WorldEmber 2025
The time of embers is approaching yet once more and with it, it's time to get ready with some stuff! I'll try reach 10k words but keep in mind to not push myself and my health against it all! Now, if you are interested in a sheet and a challenge, keep reading!
Where I'll work
Unless plans change and I create another world or I get an inspiration in Iphars, I'll only be working on Shattered and Vaelis Arin. Funnily enough, both world have been born for WE... more or less. Shattered was created on the 22th of December in 2022 in a mix of spite and a inspiration that allowed me to finish WE; Vaelis, on the other hand, had been on my mind for a while but decided to prepare it for WE 2024.
Bingo Bongo
Bingo, my beloved
Oh my god, I LOVE bingos they are so fun... tho they are quite slow in real life and often involve a lot of people sitting in a small room together... that I don't miss.
ANYWAY! WE is coming! And WA made a bingo for this year's prep which I absolutely love! We are supposed to pick a line or column and do 5 prompts... I'm gonna do as many as I can :3
Now, if you are on your computer, you are gonna see the cool CSS shenanigans! Please press on the boxes next to this info and have fun reading! (Clicking anywhere outside one of the boxes will pop this information back up. Also, you won't be able to press links, you can find a spoiler under this that will open a list with them). If you are on phone, bit less fun but you still have the info, just gonna be a bunch of scrolling.
BTW, the top bar is progress bar based on how much of the bingo I've done, it's not related to the WE wordcount.
BTW 2, under this section you'll find the WE sheet! Everyone's welcome to join :D
BTW 3, under this section AND the sheet section, you'll find the section were I'll be listing the articles I write in WE (it's gonna stay empty until then tho) and *there* you can see a progress bar based on my wordcount.
BTW 4, if you saw some parts of these being rushed: no you didn't and it was totally not cuz I felt I was running out of time.
I always struggle to remember where my inspirations come from, and I'm really bad at keeping record of them but let's see what I can remember for Shattered and then I'll talk about Vaelis' inspirations, since these were written down since almost day 1.
I remember the original idea of Shattered came from me reading in a discord a bunch of world ideas (it was a channel recompiling ideas from a lot of people) where a few ended up standing up to me and I mixed them together and mustered about them while going to school after work. I remember I rambled about it to Mochi, specially since Shattered was being born out of spite and I was asking Mochi some questions to achieve my goal (which I did).
Destiny 2 inspired me too. Mind you, I haven't touched that game in almost 10 years (8 when I was brainstorming the world) and I probably remember shit very badly. Yes, Destiny is a shooter; no, that's not the inspiring part. I remember the civilisation you played in Destiny being build around a big thing that saved them from something, and that quite inspired the Creator though I'm not sure how similar they are nowadays. I was playing a lot of "No Man Space" by then, so that probably inspired a bunch though I cannot pin point things.
Recently, I realized I had been strongly inspired by my comfort game: Sky: Children of the light. A few things probably inspired me: the creatures, the different areas having different thematic (and specially the last area before end game, where there's a lot of space themes), the constellations, and the use of light.
Lastly, while not much of an inspiration (yet? maybe?), I'd also like to add Celestial Bodies, a GM-less mecha ttrpg that has something called "Titan" that is quite close to what I had thought for my corpses. TBF, I read it after having my idea for corpses and it didn't change it, but still, it's something I remember from time to time. AND Stormbril's Godhusks have been a big inspiration for the corpses. Gotta love undead things that look as if they are decaying (zombies are boring tho).
For Vaelis, my inspirations are more defined and also, more generalized. The world is very inspired on the area of my hometown, right now it's mostly geography the inspiration, but I hope to also add mythology inspirations (which I do have an idea for it at least). This inspiration started cuz I once saw a creature of the mythology in FFXIV, plus I had some maps of the area around, and I think we have some fun funky traditions (like a shitting log).
I was also quite inspired when I started the world by some of my friends. Polina "Line" Arteev just started Ayun Sovos and I loved the tiny details in the articles that made me think of videogames. TJ Trewin was writing Journals of Yesteryear and it inspired me to work with quite a close area of a world plus all the cute pixel art! And finally, Jon's Oniran have always been a pleasure to read and sorta inspired me to try writing in a way where I'd address the reader rather than just write in a wiki-like style.
