Summer Camp Homework 2025

Week 1: Nourishment

This is one of those subjects that is near and dear to my heart. The region where I live is famous for being Where Food Grows; food and farming are a part of everyone's daily life, directly or indirectly.

With a plethora of worlds to choose from, I have to consider this one carefully. This might be an excellent opportunity to revisit some of the things I've been neglecting in Argentii, such as Nan and their kitchen. Revisiting Voyager I & II and its restaurant is another possibility.

Then there's Franklin. Of course, I'll be evaluating stories as I read them for ways to incorporate recipes, grocery stores, cafes, fast food,

Other thoughts on nourishment

• Public Gardens
• Food Deserts
• Farmers Markets
• State Fair (famous for food)

Nourishment of the imagination is a real thing. This can be a topic for the newsletter! How do we nourish our creative spirits?

• Inviting the muse
• Playing in other creative sandboxes
• Doing the boring things, they lead to imaginative places

Week 2: Roots

I've been going through my history of worldbuilding a lot lately, because I've been doing it for more than 40 years, and now I'm helping others realize their creative dreams through practicing worldbuilding skills. It's kinda trippy, and I wish I'd known when I was a kid that this was even an option.

I'm hoping that I'll be able to use these prompts to dig--literally and metaphorically--into some areas of Argentii. With so much history, and so many cycles, I think there is a lot of fertile ground ripe for exploration. That Argentii is my first WorldAnvil project, as well as my first real attempt at a completely unique setting, just makes this idea all the sweeter.

Other thoughts on Roots

• Potato recipes
• Mandrake
• Aero- and hydro-ponics
• Climbing vines that use roots to anchor to stone walls and drink the water that runs down

Consider roots of culture; how did behaviors, assumptions, and styles develop?

• Relationships have roots
• Industries have roots
• Artifacts have roots
• Ideas have roots

Week 3: Metamorphosis

This one hits home on a more personal level, because I'm in the middle of a metamorphosis of my own. I'm wrapping myself in a coocoon of wild projects and hoping to emerge from it as a Professional Worldbuilder!

Metamorphosis and transformation are key themes in Argentii. The metamorphosis of a ghost into a relic; the way an unhappy people transforms into a revolution; how a desert can morph into a new landscape if the proper species takes hold. All of these would be fascinating to talk about.

It also occurs to me that this would be a great place to have both a species and a language. Species, obviously, for how insects morph into new forms (caterpillar to butterfly, etc.) and even how seeds become trees. Languages, likewise, morph and change over time.

Other thoughts on Metamorphosis

• Dragon eggs that don't hatch dragons (already written...new ideas?)
• Moth with some sort of unbreakable silk
• A vine with leaves that change shape to match the tree it's growing up so that wildlife will eat its seeds, too
• Bird that builds a shell-like nest and emerges with entirely new plumage (color, feather shape, etc.)

What about cultural metamorphoses?

• Counter-culture can transform not just culture, but pieces of culture (grafitti transforming a building, blackout poetry, etc.)
• Language morphs and changes, how we use single words evolves over time (gay, cool, Ohio)
• How we view the world around us also changes!!

Week 4: Tomorrow

Everybody beat me to the Annie jokes, but that's OK. I'll get them all tomorrow...tomorrow...I'll get them, tomorrow! I won't let them geeeeeet aaaaa-waaaaaayyyyy!