month they'll post a cool web graphic showing how all their articles link together. I however have failed to do this several times depending on the year and what circumstances hit me. This year, I want to try again, and this time tell a story throughout all of the articles. If that fails, then I'll do it after Summer Camp ends. I need the writing practice either way...
I did a good amount of pre-planning so I at least have some starting points this year, so hopefully I will accomplish this goal finally. A summary of that pre-planning is the following sections and includes details on the maps I made and plans I have for the story.
((Placeholder for Next Badge.... Maybe it will be gold? Hopefully...))
The Focus for Summer Camp: The Moon Izi
Izi is a small moon that is best described as a sulfurous volcanic hellscape. Izi is closest moon to the planet Tarsuros. This moon is forever being stretched and pulled by the much larger planet, causing massive lava flows and volcanic eruptions that dwarf any on the world of Vreathe. The surface of the world is mostly frozen but next to the lava flows the temperature can be as hot as the surface of a star.
Despite all this (but also thanks to large amount of Aether infecting everything on the world) life somehow thrives and can be classified by the environment they live in: Lava, Acid, Cave, Sulphur, Salt. These creatures are vastly different from each other. Some of the life is familiar. Phoenix birds and Drakes call this world home and look very much like their counterparts on Vreathe.
Humanoids like Elves, Goblins, and Ogres also live on the world, altered by the aether there. Then there are alien forms of life that are straight out of nightmares, such as the Saltipedes a hundred meter long writhing mass of legs and claws that burrows through the salt deserts.
Maps
Map 1: The Rovia Region
The Rovia Region of the moon Izi is where nearly all of my summer camp articles will be focused if I can make it work. It is here that the Jirra Caverns are located, and on the Obsidian Isles is where the Fire God Beirunes resides. I attempted to make this part of the world as varied as I can, considering the limitations I was working with. This map has around 30 pins so far, around 20 of them have information on them. I will add more information to them at a later date.
The images above are at a resolution of 1920x1080. The full size maps each have multiple layers at a resolution of 5463x3075.
Map 2: Jirra Caverns
This is one of the primary refuges of the Fire Elves on Izi. After the Silver Age Cataclysm the people of this world were unable to find a way back to Vreathe and were forced underground. They managed to thrive and their civilization survived. This map does not have any pins yet, and I'm not sure it will have any before July begins.
I considered combining these two maps into one with five layers. They are split up right now because that many layers with the large resolution of my maps will make the page run sluggishly otherwise. This is also why I have links to the full size maps instead of embedding them.
Story: Smoke and Frost
As told through several journal entries in The Moon Izi article, an all human team of researchers used the Mount Cendi Lava Lake to cross between worlds. It didn't go well for them and only two people made it back. Beirunes, the god of Fire and Destruction, learned there was a portal to Vreathe, but he took no action. In the centuries since, the Phoenix Knights were tasked with watching over the lava lake to make sure nothing crosses over.
In 200 years, nothing has ever crossed over, then one day, in October 2990 I.A., an elf covered in frost surfaced at the lake. Despite the burning temperatures of the lava, he remained frozen and cold to the touch. Something is happening on the other side of the portal, and the Knight Council wants to know. It is time to send some knights through the portal and investigate.
Some characters I have written about extensively, such as Renelle Vernador, who would rather travel to other worlds and fight gods than deal with her father's murderers. Others, not so much, such as Ascenda, one of the elves that met the original research team two centuries ago...
Theme 1: Change
There are several different ways I can tackle these prompts. The physiology of many creatures change when they are under the influence of Aether and a good many life forms had to adapt to life on the hellish moon. Elven society completely changed in the years they were living on the moon. They now worship Beirunes without question but in the past they were less than accomodating to the gods.
The characters from Vreathe have to adapt to the completely different alien landscape as they carry out their investigation. There's lava fields, frozen sulfurous wastelands, and more they'll have to overcome. Even the caverns aren't anything like what they might find on Vreathe.
Theme 2: Refuge
Again there's many different ways I can tackle this. the Jirra Caverns might as well be one massive refuge to the elves that live there. The characters from Vreathe could be wearing specialized suits so they can survive on the moon Izi. Plant and Animal life also has to find ways to take shelter from Izi's unforgiving conditions, whether its digging in the ground or some other method. The lava or acid lakes themselves are a refuge from the wildly different forms of life that call the world home.
Theme 3: Belief
The Elves of Izi are fully dedicated to their god Beirunes, who is a physical being that meditates in his palace that pretty much any elf can visit. For elves that live at a distance, they have temples and statues built of their god and they have various rituals dedicated to Beirunes, so the religion part of belief is easy!
Other aspects are a bit harder. There are three primary factions of Lava elves and they each have different beliefs, especially in how they should handle the intruders/visitors from Vreathe. There is also the nature of what the Elves believe actually happened in the distant past on Izi and Vreathe and why ██████████ is ██████████ in the world below.
As for my characters from Vreathe, One is a master procrastinator and the other is afraid of their own nature, so I could play with their lack of belief? Ah I'll figure it out!
Theme 4: Decay
I can't talk about this one because that would spoil the story and where all the water came from. There is also how elven society decayed in the 200 years since they found out there was a portal to Vreathe, but that's also spoilerific!
On the nature side of things, how do creatures literally decay on this moon when they die? Can't possibly be the same as on Vreathe, at least outside the caverns. The Phoenix birds for example don't decay at all, and instead immolate themselves to ash. Eventually the ashes from multiple birds coalesce and create an egg and a new bird. We'll get to others if the prompt fits.
