Summer Camp Prep 2025

Nourishment in the world of The Blooming Continent is a strange thing, characterized by its dual nature due to the presence of The Bloom. Here are several points regarding that:

1. The Dual Nature of Nourishment

Nourishment in Largitas is not merely sustenance—it is transformation.

• Positive Nourishment is seen in the form of healing, growth, tradition, and hope: families share food on city ships, herbalists brew life-saving tonics, and ancient groves offer protection through sacred flora.
• Corrupted Nourishment, however, is embodied by the Bloom, which "feeds" on the living—converting vitality into rot, turning growth into grotesque mimicry.

Interpretation: The Bloom corrupts the fundamental idea of nourishment, turning the sacred act of feeding and growing into infection and decay.

2. Technological Nourishment

BRASC and other factions have developed technologies that nourish survival:

• Rations that resist Bloom contamination,
• Aetherium Inoculation Kits that prevent internal Bloom spread,

Interpretation: In a world where even the air can betray you, nourishment becomes a form of resistance.

3. Cultural and Religious Nourishment

Each culture and faith see nourishment differently:

• The Elves of Bar-Oinur revere a symbiotic relationship with nature, viewing food and magic as mutual gifts.
• Dwarves in Vashkelholme tie nourishment to labor and tradition, with festivals and myth echoing the deep bonds between people and the land.
• Bloom cults twist the idea—believing the Bloom is a higher form of nourishment, preparing the world for rebirth.

Interpretation: Nourishment reflects belief—what a society chooses to feed, it chooses to become.

4. Emotional Nourishment

Characters like Hermes Mendel , Aria Velstone, and Bell MerryWeather show how emotional nourishment—the support of mentors, lovers, friends—fuels perseverance.

• The loss of Ysolde Taranis has left Hermes intellectually rich but emotionally starved.
• Bell, by contrast, is a young soul overflowing with emotional energy, even if he lacks lived experience.

Interpretation: Emotional nourishment is what allows characters to survive the psychological toll of the Bloom—and fight for something more than just endurance.

5. Bloom as the Ultimate Parasite

The Bloom feeds on all things: biomass, memory, spirit. But it doesn’t just consume—it replaces, mimics, and mutates. It perverts nourishment into a cycle of dependency and violation.

• Bloom Touched are half-fed, half-devoured.
• Carnivorous Blossoms lure prey with false sweetness.
• The Hollow King, Mournwood, rejuvenates by stealing life.

Interpretation: The Bloom embodies hunger without purpose—a dark mirror to the nurturing traditions of Largitas.

6. City Ships and Fragile Self-Sustenance

Life aboard the City Ships depends on careful management of resources.

• Hydroponic farms, nutrient recycling, and synthetic food production are all acts of defiant, structured nourishment.
• The Chucks (chicken-duck hybrids) show how even humor and comfort are maintained through nourishing creatures bred for balance.

Interpretation: The City Ships are floating testaments to humanity’s determination to keep nourishing hope, even as the world below decays.

In Summary:

Nourishment in Largitas is not just about food or energy. It’s about what a people, a culture, a creature chooses to feed on—whether that’s love, fear, tradition, or rot. The battle for the soul of Largitas is one of what—and who—is truly fed.

As per usual, I am going to be insane and try to achieve the Diamond Badge again this year. Considering I tend to go months at a time without working on my worlds, I still think I can find the motivation and content necessary to fulfill this Pledge :P

Here are links to any articles I have updated over the Summer Camp 2025 Prep Period:

Still a lot of work to do on this Capital City, but I've made a decent bit of headway. Going to have to rewrite a lot of what's already there as well as add new stuff. Also hopefully a decent map or two.

For the theme of "Roots" I'll be focusing on the culture of the Dwarves of Vashkelholme, as that is where the primary Campaign will be taking place.

The theme of “Roots” is foundational—almost sacred—to the Dwarves of Vashkelholme, threading through every facet of their culture, identity, and history. More than a metaphor, Roots shape their architecture, social values, mythology, and even their resistance to the Bloom.

Here’s how the theme manifests for them:

1. Ancestral Legacy: Roots as Bloodlines

To a Dwarf of Vashkelholme, one's roots are inseparable from their lineage.

