Eric's 2025 New Year Resolutions
Hello everyone! If you're visiting my world for the first time, welcome! I hope you enjoy your stay. If you like what you're reading, feel free to follow the world so you won't miss out. ;) If you're a returning reader, thank you for coming along with me on this creation journey!
These past few months have felt incredible for me. I finally feel like I have the drive and inner strength to work on what I want to do most (and what I love to do most): creation. Imagination. Writing on digital paper whatever comes through my head at all times. Sharing my work with other passionate people. Joining this community was one of the best decisions I have made for myself, and I'm grateful for how open everyone has been. It really helped me feel welcomed. Thank you.
Now then, what are my plans for this year? I have a bunch of stuff I want to work on, so let's just jump right into it. After that, I'll show my reading list - complete with links and personal comments (things I liked about the article mostly).
Worldbuilding
A good place to start, right? Worldbuilding is probably the most fun I have when I'm writing. Don't get me wrong, storytelling is pretty fun too - being able to freestyle about random parts of my world is just a little more fun.
During WorldEmber 2024, I've laid down the foundation for Aclarian cosmology; you can read more about it here if you want. The TL;DR is that I have 6 primordial beings that rule over very general aspects of reality, society and self, aspects expressed as relationship between individuals, others, and the surrounding world (e.g. "Conquest" can be understood as an individual's triumph over the world around them, so its corresponding relationship is "the Self acting upon the World"; the other 5 follow this pattern). Atop this pantheon rules a 7th primordial being that partially controls the fate of every being with a soul, and opposing these beings there is a race of monsters that wish to bring forth the end of everything.
I could've written more about their origins and their organization - if you'll click around, you'll surely find draft articles that aren't written yet. I could've written more about the primordials-versus-monsters fights, or about the internal strife between the godly beings. The truth is I simply didn't have the time and power to write more. Still, I am very happy to have written these few articles - a lot of my plans have become clearer after writing them. Surprisingly, things make more sense now for me, how does that work? But enough about what I did and didn't. Let's focus on the future.
The Meridian Plane
The world of Aclara is made of many, many planes - you could say it's a "multiverse" if you want, but recent movies, games and TV shows have made me hate this word. But yeah, that's what it is. To be more precise, Aclara is closer to Magic: The Gathering's interpretation of a world with many planes of existence. Every plane has its own history, culture, geography, flora, fauna, intelligent species etc. etc. so on and so on. They all work based on the same few principles, stuff like physics and magic.
The first plane I want to completely flesh out is Meridian - a plane inspired by "classical" medieval fantasy works, with a bit of political drama let's say. I feel like there is more than enough to write about; if I branch out and write about disconnected stuff, it would be a mess. So, for the time being, I want to have a core that's well-defined before I begin writing about other stuff. My concrete plans are: make a map of the Meridian plane, write about the kingdoms, write more about Exarhi (the pocket plane where all the mage authorities live, as well as the official magic University), write about the relationships between all these institutions.
The magic system
Unexplained magic stuff that just... happens? Not on my watch! I really, really, really want to delve into how the magic works in Aclara. I want it to be more on the hard side of magic systems - something well-defined, with rules that bind its usage, but still a little hard to completely grasp, understand and master by my characters. For the time being, I won't give any details. You'll have to wait until it's done. Thanks for understanding.
Storytelling
I have some story ideas in my mind, stuff I'd really like to start and stuff I'd really like to redo. While I don't expect to post most of this (not until it's somewhat done at the very least), I will work on it in the background, don't worry. Until then, you can read my small bits of prose right here! If you like them or have suggestions, feel free to live a comment. ^^
Art, design & stuff
I'll keep this part as short as possible. As you might have noticed, the art is quite... machine-generated. Yes, it is unfortunately true - I use AI to generate things that are pretty enough for the time being. I'll be looking into ways to replace them, either through commissions or through hard work. I have no skills whatsoever, but I will do my best. My goal is to replace all "artworks" with real art by the end of 2025. I hope you can understand my position. Don't throw stones at me please.
Competitions
I joined WorldAnvil because I wanted to participate in one of their writing competitions. Ever since then, I've done my best to write something for both official and community challenges - my plans aren't to win anything, but to simply motivate myself to worldbuild more. If I have a clear goal in mind, I can keep myself more focused. Also, If I ever win anything, that would be pretty cool too. :> So, this year, you can find me on the "challenge-discussion" chat on the WorldAnvil Discord server, writing for challenges and competitions!
Reading List
Here is the actual reading list for this challenge. Honestly, I love the idea of having a dedicated "Read Article" every month - maybe even keep all of it in a separate folder too!
