Summer Camp 2025: Pledge
Seven, the most magical number - and sevenfold are our travails. Once again, at winter's zenith, the sun's rays weave an enchantment upon all the community...Another year, another summer camp. At this point, I would hope that you all know the drill! July shall start - or, well, we'll get to the late days of June now, I suppose - and I'll pretty much just go fully unhinged with the article creation. We've been told that it's definitely just 40 prompts this year, and I truly hope that remains true -- doing 42 in a month was so mean. 40 in a bit more than a month is still a stretch, but we'll get there! This will be my first time competing in SC from my new apartment! My partner and I have just bought a place together as of March, so I've been a little quiet as we've settled in, figured out finances, etc etc. There's still so much to do. As I sat down to write this, though, we got the news that my partner's job application was successful - so hopefully that's an auspicious start to SC for me. I've got a lot of wild ideas for this one.
The Usual Tracker: Showing my Progress
Let's start off with the usual planning sheet, and then we'll jump into the actual SC homework. For those unfamiliar, I create a planning sheet every year for the community to use. For the past year or so, Catoblepon and I have also been teaming up to combine my single-person sheet and their multi-person sheet, so now you can use the single-person sheet and tie it to the multi-person sheet and thus share your progress with the whole SC channel. Check the pins in the WA Discord's #summer-camp channel if you'd like to join in with this!
Mistress of Adoration by Hanhula (via Midjourney)
Week 1: Nourishment
Eat Me by Hanhula (via Midjourney)
Assignment 1
Think about ways the theme of Nourishment affects your world. Do people generally have what they need? What happens when they don’t?This is a pretty broad question, wow! I wrapped up a rather intense storyline on the theme of nourishment last year or so, actually. The destruction of the Gemstone of Life caused the Earth-Mother's Gift to go utterly mad with grief, eventually leading to the possession of Chandna of Shiar and a violent takeover of the avatar of Takawaoku. The powerful entity that resulted here caused an effect known as Gaia's Lament, which ultimately rendered food and drink incredibly precious across the entire continent and prevented anyone else from intervening. That problem was eventually solved by my party, the Lost Ones, and resulted in the ascension of Tyreos. I've, similarly, already done a number of nourishment-themed articles in other ways: Salting the Feast and the Reaving Thirst are both the result of consuming tainted food or drink, and Leavenisiae Baps happen when food gets a little too much power. So - from both the horror and humour perspectives, we've had recent development in Istralar for this theme. What that means is that I have no idea where to go next with this theme. Like any world, there are areas of the world that struggle to find food - anyone living near a desert is naturally going to struggle, for example. There's also a number of interpretations for nourishment that don't tackle the idea of food. Intellectual nourishment, for instance, is something that places like the Medimian Empire actively attempt to stymie.
Assignment 2
Download the pledge document and fill it out with your goal for Summer Camp!The actual assignment 2 seems to be to discuss my motivations and my choice of focus for this SC - the prompting discussion is asking about why I'm worldbuilding in the first place. And, well, the answer is the same as it always is! Istralar is the setting for my campaign that's been running since early 2016 with a ragtag party of adventurers. While the campaign is drawing to a close - and would likely be concluded by now if real life didn't keep getting in the way - there's already plans brewing for a Campaign 2 in the same setting. Thus, my motivation for worldbuilding is to establish the setting further for my players. Each time I create things for SC, there's a pretty decent chance they'll end up coming up in the campaign - they believe a mysterious demon has just handed them an Iconoclast Shroud, for instance. It's also a good chance for me to properly write up some aspects of their adventures, such as Azyel Lathronon's partner Amara (SC2023), the deity they helped ascend (Tyreos, SC2024), or their favourite vampire's "juiceboxes" (Lukasade, SC2024). They're currently somewhere deep in the bowels of the Heartforge of Iskaldhal, learning that there might be some especially major secrets awaiting them. Since I already have a fair bit of dwarven worldbuilding already, I think I'll focus my efforts largely elsewhere for Summer Camp. Valathe still needs a number of areas developed, and I'd love to expand on places like Osori in Takawaoku. I'd also like to make sure I flesh out their homes a little more: while I have articles for places like Ilendras, Melaeden, and the Aletheian Empire, we could probably do with some new information about what else is associated with these places. It's also been a while since we've met any of the residents of Ironfalls. Basically - we'll be writing things all over the place, leaving in plenty of hints for my party to go moony over!