• Dwarves carve their family trees into stone tablets, often carried in packs or mounted in homes, with each generation’s deeds etched beneath their name.
• Clans are seen as root clusters—intertwined, sometimes competing, but always connected to the same soil of shared legacy.
• “To sever one's roots” is a phrase of deep shame, used for exiles or oath breakers.

Interpretation: The past nourishes the present—cutting yourself off from it is death in all but name.

2. The Stone Beneath: Roots as Earthly Connection

Their cities are carved into the bones of the mountains, not atop them. Dwarves don't build up—they dig down, as if seeking the very heart of the world.

• Root-temples to gods of stone, memory, and endurance are built deep in the bedrock.
• Dwarven homes include a "Root Chamber", a personal space where they keep soil, stone relics, and heirlooms from their family’s origin halls.
• This downward growth is seen as spiritual as well as physical—the deeper you go, the more wisdom you uncover.

Interpretation: The Dwarves root themselves in place, in stone, in memory—immovable even in the face of decay.

3. Resistance to the Bloom: Roots as Stability

The Bloom spreads through change—mutation, mobility, invasion. The Dwarves resist it by rooting in constancy.

• Stonemetal alloy architecture resists Bloom infiltration, and their root-forged armor grounds them against environmental corruption.
• Some Dwarves even believe that deep stone cannot be Bloomed, and that the oldest cities are protected by ancient mineral spirits.
• Their use of Snowmoss, Iceberry, and Frostroot in medicine is a nod to natural resilience—cold roots resisting the encroaching rot.

Interpretation: While the Bloom is a perverse and spreading vine, the Dwarves stand like old oaks, unmoved.

4. Cultural Traditions: Roots as Ritual

Roots aren’t just symbols—they’re practices:

• "Rootday" is celebrated at the start of winter, when families come together to recount lineage stories by firelight.
• Root-braiding ceremonies occur during coming-of-age rituals, where beards and hair are braided with strips of stone, bone, or metal to symbolize enduring ties to one’s heritage.
• Dwarves believe that the dead return to the stone, their essence absorbed into the mountain’s memory, making their burial rites deeply sacred.

Interpretation: Life is a cycle rooted in place, community, and memory.

5. Tensions and Trauma: When Roots Rot

The arrival of the Bloom has unearthed painful contradictions in the Dwarven ethos.

• Some Dwarves are Bloom-Touched, their bodies resisting change but their minds succumbing. These corrupted kin are sometimes kept alive, chained in Root Chambers, with prayers that their lineage can be restored.
• Others question the unbreakable traditions of their people—what if their roots trap them, preventing progress or adaptation?
• A growing minority seeks "New Roots"—founding settlements away from ancestral halls, clashing with traditionalists.

Interpretation: Roots give strength, but when left unexamined, they can strangle growth.

In Summary:

For the Dwarves of Vashkelholme, “Roots” are everything:

• A declaration of identity.
• A source of strength and survival.
• A warning against forgetting.
  But in a world unraveling under the corruption of the Bloom, even roots may be tested—whether they hold strong or crack beneath the pressure will define the future of the Dwarves.

Hmmm, asking what changes I could make to my Home Page is difficult, as I am quite happy with how it currently looks. That being said, it is primarily aimed towards my Players, and so I have direct access to them to explain what certain categories mean and where to find things. I suppose I could make the titles of some of the Book Covers I have used to denote the different sections clearer.

I'm not too savvy on how to use the code necessary to create something truly complex, and don't exactly have the time to learn at the moment, but I think I really should. If not actually learn, then at least create a bank of code that I can call on to create specific templates for certain pages.

Oof, looking at my earliest work is almost painful, the assumptions and scribblings I made were like those of a madman planning out world domination.

I think the biggest mistakes I made were not focusing the scope of the project down enough, going for too large a world in one go, and trying to create everything all at once without having a solid plan for how to do so.

As for things I can incorporate from my older works, I think that I have already sort of done that. I have carried over themes from previous projects, as well as ideas and the occasional name or location.

