This is a home page for my personal combined World Anvil
Summer Camp 2025 Preparation and challenge efforts. The "homework", finished first, is laid out on the lower section of this page. Ahead of it, I'll link the article blocks from qualifying articles posted for the camp in July. Each of these (and more) will of course also be embedded directly inside the deeper structure of the Discontinuum hierarchy of articles, as and where they belong.
I'm not sure how much I'll be able to write in July as I am on holiday for a week and I also do want to keep some time back to keep working on my other long term creative projects in WA, which may or may not align with summer camp prompts (although I hope I can align them). Still, a little break from the long story I am writing may be no bad thing, both for it and for me, and I don't want to miss out on the fun of doing something different! So I'm committing to just eight articles for the copper badge, and if I manage to do any more that will be a bonus.
Articles need to follow these prompts...
Here is my official progress page based on those options...
Here are quick links just to the qualifying articles I've submitted, in one simple table using article blocks.
Prompt
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Article
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A species that feeds through a symbiotic relationship
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A substance known for its unique smell
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A ritual related to agriculture
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A foundational document for a country, religion, or other organization
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A war that resulted in the creation of something new.
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A delicious staple found on every dinner table.
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A condition you can get from eating specific foods
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A settlement that has been rebuilt several times
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A cutting edge technology expected to change the future
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Homework done in June is shown below:-
Week 1 - Nourishment
Date
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Assignment
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Week 1 : 1
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Think about ways the theme of Nourishment affects your world. Do people generally have what they need? What happens when they don’t?
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Week 1 : 2
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Download the pledge document and fill it out with your goal for Summer Camp!
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Week 1 : 3
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If you found any outdated articles in your world, update the most important ones now! Do the same with your worldbuilding meta.
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Week 1 : 1
I have two ideas for this which link to writing I have already done but want to expand upon. The first is the subject of addiction to
Synaptic Unbinding Potion on
Magicians' End and the consequences of an attempt to control its distribution through something called the Synaptic Squeeze. I'd like to create a full article about this which is so far only a simple concept referenced in the ongoing
Diary of Clarise Vabatan. Then there is also
Emile's White Hunger, coming down the timeline. I want to explore this at more length in other writing. Maybe Summer Camp will offer me an option for that?
Week 1 : 2
You're looking at the page now.
Week 1 : 3
I'm fairly good about updating linked articles with cross references and necessary changes to reflect new content in old articles as I go along, and I didn't have anything outstanding. However, I have reviewed, revised and completed my meta notes which were only about 30% complete, prior to this "homework" and I have made them all public.
Week 2 - Roots
Date
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Assignment
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Week 2 : 1
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Look at the cultures and areas you’ll focus on for Summer Camp, and think about how their past shaped them.
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Week 2 : 2
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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?
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Week 2 : 3
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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?
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Week 2 : 1
The main focus of my world building in the Discontinuum for the past two years or so has been the long history of
Magicians' End, which has an 18,000 year timeline and several sub-timelines with more detail for specific ages and specific cities (just to keep the main timeline from getting out of control). I'm working my way forward filling in details on a long summary of this history, in a
Historical Overview, which has many linked detail articles for different eras. Along the way I've written one 17,000 word story (
Hella and the Widow) from the Age of the Long Famine and am in the middle of writing another very long epic called the
Diary of Clarise Vabatan, set during
The Time of Terrors. I very much want to push the history of the realm forward, having stalled somewhat whilst I was writing both these stories and that is absolutely concerned with the many cultures for
Magicians' End which I've already documented. I'm hoping Summer Camp 2025 can help me make more progress, just as World Ember in 2024 also let me push forward ahead of the work on the Diary. I still have about 2,000 years of the most modern history to flesh out and it is getting more detailed as I get closer to the present.
Week 2 : 2
I'm fairly happy with the introduction, which starts straight off with a piece of short fiction to set the scene for the whole of the Discontinuum, before breaking the fourth wall and providing optional meta notes also referenced in my meta text. What I could possibly use, is something a bit punchier on the front page itself to direct the reader to the introduction. If I get a chance to think about this as part of Summer Camp, I'd think about what I could do in terms of new artwork and instant appeal for the front page.