Summer Camp 2025 Pledge by Worldanvil & Hanhula
I have so many of these pledges written now. I should print them off and make a little book sometime, it'd be cute. ...Yes I'm filling out sidebar space because I'm lazy with text balancing. Did you know my party have started referring to the moon as a sexy bitch?
Assignment 3
If you found any outdated articles in your world, update the most important ones now! Do the same with your worldbuilding meta.So, here's the thing: I think the meta doesn't really matter by the time you're 10 years deep into a campaign. I also don't want to rush updates to my most important articles -- they'll get updated as and when I have time and energy. There's a reason the party's article is still inaccessible, that thing is HUGE. We'll save the sweeping updates for after we sunder the-- well, let's just say we'll be doing some big changes in the future.
Week 2: Roots
Well Grounded by Hanhula (via Midjourney)
Assignment 1
Look at the cultures and areas you’ll focus on for Summer Camp, and think about how their past shaped them.See, I just consider this to be a standard thing I do for everything worldbuilding-related. Every time I'm writing a piece, I'm always thinking about the history of the area. Equally, I don't really know exactly where I'll end up focusing on this SC - that's going to be shaped by the prompts themselves. Thus I'm not too certain what to answer for this! There's a lot of general history around Istralar that I need to unify into my chronicle at some point. We know Gildómar and Fjolkandr wage frequent wars, and Iskaldhal in general has been continuously shattered by conflict. Currently, that's manifesting in Queen Valdis's rule, but it's been plenty of wars in the past. We know the elves went on a military campaign of world domination when they arrived on the planet, and that the traces of that linger today across every continent. We know that the culture of Xin-Jiyu is greatly influenced by the Lost Empire of Meihua that once ruled, yet the past two thousand years have founded many new nations with their own entwining histories - such as Vuorenmaa, whose history is deeply tied to Naarim across an ocean. We know Osori has been victimised and shattered by its neighbours for centuries -- when did that start, and how have they managed to persist? There's a lot of stories to still be told, to fill in all of these mysterious gaps. Perhaps we'll get to some of those this year.
Assignment 2
Go to your world’s homepage and imagine you’re a new reader discovering the setting for the first time. What should you change to make the experience more engaging?WorldAnvil keeps teasing a presentation interface change. I'm not going to put significant time into improving Istralar's front page until either that happens, or my campaign concludes. Since we're so close to the end, I'd like to get to the end of the current game before I go forth with any major changes. There's some very significant world changes ahead, so it'd make sense to wait until the world changes to... change the world..? That's silly wording. I'm sticking with it. I'm still pretty concerned about the upcoming WA changes as well, honestly. The popup modal editor is utterly unusable for me, so if they remove the 'full edit' like they keep saying, I'm not sure I'll stick around on the site. I like to be able to write easily. The new modal shoving everything behind extra button clicks and into one of the most actively hated forms of display on the web? Not it for me. I've been quietly working on my own 'full edit' mode in the background, but I'm pretty busy at work, so it hasn't manifested yet. Just... feels uncomfortable doing things like Summer Camp when there's the threat of the site becoming unusable over my head.
Look, not everything can be positivity! I'm still so excited for the SC prompts and I'm sure it'll be a blast, but we must make sure we share our opinions!