The theme of Metamorphosis is one of the most potent and pervasive in Largitas—woven into the land, the people, and even the Bloom itself. It represents both hope and horror, adaptation and annihilation, and speaks to how nothing in the world of Largitas has remained unchanged since the Bloom first fell.

Past Metamorphosis: Surviving the Fall

When the Bloom descended, the very ecosystems of Largitas began to mutate, reshaping forests into luminous jungles, rivers into virulent veins, and animals into terrible mockeries of their former selves. In response, the people were forced to transform themselves or perish:

• The City Ships were a radical metamorphosis—vast, floating sanctuaries lifted from the earth to preserve civilization. Cities like The Verdant Refuge and The Celestial Arcadia became testaments to technological and magical adaptation.
• Dwarves of Vashkelholme hollowed deeper into the earth, reforging their cities into fortified bastions and finding ways to live in symbiosis with the new minerals and fungi that took root underground.
• Elves of Bar-Oinur leaned into the shifting magic of nature, changing their culture to bond with uncontaminated wilderness, learning to shape plantlife defensively rather than simply tending to it.

Present Metamorphosis: Living with the Bloom

Today, metamorphosis defines daily life:

• Bloom Adaptation Therapies are being tested to immunize or acclimate people to the Bloom—both scientifically through Aetherium Inoculations, and magically through Druidic rituals or controlled exposure.
• Hazard Suit Technologies have become almost like second skins for many. The longer one wears them, the more they physically and psychologically adapt—some see this as the loss of humanity, others as necessary evolution.
• Social Structures have shifted. Once-united nations have fractured into isolationist enclaves, mobile survivor camps, or religious communes that view the Bloom as a divine test.
• Magic itself is mutating, with some spells becoming unstable near heavy Bloom zones, while others gain eerie, augmented effects. Bloomcasters—mages who deliberately manipulate Bloom-tainted energies—are a growing and controversial class.

Tensions and Resistance

Not everyone welcomes change. Across Largitas, forces rise to resist or control this metamorphosis:

The Preservationist Orders

These groups—such as the Grey Mantle Sect or House Arbarex—oppose adaptation, believing that embracing transformation invites corruption. They hoard pre-Bloom artifacts, seek to seal off cities from exposure, and sometimes sabotage research they deem dangerous.

The Church of Immutable Form

A fundamentalist sect that reveres the old gods of Largitas in their unchanging forms. They view metamorphosis as a heretical deviation and hunt down “mutants,” “shifters,” and even druids.

Certain Factions within BRASC

While BRASC is largely forward-looking, certain divisions—particularly older military figures and conservative research departments—are wary of full-scale integration with the Bloom or Aetherium enhancements. Internal politics frequently pit these groups against radical technologists and Bloom biologists.

In Summary

Metamorphosis in Largitas is not just a response to crisis—it is the state of being. From the sprawling fungal canopies of the Bloom Zones to the ironclad halls of the Dwarven Under Cities and the soaring spires of the City Ships, every element of the world is in flux. The people adapt, evolve, and reshape themselves to survive, while the very nature of what it means to be “human,” “elf,” “dwarf,” or “alive” is constantly being redefined.

But this transformation comes at a cost. Identity fractures, traditions warp, and communities splinter as some embrace the future while others cling desperately to the past. In Largitas, change is inevitable, but whether that change is evolution… or corruption… is a question no one can yet answer.

Metamorphosis, then, is not a theme. It is the question that haunts every step forward.
What will you become?

The Genre I have chosen to delve into is one that has interested me for a while, but I have not really gotten into until recently, that being Cyberpunk.

I specifically chose Cyberpunk because it felt like it would be almost exactly opposite to the main themes of my world, and this is true, but there are also just as many similarities between the two. I will be honest; I was not really expecting this and was pleasantly surprised by the number of ideas I could garner from some of the short stories I read.

Cyberpunk is a genre of rebellion, survival, and identity in a future where the system is rigged, but there are still ways to fight back—if you’re willing to lose a part of yourself in the process. This is very similar to how plant life has grown out of control in The Blooming Continent, where life has been forced to the fringes in order to survive a world that will gladly swallow you whole if you let it.