And finally, big part of the inspiration comes from videogames and CYOAs. It is no secret I love videogames and adding nods to videogames in my writing is always a fun challenge. I have attempted to do a CYOA before, so I sorta know the amount of work in one of them, and while I know I could go overkill and do cool things, limiting myself to a simple CYOA has been enjoyable (specially not having, so far, to take into account what decisions someone took three years ago so that the next section of prose can be personalized and make sense for everyone.
I could? But I don't like doing them? I'm not a very visual person and even if I could benefit of having one, I just know that if I made one I would forget about it. If you want some ideas, for Shattered just think of space and marine animals, and for Vaelis imagine your typical medieval fantasy but in pixel art.
Okay, this took me the longest time so far with this bingo. At LEAST one day of planning and two or three of work, but, now Shattered and Iphars have new shiny homepages AND I've even added maps to them! Go check them out :D
I wanna ramble a bit about the homepages, and you can't stop me... unless you close this pop-up... ANYWAY. I started looking at Shattered's homepage, which was the one I was less happy with. A couple months back, I got some cool people to give me feedback in both world's homepages, so I had a general idea of what should change in Shattered (Vaelis' feedback was mostly "this is cool" XD). I wanted to change basically all of it while keeping the sameish structure, but I also needed a place for the map I've been slowly working. And I was a bit stuck... until I remembered the structure I have in Iphars.
I've always wanted my worlds to have some similarities structure/formatting/design wise, to make them feel "mine" slightly more. So, parting from the structure of Iphars, I wipped out the new top section of the homepage. Then I had to decide what to do with the categories section... It was taking too much space, so I found a way to make it smoler without losing any kind of content (I even added MORE content... tho right now the links lead to sad places that need work).
When I moved to Vaelis, I felt like nothing had to change... but I wanted to make the structure fit the other worlds! So, with a lot of "trust the process" I changed stuff around, asked some feedback, and people liked both homepages!
Now, while I'm done with the homepages, there are still a few things I want to update in the world, but I'll wait until I'm done with the bingo cuz I don't know if I'll have time otherwise. Basically I want to change the bottom menu / menus :3
LOOK. I love organizing, genuinely, ask anyone who knows me. BUT because both Shattered and Vaelis had some planning before starting it, I am more than happy with the categories and it's organization. Vaelis is a bit of special case since I don't want common navigation but I still like it. So. I consider this more than done.
I could play with the category pages a bit, there's a few in Shattered I'd wish to revamp, but I don't know how much time I'll have this month and it needs a bunch of thinking so I won't promise updating them. It's already a lot to have to consider re-do homepage and primers.
I've recently moved, so my desk is quite clean, decluttered, and nice. I have a long and big desk and I'm happy with it. Not much to be done here!
Okay, I do have some plans. Will say now that I don't promise keeping them because I suck at that buuuut...
For Shattered I plan on writing about the main islands. I'd like to at least write about Faodore and either Gysol or Oriz, as these three are the ones I have a more clear idea. If I have to stray from the path with Shattered, I'd like to focus on articles that already exists as stubs (if you wanna see the list and ask for something, search "Scattered notes" in Shattered's search bar) or the new idea I had about "Lightborns".
For Vaelis, I'd be happy if I just managed to write "Tuskfair Ranch" which would bring the first sidequest to the world (and a few more tiny things).
I know this won't be enough to reach 10k if I actually stick to my plan, but... yeah, I don't often stick to plans. I do still have Iphars as a backup world in case I wanna write simpler things (I have high standards for Shattered and Vaelis, but Iphars needs so much editing that one or two more articles won't change anything). Also... I'm still debating whether or not I want to start a new world for or during WE. I already have a bunch of progress that I take ages to progress, but new shiny things always motivate me to write more, and I've had lot of fun the WEs when Shattered and Vaelis were created (yes, both were created for or during WE).
I'd say this is the first rabbit hole, but the homepage was also quite some rabbit hole... But it's the first rabbit hole that I might have to leave half done...
You see, I've always felt "meh" about Shattered's primer, but I didn't know how to improve it. This month I tried my best, and it seems that people like it! It will lose some of it's visual design but it gains better writing and less length. The new primer is technically public but not linked anywhere as I haven't finished it yet. I still got a couple sections to finish and I've been stuck on how to do the last one for the whole month... But, working on this primer has also made me update Shattered's map (which was already new and done for the homepage) with some nice pins and shenanigans! And I've started working a bit on timelines too, tho that's also incomplete.
