Exploration of the Laulari - Summer Camp 2025

Greetings readers!

Last year, I was going to attempt to participate in Summer Camp 2024. Then, I lost track of time and spent most of that month busy with work and a small vacation during which I wrote one article that I never published. So... things didn't go well. But I'm back this year to absolutely smash my record of... zero! And I have a couple of friends that are going to be participating in Summer Camp with me that can help keep me honest, and I have some players and friends I can write these articles for to seek critiques and validation from for that sweet sweet dopamine.
  I'm going to be focusing on the island region of Laulari (name pending) for my Summer Camp. It is an isolated region in this new world. and is my attempt at adapting, expanding, and recontextualizing the Obojima setting in a way that makes sense for me, as well as being inspired by Ghibli films, anime such as Made In Abyss and Violet Evergarden, and other such grounded grounded fantastical worlds like Alice in Wonderland and The Last Dragon Chronicles. I want to blend "ancient" ('80s) technology like with new magic like charms, spells, and spirits to create an aesthetic and atmosphere I am comfortable enough to explore while still being outside of my comfort zone so I am pushed to grow and explore new ideas and concepts. I want to be able to run interesting games here involving deep emotional stakes and powerful moral themes without sacrificing the childlike wonder that I think all magical worlds should have. I want to worldbuild this region because I think I can use things I learn here and themes I develop across the rest of the greater world and begin to find my style of storytelling.

To-Do List

Create SC25 Prep and Homework Article layout
Style SC25 Prep and Homework article
Rename SC25 Prep and Homework article (it's too long)
Figure out how to submit this to the summer camp prep page
Write world meta
Create homepage
Create categories and organize world
Complete Week 1 Homework
Complete Week 2 Homework
Complete Week 3 Homework
Complete Week 4 Homework

Articles Button

Week 1 - Nourishment

Assignment 1

"Think about the ways the theme of Nourishment affects your world. Do people generally have what they need? What happens when they don't?"

Overall—in this part of the world at large—yes, people have what they need. Most people have access to food, water, shelter, community, and various forms of entertainment and enrichment. The ever-present dangers of magic and corruption, mysteries, and unpredictable nature of mercurial spirits and vicious monsters keep the land from becoming a true utopia. Generally, the people are open and friendly, and many in communities are willing to help and provide for anyone who hasn't shown themselves to be ungrateful or a danger to anyone involved with them. The world and stories have a large emphasis on kindness and openness, with a healthy moral sprinkling of boundaries and distant respect.

Assignment 2

2025 Pledge Document

  Summer Camp 2025 Pledge: I pledge to achieve the Copper badge during July 2025 to improve my world of Project Continuum. I make this promise to myself, my readers, the World Anvil community, and the world, which is made better by my creative spirit.

Assignment 3

If you found any outdated articles in your world, update the most important ones now! Do the same with your worldbuilding meta.

This world is effectively brand new. One article (before this one) was created, and it isn't even relevant to this area of the world. However, the meta has not been written, and it is my goal to have that done before Summer Camp starts. At the very least, I would like to have a truncated or abbreviated meta completed for this region of the world.
  That said, I do have snippets of worldbuilding elements in spreadsheets, documents, and even scraps of paper that I would love to incorporate. Because I intend for this world to be used for TTRPGs (specifically 5th Edition D&D, likely 2024 edition), some of those "articles" are actually homebrew elements of the game like races and backgrounds. I will need to go through those (especially backgrounds, feats, and house/table rules) to make sure that they all have a purpose and solid grounding in this new project. Many of them were written for and are carried over from old games or worldbuilding projects.

Week 2 - Roots

Assignment 1

"Look at the cultures and areas you'll focus on for Summer Camp, and think about how their past shaped them."

To begin with, there is the overarching culture of the Laulari. Being an island that is some distance away from the mainland, with access to different resources and having weathered the creation of this world and translocation of its people differently, its culture is vastly different than many of the other regions I hope to create someday. But specifically, there are a number of smaller sub-cultures that further diversify the region. I have not yet read the sourcebook for the world I am adapting, but even skimming the table of contents and some of the sections, it looks like I'll be needing cultures for indigenous peoples, spiritual cultures, differences in the culture of various regions such as a mountainous tribes, coastal cities, rolling plains or wetlands in between.
  Notably, in this specific world, there isn't much in the way of physical history due to its unique creation. However, some of the people and spirits that inhabit it come from an old world, and so I will be able to draw on ancient and barely relevant histories to help alter and drive current events. I will be able to use elements and remnants of that world as visual story telling, but it should leave enough mystery that it is fun for players and readers to uncover and learn for themselves.