I kind of hyperfixated on this concept of comparing Largitas to the Cyberpunk Genre and wrote a whole bunch of stuff I don't really know where else to put, so here it is:

The world of Largitas and the genre of Cyberpunk may seem quite different on the surface—nature-driven post-apocalypse versus neon-lit urban dystopia—but thematically, they share some surprising and compelling similarities. Here’s a breakdown of their similarities and differences, focusing on core themes:

Similarities:

1. Survival in a Broken World

• Cyberpunk: Characters often struggle to survive in societies ravaged by corporate control, social decay, and rampant inequality.
• Largitas: Individuals and communities are constantly adapting to a world reshaped by the Bloom, trying to survive in the shadow of divine decay and ecological collapse.

Parallels: Both settings force characters to make hard choices in hostile, decaying environments. Life persists through grit, ingenuity, and sometimes moral compromise.

2. Transformation and Body Horror

• Cyberpunk: Cybernetics and body modification blur the line between human and machine.
• Largitas: Bloom infection and adaptations blur the line between life, death, and nature—transforming the body in grotesque, fungal ways.

Parallels: Both explore loss of identity through bodily change, though Largitas leans into organic transformation where Cyberpunk uses technological augmentation.

3. Distrust of Power Structures

• Cyberpunk: Mega-corporations and corrupt governments are distrusted and often antagonistic.
• Largitas: Kingdoms and institutions like BRASC have their own secrets, agendas, and internal power struggles—especially in light of revelations like the “Hidden Blight.”

Parallels: The idea that systems built to protect might also exploit or deceive is central to both genres.

4. Isolation and Alienation

• Cyberpunk: Protagonists are often loners, castoffs, or rebels in a disconnected world.
• Largitas: Survivors on the City Ships are estranged from their roots, isolated from the corrupted mainland, and haunted by the loss of the old world.

Parallels: There's a strong sense of alienation—from the land, from nature, from tradition, from each other.

Differences:

1. Nature vs Technology

• Cyberpunk: The world is dominated by technology, networks, machines, and artificial enhancements.
• Largitas: The world is overwhelmed by nature, specifically corrupted nature. The Bloom is a fungal, organic apocalypse, not a digital one.

Contrast: Cyberpunk fears the dehumanizing potential of technology. Largitas fears the loss of control to natural forces once thought sacred.

2. Aesthetic and Tone

• Cyberpunk: Urban, neon-drenched, synthetic, fast-paced.
• Largitas: Organic, overgrown, slow decay, and natural ruin—more solarpunk-gone-wrong than retro-futurism.

Contrast: One’s all steel and circuit boards; the other’s vines, spores, and crumbling stone.

3. The Role of the Divine

• Cyberpunk: Often atheistic or agnostic; gods are dead or replaced by corporations.
• Largitas: The gods are real—and yet have done almost nothing in the face of the Bloom.

Contrast: In Largitas, spirituality and myth are central to the world’s current crisis, creating a mystical framework absent from most cyberpunk settings.

In Essence

• Cyberpunk is about losing humanity to technology.
• The Blooming Continent is about losing civilization to nature—and wondering whether it deserves to be saved.

Both explore transformation, alienation, and powerlessness, but through different lenses. Cyberpunk shows us what happens when the machine eats the world. Largitas shows us what happens when nature eats it back.

Largitas is a continent balanced on the knife-edge of transformation, and several major current events are shaping its trajectory. The future depends on which forces prevail, and what kind of world will be rebuilt—or consumed—after the next Bloom.

Current Events Shaping Largitas’ Future

1. The Escalating Bloom and the Coming Wave

A new Bloom Wave is expected within the decade. Each wave has grown more intense, and signs indicate that the Bloom Heart is growing stronger.

• Implication: More territory will fall. More beings will be infected. The inner Bloom Zones may begin pushing outward at an accelerated rate.

2. Rise of Bloom-Touched and Named Beasts

The appearance of intelligent or semi-intelligent Named Bloom Beasts like Mournwood: The Hollow King and Venomthorn is raising existential questions.

• Implication: If the Bloom can now think and act with strategic intent, this is no longer a natural disaster—it's a war.