For Vaelis, it was much more easier. It's a newer world and the primer was very nice still. I did ask for some feedback and it was mostly some grammar things, so I fixed that, some design fixing too, and it's done! If you've already read it before: don't bother going back to it, it's still practically the same with a few different words.
(Links to both will be added on the button under the bingo with all other links).
This was done quickly and passively xD Owen DM'ed me on the 1st if I wanted to be his accountability buddy. Now, Owen is already my accountability buddy for Blue's missions and I like when we work together and check on each other, so I couldn't say no!
Then, on the 3rd, Connie told me I looked chill and asked if I wanted to be her accountability buddy and I enjoy seeing Connie talk about her progress in the Cookies Cottage Chapter so I told her I was happy to join if she didn't mind me having more than one buddy, which she accepted!
Then, I mentioned to Owen about Connie and he said "We could be buddies for the three of us if she's OK with it" to which then I asked Connie and she said "THE TRIANGLE OF ACCOUNTABILITY! YES! The Musketeers".
So now we are "The Musketeers of accountability"! :D
Also, I count as accountability the following groups of amazing people (y'all know who you are): the Cookies Cottage Chapter, the Cheems, and the STC.
Whenever I do big or important changes/articles, I already tend to ask for feedback. I'm very lucky I'm in a couple discords where I KNOW I'll get feedback if I ask for it.
Recently (a two-three? months back) I got extense feedback in both Shattered and Vaelis Arin, so I've taken this month to try implement as much of that as possible. Though I still have some feedback to go through, it's not about anything broken or similar, mostly things that I can improve, so I'm fine taking it slowly.
I do always welcome constructive feedback, though I won't always do every single part of it. I specially welcome grammar feedback since English is not my first language and I know some sentences or words can sound weird or are simply wrong.
I only have one article to do: Erak.
Right now, the article is like... 80% done. It's only missing one section and at least one timeline (when you look the article it will make sense). Knowing myself I'll probably forget to update this section before WE (or even while WE is happening), but if you'd want to see the article, poke me or use the search in Shattered to find it! It's technically already public BUT NOT DONE. NOT WORTH GOING TO LOOK AT IT BEFORE WE STARTS!
I am currently reading an astrobiology book named "The Zoologist's Guide to the Galaxy" by "Arik Kershenbaum". I'm enjoying the book but I have slowed down on my reading so it might take me the whole month to read it, as, unlike fantasy or sci-fi, I feel I need to give it more braincells as I want to understand what I'm reading, since I'm hoping its knowledge could be useful in my worldbuilding!
The cover of the book is gorgeous and colourful and it just makes me smile cuz it's a bunch of gradient filled shapes of different animals, from mammals to crustaceans. I expected it to have a bit of more complex language, so I was glad to have the book in Spanish (my "mother" language) rather than English, but it is actually quite easy to follow and I haven't struggled with fancy terms yet —though I'm still quite at the start, so I'll knock on wood.
For all (or most) the years I've done WE, I've always remembered people that health is important. That's both a reminder to myself and to the people I can genuinely see burn out before the event even starts and I end up unable to help them. (If this is your first WE, this goes to you! But also to some other people)
I've decided that the free space for me would be self care. November hasn't been a nice month: I've lost a pet, I've been incredibly stressed, I've pushed myself forward, and I've exhausted myself way too many times. Saying this, I don't search for people to give condolences or be sorry; saying this just makes my problems feel a bit more real and my need for self-care more of a need.
At the start of the month, I've started a tiny journal. Not a lot, just a bit of a habit tracker and a space to write a paragraph or two max about my day. That limit is important, writing in paper causes my chronic wrist pain to flare up, but it's been much more helpful and easy to do it in paper than in computer. It's a nice "going to bed ritual". I've been allowing myself to be able to break habits for a day or two max and that's been much more nicer than stressing for the habit to not break, which in consequence has made it easier to keep it.
Another change I've done is avoiding to use the phone when outside and not listen to music. When I walk, as well as most people do, I have the urge or tendency to look thru my phone. When waiting at light stops, when I see a message, etc. It's bad habit, one we have considered normal nowadays, and I've not been able to leave it all the time, but the times I haven't used the phone or listened to music have been actually nice.
I cannot describe the nice feelings that I felt when I was walking around and looking at my surroundings and seeing things that made me go "oh, my friend would love that" or realizing changes in the environment from my usual path.
