WorldEmber 2024 Prep

This WorldEmber, I've decided to try and write at least 15,000 words on Nonvyrox, though this isn't an upper limit on what I want to write. I have more time and have been refreshing myself creatively to come back to worldbuilding with a new mindset. The certificate below is my final pledge, but there were parts of me that wanted to do more and more words after a really successful NovelEmber AND SummerCamp this year, but I wanted to start small so I see my success with each progressive step I hit above that.   Here is my pledge for WorldEmber!

While I know I want to work on Nonvyrox, the majority of my work in WorldEmber this year will focus on fleshing out the core parts of the world that have elements missing. So far, the countries, regions, and continents of my world feel very bare in published content. I want to use WorldEmber to focus up my world and ensure that I have focused on the history and places of the world.   However! I shall let my inspiration flow during the course of WorldEmber. I know that I have plenty of ideas for flora after realising that I have barely touched it during the course of my worldbiulding so far. So I will be making a whole bunch of different things outside of the core parts of my world.   An additional area of focus will be the creation of content for my work in progress projects, Project Sea and Sand that is based on the continents of Kyradon and Heimter, and my current campaign set on Ossalimar. So there is plenty to flesh out for both ongoing works.

Before Summer Camp I updated my meta to match where I was with Nonvyrox. I have gone through my meta since and tweaked what I believe needs tweaked, however, I'm also so engrained in the word that I feel my meta is in a good position. I know there are elements that I still need to update and will do so in the weeks leading up to WorldEmber.

As with my meta from last week, my homepage got a refresh just before Summer Camp. Now is a good time to look and update what needs to be updated. Most of it still feels exciting and like there is a good call to action. However, my article "Introduction to Nonvyrox" is still private. As a result, I want to really get this released during WorldEmber so I can get a good basis of each of the continents and themes of my world out to people. Speaking of that article...

As mentioned, my primer Introduction to Nonvyrox is not released yet because I feel that the article needs certain images and tweaks before it is released. I am also considering splitting some of it into different articles that would make more sense. As a result, I want to try and tweak this in the last days before WorldEmber, but I will use the beginnings of WorldEmber to ensure that the content in the primer is filled so it doesn't lead to links that are pretty bare.

This is a tricky element for me as I have completed many of the recommended community tools. Primarily I have focused on developing a global call to action so those who like the content can follow my work outside of WorldAnvil and also can follow the articles in Nonvyrox and all my works in various worlds. For this assignment, I will aks those who have viewed my world to tell me how they think this can be improved.

I have become quite happy with the CSS styling of Nonvyrox in the past year having set up specific types of blocking that I can use as a reference point for most articles. However, this seems to have shifted to a new layout format for my articles that I want to ensure I'm happy with before WorldEmber. As a result, I am trying to reformat some old articles before WorldEmber so i feel more confident in the new format I have been working in.

I have been reading The Cruel Prince by Holly Black as an inspiration to the Fae elements of my world. It has also been showing me a way that I can add new differences to my planar elements to make them feel distinct and different from the mortal realms. I am still making my way through the book as I am writing this so I don't know the final outcome, but I can already see the benefits in reading it for my world. (Exciting ideas of Fae coming soon...)   I've also recently looked back on the whole of filmed content from Middle Earth. Tolkein's work was a main inspiration to me as a child, but as I grew up, I started to reject many parts of Tolkein's fantasy. Yet as I've been exposed to new stories in Rings of Power and refreshed the classic stories of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, I've found a new reverance for and also new issues with these stories. They've inspired the elements I do and do not want in my world. I hope ot read my copy of The Hobbit before WorldEmber and maybe even get one of The Silmarillion to flesh out my understanding of again what I do and do not like about Middle Earth to further inspire my world.

This is something I've done smaller work on over the past few years that I've been working on Nonvyrox. Mainly looking at inspirational images for towns or specific locaitons as they came up in campaigns or writing. However, I want to take this as an opportuntiy to pull things together and create a Nonvyrox based moodboard that I can come back to to keep myself focused on the aesthetics of the world overall. I'll write about the process here after it's finished.   I grabbed a seleciton of images from a range of artists and genres. Some are more Sci-Fi leaning but remind me of the technology from the Age of Creation, where magic was more prominent and bordering on modern day. Other images are more traditional fantasy leaning to the realms and its people. Overall, many of the images I collected felt more like inspirational moments in time rather than direct inspirations. I also added several colours in the moodboard that fit with the aesthetics of different regions.   With each region, I tried to map the inspirational images and colours to roughly the continents of the world on my moodboard in PureRef, that way I can move myself between the different parts of the world and get inspiration as they blend together. This has been a really inspirational process as its given me many ideas of what parts of my world look like visually, whilst also giving me freedom to still think up new and interesting designs that are nothing like anything anyone else has made.