Week 2 : 3
My earliest world building was in what is now my secondary universe called
The Bubble. I've co-opted it into the Discontinuum but technically it is a whole other WA world which is a home for my old science fiction stories (and some associated old digital art). What would I do differently there now? I might add more art, since I have the capability to use AI art engines and enjoy them (even if they are a little controversial). I might add more world building about specific species and cultures which is not drawn from the stories and builds on what is in those stories. The world building articles in the Bubble are rather more of a glossary to what we know from the stories, focusing on summarising information rather than adding much to it. There is nothing wrong with that, but I now favour a more expansive role for the world building to help with the creation of future stories.
Week 3 - Metamorphosis
Date
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Assignment
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Week 3 : 1
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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?
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Week 3 : 2
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Choose a new genre, style, or author, and take a look at their art! Write what you learned from them and what inspired you.
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Week 3 : 3
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Read a couple of articles from the community, give them a like (and why not a sticker!), and write about what inspired you.
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Week 3 : 1
The history of Magicians' End is driven very much by changes in the nature of magic and its role in society. It has always been a world where magic is powerful but after a key event called the
Planar Conformation, the power of magic increased and the world became more dangerous with the arrival of the
Dark Domains. There was yet another de-stabilising moment when alchemists developed
Synaptic Unbinding Potion further enhancing the powers of magic. The stories of the
Time of Terrors work though the negative consequences of this and conclude with a kind of solution that restores some stability. In this age I am interested in the fight between
the Unbound, a cult of mages that advocate for
Synaptic Unbinding Potion and the secretive (and evil)
Sisters of Vabatan and the fallout from their long conflict. Neither side is admirable.
Week 3 : 2
Enjoyed reading about the
Greenwake in the world of Erenel by Gamingbrew. Much of the art there is credited to Dean Spencer. Maybe I could, in some cases, try to create my own art with painting software instead of rendering or AI? It might be interesting to have a go.
Week 3 : 3
Here are two more articles I enjoyed reading and posted a "like" against...
A Brief History of the Perseus Arm : Some Traveller work on WA which is a bit nostalgic for me as an old player of that RPG so nice to see someone developing new content for it.
Priscilla's Potent Pastries : A nice little shop for an RPG. I always like a good bakery in real life and on WA.
Week 4 - Tomorrow
Date
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Assignment
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Week 4 : 1
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Think about current events that will impact the future. Who is working to create a specific kind of future?
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Week 4 : 2
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Make sure everything’s ready—from your writing space to your writing schedule—before Summer Camp begins!
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Week 4 : 3
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Who or what will help you achieve your goal? What will your sharing strategy be during Summer Camp?
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Week 4 : 1
This is an interesting topic in the context of my current story,
the Diary of Clarise Vabatan. I've reached a point where there is open competition between two factions of malign mages, the
Unbound and the formerly secretive
Sisters of Vabatan. The former is looking to subvert the governments of the cities of
Magicians' End, one by one, to build a world government led by and for mages. The latter opposes them because they are a threat to the existence of the
Sisters . But a thread that is also there and not so far explored too much is the reaction of "ordinary" non-magical citizens to this conflict and to the general terrors of out of control mages. I want to feed some of that into my writing because it will also have important consequences for the future.
Week 4 : 2
I plan to write in the morning for half an hour a day before I start work. I've been keeping more or less to this schedule already for the last few months (and throwing in a bit more time on some evenings when I was feeling keen) so I don't think it will be a problem. Although I have a few stubs, I've held back on one or two things in the light of the information hinted at in this "homework" schedule and I'll probably be making new articles to achieve my Summer Camp goals. There will be some more artwork, I'm sure.
Week 4 : 3
I'm pretty self motivated when I'm writing and world building. Of course I welcome readers and enjoy comments and "likes", like everyone else, but the social side of things isn't front and centre of my experience here or my reason for creating. Possibly this is something I should accommodate a little more, but (at the risk of sounding a bit curmudgeonly) I generally prefer to pour my efforts into creating, instead of talking about creating. I am aware that is a weakness if you're trying to interest other people in what you're doing (which I can't deny I am) but that's just me. In any case, I am already a member of the Discord server (even if I mainly use it for technical support) and will try and drop in on the Summer Camp channel from time to time.
I also do always have my
What's New? page, where I log the most recent changes in the
Discontinuum and this page too, which I will continue to update specifically for Summer Camp, so that is two "shop windows" into what I'm doing for anyone that's interested.
Best of luck with all your goals! Enjoy SC :)