I'm not one to prepare css stuff before hand, nor art stuff. Doing it during WE is part of the fun (for me), and since they don't usually take me toooo much time, I'm happy not preparing them. This is possible thanks to having a few years of experience with WA BBCode and CSS (also knowing it limits and possibilities), as well as having "simple" art in my worlds: Shattered's art is quite plain and only uses 7 colours, and Vaelis' art is pixel art, which forces me not to have too complex stuff.
I both have it and don't have it!
This is simple, for Vaelis I have no stubs because I don't know what will be the next step and the current stubs are mostly character articles that I don't know how to plan them yet.
On the other hand, for Shattered I already have a list of stubs, named "Scattered Notes" (will add link to the button under this board, but you can search it in the world). All the stubs (unless I've slacked without realizing) are listed there with a priority grade! I'm aiming to do stuff from the High Priority list.
Noup! My playlist is whatever playlist youtube throws at me after I pick a song that fits mood or vibes.
But... but that's my stub list... (and Tuskfair Ranch for Vaelis)
Most if not all my writing will be happening in the evenings, probably between 6pm and 11pm, and during the work week, not weekends. This writing will also probably be done in between FFXIV dungeons (queues for DPS are long and I have a bunch of classes to level up).
The time is mostly cuz that's more or less when my brain starts to work or starts panicking cuz the day is ending so it gets into speedrun work mode. The days is mostly because from Friday to Sunday I might be in a place or another, with some people or another, and it's basically highly impossible to know what will happen these days until a day or two before (and also it's when I get some time to catch up with friends.
The FFXIV part is cuz I finally got time to play the game again and having the pressure of a time limit that I don't know how long it will take to pop up helps me focus, PLUS I get to rest while doing dungeons (and the occasional ocean fishing too).
*confused face*
Okay, after reading the homework again I understand that they are actually asking for vibes of characters people might read about in the defined scope. Heh.
Yeah, sorry to say that I don't even know how the characters are. Weeell... in Shattered specifically.
In Vaelis, I know you will *slightly* deal with Renaxer, who's a cool friendly dude that is helping you, and Salemara, who seems to be a bit of a prick and untrusting.
Look. I write Fantasy for a reason (or two): I don't have to research unless I got an hyperfocus on something that will barely last for a week. So no, thanks.
I do have a list of things I'd like to research for Vaelis but they are not urgent or for the planned article.Ehhh, I do that *fairly* often, mostly because both my worlds are still smol. If any, I should read the non-core articles and see what I forgot and can be used... if I had time.
But I've already been here for 7 years! Mostly hidden in my chapter and the Spanish channel in discord, but I've been here! I've even offered sheets and challenges for a few years! I did join a smaller community created from the WA discord a couple years back.
I'm not sure if I have time to join the community much more deeper, but I do have a discord if you'd like to join! Just a place to chat with other worldbuildings, share your projects, be a nerd, and maybe some more randomness. (Will add a link on the button under this board)
I do that most of the times I look at my worlds. I take a lot of notes of what feels weird, wrong, could be improved, broken on phone, etc. Most of the times I don't fix it in the moment, I need a moment of clarity to understand the problem and how to improved, because most of the things I write down I know need a change, but I don't know what, how, or why.
I am quite happy with the state of my worlds as of right now. I am aware they are not perfect, they have things I want to change, but I don't think rushing those just to get a badge is a good idea.
Does walk to work count? I'm not big on walks, I know their benefits but it's a struggle to go to them. I do sometimes take a walk down to buy something or throw something when I feel I have got too absorbed in whatever I was doing, though these walks are rare. I don't really have a good place to go walk; there's a forest "nearby", but that's at least 30min walk in car-infested streets that I don't enjoy going through.
I am happy of my walks to work. They are shorts, which is appreciated in this cold, but they allow me to either think of the day or what I dreamt, or what I will be working on that day.
This is hard. Reducing a whole world in a few adjectives are hard, specially when different parts of the world have different feelings, vibes, and moods. Me and my chapter talked a bit about this a week or so ago. But I'll try my best; thankfully, both Shattered and Vaelis are quite closed and small worlds so that they can have adjectives fitting the entire project more easily.
WE Sheet
WE Articles!
THE THREE MUSKTEERS OF ACCOUNTABILITY! WE SHALL RISE AT MIDNIGHT! I'm so looking forward to doing this with y'all!! Let's go!!
YES! (Tho maybe not at midnight, maaaybe two hours before midnight, I got work in the weekdays xD)
Visit Iphars, Shattered & Vaelis Arin.
WE is upon us! Check my hub for WE 2025