Over the course of NovelEmber, I started to gather both lyrical and instrumental music that inspired me based on the world of Nonvyrox. The majority of the instrumental music comes from scores and soundtracks for fantasy series or albums that have been released inspired by worldbuiding and Dungeons and Dragons. For example NorseFoundry and World Anvil's Embers of Inspiration and Critical Role's Welcome to Wildemount, Welcome to Tal'Dorei, and Candela Obscura Soundtrack. All four of these albums make up the majority of my instrumental music as each track fills me with a sense of fantasy and adventure that stimulates my worldbuilding senses. Other songs have been gathered from other worldbuilding playlists that I occassionally use not created by me that bring together fantasy feeling ambient soundtracks and orchestral works.   When I look at lyrical works, I mainly focus on albums that can be listened through and have enough similar content that it produces a consistent tone. For example Jorge Rivera-Herrans' Epic: The Musical in its entireity is in my writing playlist because over the course of the 2 hour album it goes through a variety of emotions that keep me in a flow state. Other albums that are in my writing playlist include a variety of other musicals that have a pop sensibility and clever writing such as Beetlejuice and Hamilton. However, there are some individual songs from these albums and other soundtracks that have been selected because I enjoy the songs. This includes songs from Disney's Hercules and Marvel's Agatha All Along.   There are three main writing playlists I have gathered together for WorldEmber each with a unique purpose when i am writing.   The first is comprised of only instrumental works that can be used for streaming purposes. Mainly because I have aspriations to start streaming again over the course of WorldEmber and having a playlist of music that has been put together for me to be able to stream with will give me music to inspire myself whilst I am writing. This playlist lasts 5 hours and 21 minutes, well beyond my possible streaming time of 4 hours.   The second playlist combines lyrical and instrumental works that can be shuffled. This uses the individual tracks that I enjoy seperately from the stories and soundtracks/albums that they come from. This playlist is for my general writing time to give me a different feeling in each song to stimulate my inspiration. This playlist is only 2 hours and 3 minutes, but that's accurate to my general writing periods before I change music based on emotion or location.   The third and final playlist is purely lyrical soundtracks and is focused on the ones that I am most likely to listen to rather than the whole set that I have listened to. It contains whole soundtracks, including songs that I wouldn't necessarily listen to in their entirity usually. But in doing so, it keep a specific set of tonal understandings in my head. This is the least focused on genre, with primarily musical theatre taking the focus in this playlist. The whole playlist is 8 hours and 10 minutes so its unlikely that I will have the time to listen to the whole playlist in the course of a writing session, but it gives me multiple starting points.

I am fortunate enough to be a member of a few strong communities in WorldAnvil and beyond.   First the Cookie Cottage, the chapter I joined. They are really positive and good for keeping each other going. Its also very nice to have a group of people that are focused on positivity and keeping going. We have our idea of the Cookie Campfire, a time when we focus on co-working together, something anyone can call for at any point and feel like they have people around them working alongside them.   Second, thanks to both Catoblepon, Polina "Line" Arteev, and Mochi, I am a member of some great servers that are focused on worldbuilding and have a variety of people that are inspirational in the content they produce. Their work helps to inspire me and gives me a place to bounce ideas off for worldbuilding. (On that note I have my own discord server, join below!)   Finally, I have a strong community of writers from the West of Scotland Writing Group. Formerly a region of the company we don't speak about, I have been part of the group for two years now and have made some close friends in the group. As a result, despite them all being tired from their November Writing Challenge, people will still be writing and coming up with new ideas. This will always be inspiring and their weekly write in will be a great time to work on my worldbuilding.

I am still more than working full time for the first week of WorldEmber as I complete my Student Teaching placement. As a result, I will be very swamped for that first week, meaning most of my time will be taken up with the work that comes with that all.   However, after the 6th of December, I am only working so much time over the course of a week in other jobs, giving me more time to be free with how I wish to write. As a result, I want to ensure that I am spending time working on worldbuilding at least every day. I want to focus on earlier in the day, when i would have started work as I know that I should be free most mornings.   For streaming my worldbuilding, I want to focus on a Tuesday and Thursday as I know that on these days after the first week. However, I may end up streaming on a Friday evening if that becomes a more useful time to set aside for the week. Particularly with my unpredictable work schedule after the 6th December.

I appreciate this assingment as it makes me do something I've been trying to make a habit over the past few weeks, going for walks and carving out time for self-care when I can. While I look forward to WorldEmber, I will also know when its time for me to focus on myself and take care.   This next section is in spoilers because it talks a little bit about where i've been with my worldbuilding for the past few months and may become a little bit preachy. But is context for why this WorldEmber means so much for me...
  Where I am just now