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?

Huh... So the first thing to do would probably be to... make one.... I was hoping to get a silver badge this year, but I think I'm going to pull back and plan to achieve a bronze badge instead. I still want to aim for silver, but I get the sneaking suspicion that a good portion of my time is going to be spent doing CSS, formatting, and generally setting up this world for future worldbuilding and challenges.
  I do have various ideas for a template that I have wanted to use for worlds in the past, and I feel like I should adopt them here as well. I enjoy mapping, and have seen a video by The Red Quills Mapmaking on Youtube that talks about making an atlas as a form of storytelling, and I think I'd like to try something like that. However, I'm also drawn into the wiki style of worldbuilding as a supplement to actually playing games in the world, and I want to find ways to incorporate that. Last, I am intrigued by the idea of having an unreliable narrator tell the story of the world, akin to a Volo or other in-universe character. I think it would work very well for an atlas, but isn't conducive to a wiki players can use, unless the narrator was privy to information they shouldn't or wouldn't otherwise have. As of the start of this challenge, I only have one character concept that mostly fits that role, and I'm rather fond of the idea: the god of Stars, Heroes, and Stories. If I were to do my writing from the perspective of this deity, I would be able to put an emphasis on unreliability of the narrator, get a fairly objective top down view of areas I want to map, and still be able to provide enough truth for the stories I want to tell without needing to write entire unnecessary histories or reveal information before it is canonized in the world.

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!"

First and foremost, I want to stick with this world. I have a bad habit of starting new things, trying them out for a week or two, then abandoning them, then starting completely over when I get the itch again. Regardless of how I perform, I want to try and use this world as my defacto fantasy worldbuilding project for the foreseeable future. Naturally, if I have ideas about a sci-fi or dieselpunk world, I'll develop those in appropriate settings, but I want most anything relating to fantasy to fit into this world. I want to try my hand at a living world.
  Secondly, I don't want to let myself get bogged down by specifics. I am going to strive to build only what is needed to proceed to the next topic, the next map, or the next article. In the past, I have gotten hyper-fixated on one specific element of an article or a region to the point where I am unable to answer what I think are basic questions about the region (case in point, I spend 4 days figuring out the agricultural staples and diet of one province of a previous world so I could describe what meals their starting tavern served, and then was unprepared to answer questions about the flora and fauna of the region for the druid that wanted to leave the city immediately).
  Lastly, I am proud of some of the interesting and unexpected conclusions I drew when elements of my previous world clashed, and I want to bring some of that mystery and incongruity to this one. I think that kind of creativity breeds creativity, and while I feel protective over my ideas and how this world makes sense to me, I mean for it to be used to play collaborative TTRPGs in and so I want to provide a good springboard for my friends and players to find and carve their own niche into.

Week 3 - Metamorphosis

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?"

The people in this region are learning how to combine modern magic with ancient technology, and are learning to adapt to an entirely new world that is completely unlike anything their ancestors had to deal with. Because of this, they have very little records or generational knowledge to rely on, which forces them to change and adapt faster and more completely.
  Outside of this realm, an undefined eldritch monstrosity is trying to break in to consume all concept of reality. I'm undecided as to whether the threat can be stopped, and if so if the people of this region and world at large are more or less powerless to stop it or if the task falls to the deities of the world. I think both are compelling in their own right, but being a TTRPG setting and living world I imagine that the answer to that musing will eventually be "yes." But my goal is not to focus on that for this challenge. I would much prefer to look at how this region deals with the corrupting influence of this entity.

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."

I like to think I'm pretty good about looking at all genres and styles of art. I definitely have my preferred styles (impressionism my beloved!) but I can appreciate and find things to be inspired by in everything. In literature, I regrettably don't read as often as I used to and definitely have a comfort zone with very little time to branch out. So I focused more on artists and authors of short form literature. What I've noticed in my research is that I like vivid descriptions of things and artwork that displays epic version of otherwise mundane things. Robin Tran does this very well—in some of his work on Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora or earlier works, he paints a mountain, a cluster of buildings, or a large door and his use of scale, depth, and movement lend to give the subject of the paintings more emphasis than they might have if viewed in person. His painting Red Woods is an excellent example of this: most would not stop to consider a fallen tree provided their path isn't impeded, but this painting forces you to consider the scale and story behind such a tragic and strikingly beautiful part of nature. It breaths life into a scene that wouldn't otherwise, and I want to let that be the driving element of my worldbuilding. I want to create scenes and moments where I can showcase the natural beauty and history of something that most people overlook to instill the same sense of wonder that a child has at seeing something new for the first time.

