Summer Camp 2025 Prep

Week 1 - Theme: Nourishment

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?   The majority of the population of Zurith have relative access to what they need. Zurith is a prosperous world; the lands of the fae, the elves, the dwarves and the majority of the human territories is rich in magic and covered in lush greenery and fertile soil. In these areas, the various species that inhabit Zurith thrive and live in relative peace; trade is widespread and strong between the various territories and organisations and the strong magic of the land makes things like bad harvests rare.   However, this is not the case everywhere. North of Kailes, which occupies most of the continent of Aefareth, is the sub-continent of Felhedell. This land is a stark difference to the rest of the world, for it is a land of death where nothing grows--save for within the territories of Felhedell's sole kingdoms. However, even amongst the lands of these kingdoms, very little grows and the citizens of these kingdoms struggle constantly; enough grows to keep them alive, but not enough to let them thrive. As such, these kingdoms cannot grow and survive in a precarious position; saved only by the sympathy of the elves. Death, disease and famine are rampant.  

Assignment 2

 

Assignment 3

If you found any outdated articles in your world, update the most important ones now! Do the same with your worldbuilding meta.   Prior to the challenge, my meta hadn't been touched, however I will be filling it out over the coming week. I will also be going through the articles I had written since WorldEmber and update them where necessary, as previous ideas have changed and new ideas have been thought up since having written them.   UPDATE: Meta has been completed as much as I want it to be! Old articles still being updated!  

Week 2 - Theme: Roots

Assignment 1

Look at the cultures and areas you'll focus on for Summer Camp, and think about how their past shaped them.   I don't have much in the way of cultures or their histories currently built in Zurith as many kingdoms are still untouched in terms of worldbuilding. But there are some that have been touched upon, for example: the oath of the ancient Caelestians to devote their lives to holding back the monsters that now infest the kingdom's forests has transformed the kingdom to have a very heavy warrior culture, where one must learn how to defend themself; Aesian culture revolves around clockwork technology due to a plague thousands of years ago; the marriage of a Sofían princess and a Varkeni king shaped the culture of present-day Varken; and similarly, the uniting of the kingdoms of Sofía and Larimar changed both of their cultures, merging them together to form an entirely new one.  

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?   I haven't touched the homepage in a long time, and when I did edit it, I made it very basic and simplistic--I wasn't sure how I wanted it to look at first, nor how to make the changes I thought I might want to do. However, I would like to edit it and make it nicer to look at for new viewers.   I do not currently have an introduction article, but I shall look into making one for Zurith as well when I start editing my homepage.  

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 intergrate into your current project? Remember to take a moment to be proud of how far you've come!   I don't remember much of my earliest writing, which was all mainly fanfiction anyway, but I suppose my earliest worldbuilding project would be The Lihlsu Chronicles, an urban fantasy world about a supernatural species with elemental abilities, which I believe I started in 2020. I tried to make The Lihlsu Chronicles my focus for Summer Camp 2024, but shortly after doing so, I realised that I was quickly becoming burnt out working on it, and found myself thinking more and more about Zurith--which I had been half-building in my head for a while, and even did a couple of SC 2024 prompts for.   I think a few mistakes I made for TLC was that I tried to put too much focus on areas that I wasn't as interested in or that I felt less confident in; such as trying to make more than one fictional language when languages were my top interest. I also think that I made a mistake trying to set the story in an alternate earth, as I felt constrained by the laws of physics of the real world, and the already written history of the world. It stifled my creativity in a way that I didn't vibe with, whereas starting with a blank slate with Zurith allows my imagination to run wild, and while I'm planning on creating the same amount of languages for Zurith as I tried to do for TLC, I'm not going to make the mistake of trying to do them all at the same time again.   Looking back on Zurith as well, the earliest ideas for it actually came from a roleplay I was in with a group of friends that started back in 2018--although at the time, it was just one continent that had a different name to Kailes (although I don't remember what it was now), and the world itself didn't have a name. Elves lived on the same land at the humans, rather than having their own home, and the magic system was basically non-existent. Barely any of those original ideas made it into Zurith, as the roleplay was more focused on the story between the characters and less about the world in general, however they did help to inspire the world as it is now.  

