WorldEmber 2025

Preparation

While I've participated in almost every Summer Camp event, this is actually only my second WorldEmber - I'm often not in a writing mood during winter, so the fact that I'm around this time is kinda exciting. As I typically do, I'm pledging for the minimum goal (10000 words) but keeping the door open for if the writing bug bites and I really go for broke. (That said, this is harder than doing that for Summer Camp for me - the 10000 word goal is actually pretty close to the word count demanded by Diamond in Summer Camp, and there's no direction built into the event to focus my scattered thoughts into something solid enough to write down.)

One topic I'd like to develop more (though it won't be the only area of focus) is the 8 artifacts used to bind Kalshazzak Aesymnetes, and the Asurian gods who created them. I'd also like to develop the political factions of the city, and through that, create the seeds for possible adventures for a TTRPG game. This campaign has been in development hell for far too long at this point!

The Articles

Articles written during WorldEmber 2025 will be featured here!

Prep Bingo

The Big Five

☑ Re-read your core articles

I actually reread not just the core articles, but all of the articles. I'm working on a big editing pass (though given I finished just reading through on the 22nd, the edit pass is definitely getting interrupted by WorldEmber), so reading through it all first means I actually know what's in the world!

☑ Join the Community

I've been part of the discord since at least 2020, and have been active lately, mostly in the #worldember channel.

☑ Review the visual appearance of your world

My options are slightly limited by my only having a Master account (the GMs do great work with containers) but that is by no means an excuse for me putting as little work into this as I've done in the past. I'm mostly happy with the theme I'm using and learning the CSS needed to tweak it effectively will probably take me more than the month of November. I've added the breadcrumb tag to the top of every article, to help with navigation, and I've spent some time working out a Style Guide that I'd like to use for all articles eventually. I'd hoped to find time to go through and edit the currently existing articles to impose that formatting on them, but I'm only just wrapping this up a few hours before Worldember begins, so it seems I've run out of time on that front. As espected, that'll be part of the big editing pass I make between Worldember and Summer Camp. I've also started a BBCode showcase, intended to show examples of all forms of BBCode I have access to, for use in CSS testing.

• How to make use of the sidebar? In the end, I comitted to not using the sidebar. Lots of the best looking worlds I've come across don't use one at all; it's hard to fill as much space along the side as the main article, and if they don't match in length, the result is an unsightly gap where one just stops.
• How to make the top of the article a more effective introduction? In my existing articles, sometimes I ramble on for a bit, or have no headings at all. In the style guide, I've comitted to including a quote at the top, and then a single paragraph (with a drop-cap because I learned how to do those!) that gives a general overview without delving too deep.
• How to make headings and subheadings look good? I've decided to break articles up into sections (using an H2 heading) and subsections (using an H3 heading), with the subsections broken into columns and possibly providing room for images.
• How to set up a navigation table at the end of my articles with related reading articles? I've gotten some pointers from the community (especially the ever-helpful nnie), but I haven't had time to fully sort out how to make this work yet. But I do know it's possible and, in principle, how to do it.

☑ Go for a walk

Definitely need to get back into the habit of doing this. I will go for a walk as soon as I'm done typing this up!

Walk done!

☑ What adjectives would you describe your world with.

Hmm...I've been going for a world of contrasts. Times are rough in Caelester, but improving so there's a mixture of hope and despair. The world is haunted by its past (largely centred around the antagonist, Kalshazzak Aesymnetes, the damage done by his magical experiments, and the results of his downfall) while also looking to the future. And I've tried to combine the magical and the mundane, blending them more than is often done - monsters aren't just a thing for heroes to fight, they're a hazard for normal trade and travel; magic isn't just a tool of powerful wizards and epic displays of might, but also used for incredibly mundane things - even Caelester's sewer system uses a field of magical energy to treat its waste.

The Best of the Rest

☑ Review or set up your world homepage

I hadn't done this since Summer Camp 2024, back when I was running with a very different early-campaign conflict. I've updated my introduction, and added a custom news section to fill the blank right column. I made a second pass on the 22nd and just added this article block to the news section, so I'm pretty happy with how it's set up overall, at least for now.

☑ Tidy up your writing space

I'm in the middle of a neverending house reorganization that I'm finally actually making the time to push through. As my writing space doubles as my free-time space - most of my hobbies involve my computer in some way - I had a fair bit of random stuff that had just piled up around my computer. I got everything cleared away well enough that I could actually use a cleaner on my desk, so I'll call this a win. (Sure, things get pulled back out from time to time, but I've been doing a decent job of putting them away when done with them, or at least in a place that is away from the desk, if a more permanent home for them has not been found yet.

☑ Review your category tree and organize any uncategorized articles

I've been unsatisfied with my organization scheme for a while now, so this is a major part of this month's project. I shifted everything into an "unsorted" category, then read through them all and came up with a sorting system as I did so. At this point, hours before Worldember begins, I've gotten all of my articles sorted into categories that I think I'm happy with. I had hoped to organize the articles into a specific order, but I haven't gotten that done yet. Might be something I chip away at during

☑ Make a list of stubs you'd like to expand

As a part of the reread project, I've tucked stubs and half-written articles into specific categories. The short list of stubs to work on:

• Abbot: head of the Abbey, one of the major factions in Caelester
• Guild of Collectors: a sardonically named criminal organization, named in mockery of the legitimate guilds
• Guild of Nightsoil Collectors: a legitimate guild that gets up to way more than the title implies.
• Petra Stone: head of the Guild of Collectors, and current bearer of one of the 8 seals that bind Kalshazzak Aesymnetes

There should be more, but a lot of things that should be existing stubs just aren't made yet.

☑ Make a list of articles you want to write

After rereading, I have a long list of articles I want to write, even longer than the list of articles i want to rewrite. Here's a good chunk of them:

• Asurian Pantheon overview: Detailing the broader strokes of Asurian theology and the 8 major deities
• The other 7 major deities of the Asurian Pantheon (Iphine, the Allmother is the one who's been written about already.
• An explanation of the seal binding Kalshazzak Aesymnetes
• The rest of the 8 artifacts used in the seal, at least in broad stokes. (Since this is for a D&D campaign, I want to leave room to customize details for my players' play styles as things come up.)
• Overview articles for each of the factions that don't have them
• Some fleshing out of more complex factions like the Abbey - (which still doesn't even have a formal name!)

There's a bunch more ideas that have occurred to me, but that's a pretty substantial list of things to work on!