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."

This was particularly fun. I have skimmed some articles from various users as they're featured, but participating has really driven me to engage with the community and I'm finding new authors and worldbuilders I don't think I would have ever found otherwise. Everyone is so creative and have such interesting approaches to their worlds, and much of it gives me ideas that I want to find ways to incorporate in my own worlds. Below, I've listed some users and/or articles I read for homework, and I want to give each of you a special thanks for posting or otherwise allowing your world to be public for little ol' me to find and learn from:
  First, I'd like to thank some users whose worlds I scoured and have to this day continued to study to learn everything I can about layout and CSS:

• Anna Katherina and their world Saleh'Alire. It has a really cool aesthetic and I love the category, as well as the use of spoilers to keep things tidy. I'm still working on that one.
• Damion and their world Ravare. You and your... team? Co-authors? Friends? Have such mindblowing CSS. I didn't know most of it was possible, and that was before its refresh and visual update. Now, it's just magic. Thank you for being such an inspiration.

Now, some Summer Camp 2025 participants, in the order I found them in:

• Imagica gave me a like on this article less than a day after I posted it, so I checked them out and goodness, they have some incredible CSS and the themes for their worlds are so much fun. It's impressive you're shooting for gold between two worlds. I am smitten with the aesthetic of Crux Umbra, and I can't wait to read more. I especially loved The Veins of Reality, it gave me such ideas.
• iordamos is my good friend and rival for this challenge. We are going to be pushing each other to complete more, improve our writing, and struggle through learning CSS together. I have played in several of his D&D games all set in his living world Domain of the Godless and it has been nothing short of incredible. I have high hopes that he achieves his goals laid out in his Summer Camp 2025 Pledge, and I am excited to see everything he writes. If it's as verbose as his pledge, I am quite sure it'll be just the thing to put me to sleep inspire me.

Week 4 - Tomorrow

Assignment 1

"Think about current events that will impact the future. Who is working to create a specific kind of future?"

I hadn't much considered current events for the region - I suppose I was more in love with the idea of the setting than I was the reason for it existing.
  Corruption is a key factor, I like the idea of some kind of taint having slipped through with the old tech/remnants of the world, and that being the cause of the corruption. In fact, I like that for everywhere, all over the world. I'm not going to big myself down with it for right now, but I'll not that down in a scrap or a stub somewhere...
  I don't think it will be an extensive conflict, but there absolutely is going to be strife over the old ways of manual labor and technology vs the new age of magic and spirits. I have toyed with the idea of various ages of parties exploring the area and that conflict can be handled differently for each, but I like the idea of communities taking sides based on their needs, and then in large populations having elders and legislature trying to restrict one or the other to emphasize the tension. I think some kind of mishap or crime should be a driving factor in it, but that also feels like a cop-out because I should be able to come up with something more interesting?

Assignment 2

"Make sure everything's ready—from your writing space to your writing schedule—before Summer Camp begins!"

I can write in pretty much any location or environment. The biggest challenge for me is finding the time and motivation. I know people say not to wait for motivation to strike, and that sometimes its easier to get words on the page and let motivation catch up to you, but I've always found that to be a tricky skill to learn. I'm hoping that having done the prep will help get me into writing articles, and that writing articles will help me push me into styling the world, which in turn will help me share them, and create a positive feedback loop. I find I do better when I have someone I respect that can hold me accountable, and I deeply respect and appreciate my friends.
  Looking to the future, I think the bulk of my writing will be achieved on Mondays and Fridays after work, Sundays, and every other Saturday. I can't, however, dedicate all of that time because I would burn myself out. I think I might dedicate some of Sundays and Mondays to writing and let my creativity guide me.

Assignment 3

"Who or what will help you achieve your goal? What will your sharing strategy be during Summer Camp?"

Being a public world, I'm going to be submitting these articles and will hope some users will find and read them that way. But since this world is for TTRPGs, I'm going to use the webhook feature to send them to discord where my friends can ignore read them.
  More than that, I have been taking certification classes for my job along with two of my friends looking to earn the same certification. Last I heard, they are also going to be attempting this challenge in some capacity, and so I am hoping that we'll set aside some time throughout the week (perhaps before class) to do some collaborative world building, or at the very least push each other to do better and keep each other honest.