Summercamp 2021 Pledge
This will be my second World Anvil Summercamp. The first one started just a couple of weeks after I joined the World Anvil community. The World of Cartyrion was, at that time, a crude map and a scattered collection of Microsoft Word documents - some on deities, some on character backgrounds, some on world geography. Very few of the summercamp article prompts had anything to do with what I thought I should be working on first: building the framework to bring my world into being. But it was impossible to not get caught up in the community hype, so I dove into the Summercamp Challenge with everyone else.
It was the best thing I could ever have done.
Besides immersing me deeper into what is the best community of people on the entire internet, Summercamp turned me into a Twitch Streamer and got me involved with the Anvilite Streamer Corps. I started contributing more to the community, on the WA discord as well as Twitch. I took part in collaborative worldbuilding exercises like Synergasia, and more recently the WRAF. It got me to accelerate my membership plans and join the Inner Sanctum before I'd even been around here for a year.
But most importantly, Summercamp 2020 provided me with 33 pieces of lore that I have been able to build into the framework of Cartyrion. I had decided from the outset to focus on my Feywood region first - building it out and starting to write adventures based there. I tried to fit my Summercamp articles to fit into the Feywood somehow, and for the vast majority of them, I succeeded. But they weren't helping me build the framework I needed. There were some linked groups of articles, but they were still just a disjointed collection of random lore in August of 2020.
Now, though... 10 months later... most of them have found their way into the stories that I am telling and the adventures being presented to my gaming parties. Most are simply "color", but I get compliments from my players for this color. They have told me that it is much easier to get immersed into Cartyrion since it is a world of much more than just a tree here, a road there, and a tavern in a village. The villages have character... they have holidays and festivals... there are things on tavern menus other than just "meat, cheese, and a loaf of bread". The Feywood of Cartyrion has depth - and much of that depth is because of Summercamp 2020 prompts.
Which project are your worldbuilding efforts tied to?
As I look toward Summercamp 2021, I will hope to repeat the phenomena of last year. Cartyrion is the only world I plan on working on, and I still have much work to do in the Feywood. This work is targeted to narrow areas, though. If a prompt comes along that will fill a gap, I may use it to do. But my plan is to let Summercamp do what it does best: create a collection of bits of lore that will ultimately make another region of my world three-dimensional. The next region I plan to address is the area I call "the Kingdoms". The Costume Challenge was my first foray into the lore that defines this region, The Kingdoms is where I will be "living" in Summercamp.
These are not the only folk in the region, though... Halflings are everywhere the Humans are, and the Awkwana (Birdfolk) have several major mountaintop cities and seaports.
Completed article notifications will go out to followers. Articles will be posted to the #summercamp-2021 WA discord channel. Tweets will be done and, subject to the self-promotion limits, subreddit posts linked to the articles will be posted as well. (For the subreddits, it may be necessary to limit myself to one such post per week; in this case, I will select one recently created article and post it.)
Facebook needs more work, but I'll be devoting time to getting that up to par by the end of the Summercamp month.
I am also working on a plan to resurrect my YouTube presence, which was never much to begin with, and has been idle for months.
Finally, I will commit to frequent public posts on my Patreon site telling patrons as well as any occasional visitors what I'm doing.
Specifically, the subreddits I will be following are...
It was the best thing I could ever have done.
Besides immersing me deeper into what is the best community of people on the entire internet, Summercamp turned me into a Twitch Streamer and got me involved with the Anvilite Streamer Corps. I started contributing more to the community, on the WA discord as well as Twitch. I took part in collaborative worldbuilding exercises like Synergasia, and more recently the WRAF. It got me to accelerate my membership plans and join the Inner Sanctum before I'd even been around here for a year.
But most importantly, Summercamp 2020 provided me with 33 pieces of lore that I have been able to build into the framework of Cartyrion. I had decided from the outset to focus on my Feywood region first - building it out and starting to write adventures based there. I tried to fit my Summercamp articles to fit into the Feywood somehow, and for the vast majority of them, I succeeded. But they weren't helping me build the framework I needed. There were some linked groups of articles, but they were still just a disjointed collection of random lore in August of 2020.
Now, though... 10 months later... most of them have found their way into the stories that I am telling and the adventures being presented to my gaming parties. Most are simply "color", but I get compliments from my players for this color. They have told me that it is much easier to get immersed into Cartyrion since it is a world of much more than just a tree here, a road there, and a tavern in a village. The villages have character... they have holidays and festivals... there are things on tavern menus other than just "meat, cheese, and a loaf of bread". The Feywood of Cartyrion has depth - and much of that depth is because of Summercamp 2020 prompts.
Which project are your worldbuilding efforts tied to?
What world are you working on?
Which area of the world am I working on?
How much are you aiming to complete?
From a standpoint of how much framework is built out in the Kingdoms when camp is over, the answer is, "I don't really care!" My goal is not to complete the area; it is to reply to 31 prompts and produce nuggets of lore that will be integral parts of the region someday. Some prompts may well help build the "bones" on which the Kingdoms region is based. Some will provide the flesh that covers those bones. And some will give me the bling to eventually drape over that skin and make the Kingdoms a more interesting region to explore. The past tells me that, sooner or later, every article will find a good home in the long run.When will you write?