This was a very enjoyable read - while it doesn't perfectly align with my own definition of a cozy room (more fluffy blankets and warm lights required haha), I certainly felt warmth while reading the article. The details were lovely too! It brings the room closer to you in a way. It makes the experience more intimate in a way - you can feel the love for writing when you read the details, the fluff, the bits and pieces. Awesome.
A very detailed character analysis (and a pretty complex CSS styling - some of y'all are modern day mages, I swear) and, honestly, a pretty good source of inspiration! The idea of combining multiple curses to cancel the negatives and amplify the positives is something I might... "borrow" for my own character articles. Having her inner thoughts woven into the article was a nice touch, too; I tried to do the same in some of my articles, but I only used quotes or dialog fragments. All in all, great stuff!
A short and sweet article about local food - it left me a little hungry too haha! This kind of article is something I struggle to write for my world. It's the little details that make the world feel... livelier in a way. You can tell a lot about a culture based on their customs, their traditions and their meals. Maybe this year I should spend more time writing little nuggets of lore like this!
Chronomancy! The art of bending the flow of time itself - there is nothing more powerful than that, other than maybe straight-up bending reality with your thoughts. Anyone who knows me will tell you how much I love media with good time magic/science/fuckery. This interpretation of chronomancy (magic that can rewrite the entire history if you're powerful enough) is pretty interesting because of the forces that regulate it; it empowers the characters and adds a nuance of "how much can I bend the rules" to its usage. I can say for sure that it definitely inspired me to start outlining my own time-related stuff! It's gonna take some time to do it properly though.
Are we the masters of our own realities and lives, or is the world around us restricting the way we can even perceive the world? I am a big fan of metaphysics, and this article really tickled the part of my brain that's into this kind of stuff! There are a few thoughts about how magic works that resemble my own (not yet written) ideas - specifically the way mastery over magic allows one to reshape the world around themselves. The division of magic into four pillars - Matter, Spirit, Continuum and Chaos - covers every aspect nicely and without overlap (or maybe not, since "Chaos" could mean "doing anything at all"). It is refreshing to say the least - I love ATLA, but I am pretty tired of the old "4/5 elements" systems. The overall aesthetic was charming and the content of the article is pretty meaty - I definitely recommend reading it.
Once a beautiful land, now a scorched surface. Once the center of a trade empire, now the home of subterranean workers and surface nomads. Between the deeply relatable desire to keep living from the Mercurians and the beautiful images that complete the article, I couldn't help but fall in love it. It's giving a hopeful post-apocalyptic vibe that is strangely reassuring.
Ascend into godhood following these simple steps! I was extremely surprised to see my own plans and ideas reflected in this article - more precisely, the separation of the physical, mental and spiritual bodies that make up an individual. The idea of leaving behind two thirds of your original self is anxiety-inducing for me; after all, you lose parts of who you are in order to persist as a spirit after death. Having their selves shaped by public perception is very cool - I've did something close to that myself a while ago, in this article about a substance called Tear of Heaven. I'll keep following this world, maybe there are more sources of inspiration for me to find hehe! >:D I also loved the usage of the sidebar - I'll be sure to add that to my future articles. (after I have enough material for cross-referencing of course!)
Now this is a shadow organization! Born from a desire to prevent further destruction, the Saammai work in secret and remove any perceived threat. I must say, I am a sucker for masked cultists - and of masked people in general, to be fair. The artwork is very, very cool; the almost-human-looking shapes and details make those masks delightfully creepy. Love it, love it, love it!
A world that changes itself every thousand years, cycling through seven different forms, each passing acting as a test for mortalkind - will they survive until the break of dawn, or will they succumb and drown into the darkness? This form of cosmology is something I don't think I've ever seen - it is very interesting to say the least. I do wonder how impactful are those changes - after all, on a mortal scale, one thousand years are quite a lot of years. Well, at least it's something you can prepare for!
Dragon people let's go!! The idea of having powerful dragonkin work as a militaristic force is something truly terrifying if you think about it... Fortunately, they seem to be working together to protect and fight a common enemy. It does raise some questions though - what will happen after enough time passes? Will the Dragonguard break apart as the dragonkin is assimilated into the other nations? Will they regroup and establish themselves as a new nation? Only time can tell...
Thanks for the shout-out on my old article! That was unexpected and much appreciated!
Learn about the World of Wizard's Peak.
It was a very fun read! ^^
"What does it profit a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?"
Yet Aclara welcomes those who dare not walk the middle road.