The Mystery Avatar by Hanhula (via Midjourney)
Assignment 3
Find your earliest worldbuilding project. What mistakes did you make that you want to avoid? What good ideas from those early days can you integrate into your current project? Remember to take a moment to be proud of how far you've come!No traces still exist of my earliest writings, unfortunately. I've had a few varied creations through my time as a roleplayer and writer, and I don't particularly want to salvage much from them. I found my old Fanfiction account the other day and frantically wiped the terrible Naruto fanfic from it, haha. There's traces of good writing there, but ultimately those were the stepping stones that would become my writing voice. I don't need to take much from them: I've already learnt so many lessons from my past words. With that said, I've already borrowed the few glimmers of good from my past writing. Long ago, Riven was actually a deity in my original setting - the pinnacle of natural darkness. His story is much changed in modern Istralar, but his personality is about the same - sad and serious, prone to angry decisions, and deeply loyal to his loved ones. The other deities that were either pinnacles - four in total, with the axis being of light/dark and nature/progress - will be introduced into Istralar when my deity purge kicks in, as will some of the rest of the pantheon. The rest? Oh boy. You don't need to meet some of those Mary-Sues. x)
Week 3: Metamorphosis
Ezhanai of the Flesh Hunt by Hanhula (via Midjourney)
Assignment 1
What transformations and adaptations have the people in your world gone through? What changes are going on right now… and who is trying to stop them?I find it really hard to respond to these prompts when they go "the people in your world". Like, "what transformations are people on earth going through?" makes equally little sense. x) YES, I'M FEELING PEDANTIC. I've had a long day! But for a more serious response - there's a fair few changes happening right now. We've already met a number of them, like the Incarnadine. There's some I've mentioned before and never expanded on, like the poor souls trapped and twisted by Tenaerul. And some are heroes. We've seen the Champions highlighted, but we've yet to see an article expanding on what happens to those chosen by the will of the land. Aster Lau'turea, Lyadrí An'thimael, and their other two allies have an entirely different set of changes. Perhaps we'll learn more about them. As for any other changes and those who're trying to stop them: we'll have to see what stories SC lets me tell. ;) I like coming up with plot threads throughout the event! Literally as I'm writing this, a plot thread spawned by a previous summer camp has just caused me to change a cool plot thing going on in my campaign -- I love how worldbuilding is a set of building blocks.
Honestly, I think metamorphosis might be the theme that has the most potential to be silly this year. You know, like how Gnome Punting and Teeth? and such were.
Assignment 2
Choose a new genre, style, or author, and take a look at their art! Write what you learned from them and what inspired you.That is a hell of a task to take on, and I don't have the time to properly do it justice. Instead - I strongly recommend that people read the SCP wiki and specifically, their advice for writing SCPs. It's a similar format to WA, and they recommend some very interesting pieces of literature across a few different genres. I'll also strongly recommend looking through the Bluesky art feeds. These are feeds dedicated to presenting non-AI, non-NFT art that is both beautiful to look at and full of inspiration, because it's unfiltered in terms of genre. There are some gorgeous pieces around on there, such as this pixel art that gives me vibes of haunted space, the beautiful colours of this sapphic art that could spawn a billion romance novels, this painterly and defiant FFXIV OC that makes me want to write about badass older women, and this soft, atmospheric xianxia fanart that makes me want to stand in the soft rain. Curate your feeds, folk. You get to see so much beautiful art of so many genres, and it's lovely to be exposed to so much!
(Also, I just didn't want to embed anyone else's work here. I feel quite uncomfortable doing that without explicit permission. Click the links instead!)
Look At The Art by Hanhula (via Midjourney)
Assignment 3
Read a couple of articles from the community, give them a like (and why not a sticker!), and write about what inspired you.
SHIT. I DID THIS BEFORE I STARTED WRITING THIS ARTICLE. UH. I have literally just cleared out over 500 notifications, reading hundreds of articles. While there was certainly a lot of inspiration in there, a lot of my takeaways were mostly just being stunned at how beautiful some of the other worlds are, and how effectively they can communicate information.
Annie of Solaris and Stormbril of Cathedris are two of the best people in the community for writing succinct and meaningful pieces that fit perfectly into their worlds, and I'm still aiming to eventually take on a similar challenge - when I have the time and energy. I don't think short will be me during Summer Camp, though. I don't have the patience to refine work down to shorter lengths during SC!
Instead of highlighting any specific article, then, because I genuinely don't have the time before the deadline for this assignment is due to properly go and find them: here is a reminder. Open Discord, navigate to the Showcase channel. There are going to be floods of beautiful articles there, and you'll all be better off for reading a few of them!