I will make every effort to write daily, trying to keep a one-prompt-per-day pace. Summercamp is not a sprint. Some days I will get several article bodies built out; other days I will spend desiging the CSS for the Kingdoms region. I know I will be writing on-stream at least three days a week, and the streams of other ASC members will provide the sprint opportunities to get work done whenever I sit down to write.I Hereby Pledge...
...to participate in World Anvil's Summercamp 2021, and to make every attempt to complete articles for all thirty-one prompts within the month of July. Furthermore, I will make every effort to focus the attention of each of these articles on the region of the World of Cartyrion known as the Kingdoms - and in particular the First Kingdom of Humankind. I recognize that these articles will not by themselves form the full background and lore necessary to define this region, but I am confident that as the region becomes fully defined, the articles written during Summercamp will become an integral part of the lore - and more importantly of the "flavor" of the region. This will allow me to prepare RPG Adventures taking place in the region that contain enough "extras" to more fully immerse the players in the setting.
Organizing My Region and World
Categories
A complete set of categories under the Cartyrion World Atlas was created, The categories break the region down into countries, then individual settlements within the cities. Each city, as needed, will get a "shops" and "people" category (one set is demonstrated in the image to the left). As various prompts are created, the articles will be dropped into the appropriate level category. (For example, something about a city that isn't about a shop or a person will be dropped into the city-level category.) Eventually these articles will end up linked to core articles about the location one way or another. This reflects the category setup that I've been using for the Frontier Lands / Feywood region for the past year.Cleanup
As part of the "spring cleaning" before summercamp, all 83 of my uncategorized articles have now either been placed into a category or deleted. (Deletions were stub duplicates, or completely empty.)Preparing the Kingdoms Region
In addition to the Category tree described above, three other important items were created to get the Kingdoms Region ready for articles:A Style Sheet...
The images that appear in the side panels are my "inspirational reminders" about the region. The First Kingdom is all about the nobles and religious leaders, but the region also includes the Elvenhome and the kingdom of the Catfolk.These are not the only folk in the region, though... Halflings are everywhere the Humans are, and the Awkwana (Birdfolk) have several major mountaintop cities and seaports.
A Map...
A Primer...
More inspiration (in text form) is found here, as the primer includes a descriptions of the political and cultural atmosphere of the new region, as well as a segment on the nature of the Adventures that I have planned for the lands.My article Release Plan
This Article will be updated after each "prompt drop" to enter each of the prompts that we are challenged to complete. Upon completion of an article, its article block will be added to the document. (This document - my "summercamp body of work" - is available directly from my world home page.Completed article notifications will go out to followers. Articles will be posted to the #summercamp-2021 WA discord channel. Tweets will be done and, subject to the self-promotion limits, subreddit posts linked to the articles will be posted as well. (For the subreddits, it may be necessary to limit myself to one such post per week; in this case, I will select one recently created article and post it.)
My Visibility Plan
Social Media
I have not been paying the appropriate attention to my Twitter presence. I plan on allocating a brief period of time each day to deal with Twitter - reviewing WA and summercamp tweets in particular, adding follows and spreading the good work.Facebook needs more work, but I'll be devoting time to getting that up to par by the end of the Summercamp month.
I am also working on a plan to resurrect my YouTube presence, which was never much to begin with, and has been idle for months.
Finally, I will commit to frequent public posts on my Patreon site telling patrons as well as any occasional visitors what I'm doing.
Subreddits
I have been a member of several "appropriate" subreddits for a while, but as with Twitter, i have not been faithfully visiting them and interacting with others there. This wlil change. Time will be allocated to interact daily, and I will post my own work in accordance with subreddit rules regarding self-promotion.Specifically, the subreddits I will be following are...
- r/WorldAnvil
- r/Worldbuilding
- r/rpg
- r/RPGDesign
- r/Pathfinder2E
World Anvil Discord
I am already fairly active on the World Anvil Discord, but I did "check in" on the Summercamp2021 channel to wish everyone good luck with their efforts. I will continue to check in on this channel regularly - not only to post my own articles, but also to see what other people are up to.World Anvil Author's Profile
- I have reviewed my Author Profile page and made a number of small, but significant changes. I've updated my personal bio section to be a little less self-deprecating and a little more confident. I've updated the banner to reflect the World of Cartyrion - my main product.
- I've added one or two bits of missing information
- I've added a journal post inviting everyone that follows me to join my "unpack the prompts" stream on Twitch that runs 2 hours after the initial prompt reveal. (This is the first of four special "unpack streams" I have planned and placed into the Anvilite Streamer Corps schedule.)
- I've taken a look at my "followed by" and "follower" lists, and tried for a bit more parity in the two. First of all, I've added follows to a few people that have been supporting me, and deserve my support in return. I've also added ten "new" follows -- selected more or less at random from the #summercamp2021 discord channel. I will be reading the work of all of these new "follows", and offering as much encouragement and support as I can.
Great view of what Summer Camp offers! Excited to see your work again this year!
Thanks for reading and commenting. I’m hoping that first-timers read it too, and avoid that “I’m wasting my time on silly details” thinking that hit me last year. I’m very happy i just went with the spirit of the event. The usefulness came later, but it does come! And that’s the lesson I learned !
Laurels & Loot is a new, lightweight TTRPG rules system that hearkens back to the early days.
Summer Camp caused me to spin things off in ways I never would have thought about previously, and created aspects that have since become integral to the world. Also a couple of the more unrelated bits are now some of my favourite bits of world trivia!