Another form of decay that I haven't been able to fully explore in my world yet is the nature of aetheric corruption on human beings. Elves are able to absorb aether more than most, and entire races of elves exist because they were for thousands of years bathed in specific forms of aether, but even they can eventually start to exhibit the effects of absorbing too much magic.
Other Assignments
((Click here))Week 1, Assignment 3: Categories, Tags, Organization
The categories in my world aren't really set up to focus on a completely different location like this. The categories are pretty broad anyways because other than locations, I don't really have enough of anything to create more categories, unless I want a bunch of empty categories.
Instead, to keep all the relevant articles organized in one location I am going to have a navigation table at the bottom of every article. I have it made already and it will fill automatically as I add tags to new articles. If you've seen my World Ember articles, you know exactly what I mean.
Week 1, Assignment 4: Update your Meta
Heh, heh, hah....nope. I don't have a meta. Am I going to have one anytime soon? I really should because I know some people will refuse to even interact with a world if it doesn't have one. But, I'm not going to bother for now.
Week 2, Assignment 2: Acountability Buddy
I'm not really one for community interaction. I suck at leaving comments (I also suck at replying to them...). It's not like I don't at a basic level interact with other people's work at all, as I have read around 400 articles this year and followed over a dozen worlds/users (I'm well on my way of my yearly goal of reading 1000 articles from the community!). But, I still suck at interacting with other people.
I'll share my work in the usual places, and I'll like whatever I read, but otherwise, I have always been more of a Solo hiker. I rarely ask for or give feedback, I don't participate in the Discord, and it's rare that I raise my voice and press an issue I believe in. I'm just going to keep it that way for now.
You guys can join the Ferals, the Dewy Diamonds, the Chills, etc. to stay accountable. Stay active on Discord, X, Reddit, etc. to get your motivation. But me? My worldbuilding is accountable only to myself and I prefer it that way. Let's just knock on wood a few more times so no major disaster screws with my goals this year!
A badge to push the point that I'm accountable to myself and a promise that I will reach my goals next month. Well, wait, I kind of need to make it first....
Week 2, Assignment 3: Styling
My article styling has bounced from very simplistic with the most basic formatting, to image filled hyper formatted wastelands. I want to say I am somewhere in the middle of that right now. Not really sure what else to say with this. I think I have a pretty good foundation of how the BBcode works.
Week 2, Assignment 4: CSS
I'm not touching my CSS again until after Summer Camp. While I managed to fix my other world last year, Vreathe's CSS is several thousand lines of spaghetti code that is impossible to fully figure out. I'm going to have to organize it and redo large portions of it eventually, but one month isn't enough time to do it.
Week 3, Assignment 2: IRL Inspirations
If it wasn't obvious, the moon Izi is a stand-in for the real moon Io, which is also a frozen sulfurous hellscape being slowly torn apart by its parent planet! Io has no water on it though, less than any other moon or planet in the solar system. How Izi got its water (and also its acid) is where the fantasy comes in, but it is a story spoiler. I left a few hints already on the maps.
Other than that I have friends at work I bounce ideas off of and I have a vast playlist of mostly videogame music. That's about it.
Week 3, Assignment 3: Image and Map Preparation
Spent some time preparing the maps at the top of the page. Together there are five layers and around 30 pins. Otherwise I have a few images I prepared beforehand (because if I haven't said it enough times, I prety regularly use AI art and public domain images here).
I am also drawing a few if the prompt fits. Yes I can draw, but I rarely do it between my 40-55+ hour a week job and everything else that happens in my life. I haven't uploaded any major pieces of art here in quite a long while, but depending on the prompts next month, there are a few specific pieces that no AI will ever be able to create so I need to make time for them, somehow.
Week 4, Assignment 2: Optimize your environment
I live alone and I have no pets (anymore... RIP Thor...) My desk only has my computer, a drawing tablet, and a fan on it. That's it. Pretty optimized I think.
Week 4, Assignment 3: Homepage Review
Actually updated it at the beginning of the year to have a proper introduction. I also have an 'intro article' and a 'featured article' posted directly after the introduction, plus a section to post event articles, like this Summercamp Pledge and a future progress article.
Week 4, Assignment 4: Update intro article and author's profile
My World Intro article (Explorer's Guide to Vreathe) is one of my most viewed and well liked articles. I gave it a fresh coat of paint last year so I think I'm good with not updating it for now.
As for my Author's Profile, in the absence of a WA feature that shows an Author's most recently updated articles (Seriously, why did they remove this six months ago and not put it back yet!?!?), I decided to put my recently updated articles in there myself as custom profile content. That way, someone clicking on my profile has a more direct line to what I am working on besides my most viewed/liked articles that everyone has seen 10 times already.
Personally I think that's better than a long list of my favorite movies, books, video games, artists, sword, and the specific type of german shepherd I prefer having as a pet (all of them obviously).
What about my other world...
Ah Cairn Sector, this beautiful, neglected world of mine! I swear, normally I would have gotten burned out of my fantasy world like, a year ago and I would have done nothing but work on this one instead. That obviously didn't happen. I've worked on a few articles here and there, but it's been so very few. Unfortunately, that isn't going to change any time soon.
However, if the prompt fits and I can't think of anyting with Vreathe, then I will be writing an article in my sci-fi world instead. And amazingly, the themes this year actually fits each of my human characters quite well, so I can use the prompts to describe a piece of worldbuilding and also give some much needed info on each of the characters. I am going to have to start working on this world more eventually, but for now this will have to do.
Wish you good luck on getting that gold badge! Happy Summer Camp!
Thanks! Good luck to you as well.