Also I'm just terrified of leaving folk out. I follow a lot of worlds, and my brain is not very good at recalling everyone's names when I'm sat down making a list. Better to just guide you to the Discord instead!
Week 4: Tomorrow
Zirconia Carabor by Hanhula (via Midjourney)
Assignment 1
Think about current events that will impact the future. Who is working to create a specific kind of future?Briefly, when I read this, I thought it meant real-world current events. The current political climate is a special kind of awful, with the rise of fascism making reality extremely worrying at the moment. IRL current events are honestly the last place I'd look for inspiration for the minute, hahaha. Fortunately, it's asking me about current events in Istralar instead! Which, unfortunately, then leads into my biggest issue with this Summer Camp: Istralar is my TTRPG setting. My players have lived in this world for ten years. Their tale is coming to its end, or will at least do so whenever they stop spending multiple hours hanging out with random half-demons, hahah. I have to be incredibly careful with this homework, and with this entire theme. There's a lot of very intricate political setup I've spent years establishing, and while the party can't stop what's about to happen anymore, I'd like to leave it a surprise. So let us recount what isn't a spoiler, and let us hope the prompts leave me a great deal of room to make fun shenanigans up for the future campaign 2! Currently, in Istralar, my party are on their way to the Heartforge of Iskaldhal, where they aim to remove a sword that's been causing a giant open wound to leak Abyssal energy and slowly corrupt part of Istralar for countless milennia. They aim to use the Leyline Nexus at the heart of the Heartforge, where the sword is likely piercing, to assist with this - and to assist with the cleansing of the Harp of Virtue, as they managed with the Earth-Mother's Gift in Takawaoku's Sea of Souls. With this, my party aim to take a major step towards a future where the Shards do not exist, so that there is once more no risk to fate.
There's also the matter of the Way of Runeblessed Dreams, who seem to be up to... something...? Their goals are vague as ever, but their plans for the future do involve them finding some sort of way to become pseudo-gods, if you listen to their rants on the Source.
And then we have all of the other many, many factions. Queen Valdis, for instance, continues to rule Naarim untouched, and as her strength there grows, she seems to be mustering an army to march elsewhere. Vexua seems quiet among the world's chaos - will it remain that way? Perhaps we'll meet new factions, too!
Assignment 2
Make sure everything’s ready—from your writing space to your writing schedule—before Summer Camp begins!Oh, well, this one's easy. I frequently check and update things through Brigid, ensuring my articles are tagged so the Index of Indexes can properly find them. I've already alerted everyone in my life that Summer Camp will be beginning, and at this point, they know what I mean. I've upgraded my monitor mounts, so they're comfier now. And we've already been over the planning sheets! I wanted to have a few more Brigid treats ready for SC, but it does turn out that life is just stupidly busy. I'm hoping that one day, I'll be able to do some cool prompt shenanigans on Brigid for the community. Let's hope the future brings me more time!
Frozen Look by Hanhula (via Midjourney)
Daeris by AlbieDraws
Assignment 3
Who or what will help you achieve your goal? What will your sharing strategy be during Summer Camp?My partner does a good amount of shopping and cooking for me! He's my biggest helper and my main inspiration. He's also a GM, so whenever I'm stuck on ideas and need to bounce it off someone verbally, I've always got him around. My players are also legends in their own rights (seriously, have you seen Albie's art? he does commissions and I can HIGHLY recommend them!) and will happily chat with me about anything, even as they're also distracting me from writing. If I'm ever stuck for an idea for what to write, I typically go and poke them about it to see if there's anything they want me to write about. There's also TableTale, my chapter in the WA discord! There are some incredible writers in there like Paul, Spleen, Pravikun, Nnie, etc etc etc, and they're a very kind, helpful bunch. We don't talk the most, but when we do, it's very helpful. As for my sharing strategy - I do the same thing every year. Each article gets 1 notification when it's complete. This propagates to the Istralar/Brigid discord server, which you should totally join if you haven't already (I put a lot of my inspirations in there).
And that's that for the homework! We're not far off the start of SC now - get hype!
An amazing article that not just outlines your plans but thoughts and feelings! Wishing you all the best with the highs and lows of Summer Camp this year!