3. The Revelation of the Hidden Blight

The release of the Calgalli document, admitting they hid the initial Bloom outbreak, has shattered interkingdom trust.

• Implication: Diplomatic relations are fraying. Some regions, especially Vashkelholme, feel betrayed and may withdraw from joint operations or research.

4. Factional Splintering within BRASC

BRASC, once a unified research and scouting body, is showing cracks:

• The Verdant Sentinels advocate total militarization.
• The Cult of the Bloom (formerly a fringe belief) is gaining sympathy in some circles.
• Certain factions want to control the Bloom, not cure it.
• Implication: Internal conflict could stall crucial progress—or worse, trigger sabotage or civil conflict aboard the City Ships.

5. Technological Renaissance on the City Ships

A boom in tech development is occurring, from Bloomshield Generators to Tactical Hazard Suits, and anti-Bloom weapons like Flame Rifles and Purifier Blades.

• Implication: If the right innovations succeed, there could be a chance to reclaim land from the Bloom. But if militarization continues unchecked, the ships may shift toward totalitarian control.

Factions and Individuals Shaping the Future

The Celestial Arcadia’s Visionaries

Driven by logic and meritocracy, Arcadian scholars and alchemists (like Hermes Mendel) aim to find a cure or sustainable adaptation to the Bloom—perhaps even turning it into a tool.

• Goal: A future where humanity masters the Bloom through intellect, not war.

The Verdant Sentinels

A hardline division within BRASC's military arm, dedicated to eradicating the Bloom at all costs. They believe peace can only come through scorched-earth tactics and sacrificial defense.

• Goal: A future where civilization survives behind steel and fire, and the Bloom is purged.

The Cult of the Bloom

Led by Eryndor Thalassian, this cult believes the Bloom is the next phase of life, and that resistance is heresy against nature. Some want to speed its spread.

• Goal: A future where the Bloom consumes all, reshaping life in its image.

Salvine Coraar’s Elves

Still cloistered and suspicious, the elves may hold ancient wisdom—or secrets—about the Bloom, given their closeness to nature and isolation on Bar-Oinur.

• Goal (unclear): Possibly containment, but potentially retreat into a Bloom-adapted society.

Dwarven Refugees and Engineers of Vashkelholme

Displaced by the fall of Broyoto and half their kingdom, dwarves are spreading across Largitas, bringing with them expertise in metal, machinery, and defense.

• Goal: Reclaim lost territory through fortress-building and resilience.

What Kind of Future Is Being Fought For?

Oh boy, being told to plan ahead as a person with severe ADHD is a hell of a thing. That being said, I will still aim to follow a schedule of sorts for the coming Summer Camp.

Schedule: My plan for this is simple: Write 1 Prompt a day, working on it for no less than 1 hour, but no more than 3 hours. This way, I can ensure that my new articles get the attention they need, without allowing myself to become too hyperfixated on one article at the loss of others.

Writing Space: I have a clean and relatively organized desk, so I should be fine here. I think the biggest obstacle/distraction will actually be my cats, as they can be very demanding for attention when they want it, lol.

Resources: Oh boy, do I have access to resources. I have been reading various articles and watching videos on world building for the last month in preparation and am excited to put what I have learnt into practice. I am still not 100% sure on exactly what I will be writing on, so I haven't gone into specifics, but I think having a good base is more important than building distant towers of knowledge that may not even prove useful.

Stubs: Ah yes, Stubs. I very seldom have actual Stubs, as when I write an article, I aim to bring it to a point of near completion, at least 80% done. This does mean that I have to go back and make larger edits when I do decide to change things, but that's fine by me.

My friends, whom I plan to have as Players in the Campaign I am planning in the world of The Blooming Continent, have been a great resource and support system. I have already worked with each of them on multiple articles specifically for their characters, and have bounced ideas off of them many times.

I also plan to use the WA Discord a lot more this time around, as I haven't really done so in the past due to mild social anxiety, but I need to push my boundaries and expand my circles of influence.

As for my sharing strategy, I will be using the Alert System of WA for my followers, and also probably posting any articles I am particularly proud of on the Community Board for others to see.