Week 3 - Theme: 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?   Many kingdoms, ethnicities, characters, and even the land of Zurith itself have undergone vast changes and transformations. Zurith is still a developing world so I do not have a complete list of all the changes that have occurred in Zurith, and it would take far too long to fully describe the changes that I currently have (plus I'd rather describe them in their entirety in their own articles), but I'll give summaries of a few major changes and transformations.   The first that comes to mind are the people of Caelestis. In the current day of Zurith, the Caelestians are known for being taller, stronger, and faster than any other human in Zurith--inferior only to the elves--as well as possessing greater endurance and constitution, but they weren't always like this. They used to be like any other human and possessed no special features of any kind; however, after they made their oath to dedicate their lives and their descendants' lives to fighting against the monsters living in the Caelestian forests for the rest of eternity, they evolved into the Caelestians that the present day inhabitants of Zurith know them as--to better survive their daily fights against the monsters. Another transformation would be the people of Aes, who went from a kingdom of fishermen with no special features or abilities to a kingdom of humans with clockwork prosthetic limbs or clockwork artificial organs.   There aren't any current changes happening in Zurith, however Zurith is currently in the beginning stages of big change happening in its future--the reunification of Kailes and Felhedell, the two areas of the continent of Aefareth. The Elemental Spirits, in particular the Spirits of the Earth, have been vehemently against the reunification, and are still against it, for several thousands of years as the separation of the continent is the punishment that the Spirits have condemned the descendants of the first Felhedellans to suffer--with the Khelas Desert and the Kailen desert kingdoms standing as an example of what happens when the Kailen kingdoms try to aid Felhedell. The Spirits would therefore be the primary force trying to prevent the reunification of the land, and the changes that it would bring.  

Week 4 - Theme: Tomorrow

Assignment 1

Think about current events that will impact the future. Who is working to create a specific kind of future?   One of the things I talked about in week 3 was the reunification of Aefareth--as an example of a change that is in its beginning stages. As it is still in its early days, it could also be the focus for week 4. Both the inhabitants of Kailes and the inhabitants of Felhedell are in the motions of what will be the eventual reunification; however, neither side are aware of this.   At the moment, neither side is necessarily working towards the future that is inevitably going to come; Kailes is still unaware of the existence of the Felhedellan kingdoms and is currently working to maintain a state of peace throughout their land and between their kingdoms, and Felhedell is working to better their prospects and chances of survival by making plans to start taking resources and valuables from the Kailen kingdoms and the people that they believe knowingly abandoned them to starvation and struggle--unaware that their southern neighbours were not made aware of any surviving humans in Felhedell. However, although neither side is actively fighting for such a future, the actions they are taking in order to achieve the futures they currently want will eventually bring about an entirely different future than either side expects.  

Assignment 2

Make sure everything's ready--from your writing space to your writing schedule--before Summer Camp begins!   I will be finishing off with my last few preparations over the next few days, including things like rewriting articles that are most in-need of a rewrite, and also cleaning and tidying my bedroom to make sure I can easily get to anything and everything I need once Summer Camp begins. I will also be making a timetable/schedule to help best optimise the time I have available for writing.  

Assignment 3

Who or what will help you achieve your goal? What will your sharing strategy be during Summer Camp?   I have a few friends, as well as my partner, who are aware of my participation in this year's Summer Camp and who I have shared my world with; they are all interested and excited to read any new articles that I add to the world, and this will help to motivate me to put more out there for them to read. My partner also helps to encourage me with writing and I can count on him to help keep me on track!   As for my sharing strategy, I will most likely be posting my articles in both the Showcase channel and the Summer Camp channel of the Discord, and I will also be notifying the followers of my world to the creation of each article--however, I may also take a look at posting them in the community! (After all, I have 25,000 coins to spend, might as well use them for this)