New Year's Resolutions 2024.

What does the new year hold for Evalaw? That is a good question, one I have been mulling over for quite some time. We have been on the platform for five years now, and while we have got a lot done, there is still so much left for us to do before we feel the setting is where we want it to be. The past year has had a lot of ups and downs and we have not put out as much as we had planned to and have fallen behind on re-vamping the homepage, it's navagatiability and making everything feel a bit more interactive, so everything feels a lot less clustered and all over the place. WorldEmber was a chance to pick up where we kind of left off last year, and begin sifting through a lof of neglected lore. In the background we've been doing a lore of pruning with lore and trying to get a more solid basis with things. Emily with the Ejderhakan and the Drakkan myself with the The Etherian Gulf and the re-write of the gods and Dral'azie articles. While- we reached the wordcount goal, we did not get everything we wanted to done. But, behind he scenes, there's been a lot of progress which has not been reflectived on Evalaws World Anvil page.

Quite simply, our New Years Resolution is to busy away in our corner of World Anvil and start getting things sorted out of the first quater of the year, a lot of articles are going to come down then go back up again, and I beleive Emily is planning a major overhaul our pages layout and a new logo/header to replace the blank space we've got going on. She also is planning to continue working on the Dragons and finally get some actual lore underlines and uploaded onto WorldAnvil. A personal goal for myself is to continue working on the The Etherian Gulf as a location, and expand upon the speicies that call it home, the floating Isles and archipelagos that lay among the mist seas and what in the depths below. Also the great shelves of the highlands that surrond the chasm walls. In short, there is a lot to expand into and it is a good chance to work on some of the other peoples that aren't Evalaws pseudodrow. I'm also hoping during Adventure april to create a one-shot based around one or more of the misty archipelagos following the trail of the mysterious mist witch Keruther.
There is also the question of Evalaws much neglected surface world, which every year I vow "I'm gonna go draw a map, chart everything out and get the world above established." and I just get distracted and start thinking about a Lava Wyrm., The City-state of Rie'shae. or something like that. Therefore, we have decided upon a number of easily achivable resolutions and goals for 2024 that hopefully we can tick off as we progress through the year.

Resolutions.

• Complete and update half-finished articles and stubs.

• Learn more CSS coding and incorperate throughout.

• Update background and world UI.

• Create more original artwork (Olarae especially wants to develop a more consistant flow of doodles and concepts to tie in with our mad rambling words) and continue to commission artists where we can!

• Push Evalaw more and promote our work (i've seen a few comments saying people are surprised about our articles as we often neglect to notify and promote ourselves!).

• Be more active and supportive in the wider community (it's hard to break free from being a long-time lurker!).

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World Ember Reading List.

Mushroom Harvester.

By Blue Fairy.
The Mushroom Harvester, or Mushroom Strider as I keep accidentally calling it, is an awesome piece of machinery. I really enjoyed this articles layout and its attention to detail. The blueprint and imagery really illustrate how it’s described to function, to not damage it’s crop as well as not becoming enveloped by the mudding ground. Very fun and well written, I always find Blue Fairys articles very enjoyable to read is this was no exception.

Keiko.

By NimrodialLibrary.
Characters are something this writer does very well, and there was a lot of theirs to choose from throughout World Ember, so picking was tough. This character has a lot of depth to it and the use of symbols, such as the black hair really adds to the layers of importance and meaning to the story of Keiko as both an individual and an Empress! A real delight to see their original artwork being used throughout WorldAnvil, portrait of Keiko is fantastic.

Nomads of Mercury.

By Nnie.
A really interesting ethnicity, made up of different peoples, which comes to show when doing a Ethnic group they don’t necessarily have to be the same species, just share a culture and way of life. The details about the nomads' tents, their reliance on walkers, and all the hand drawn artwork really add a wonderful depth to the detail. Honestly there are so much depth that Nnie has gone into with such a vivid and immersive world on Mercury they had already cultivated you honestly need to go read it.

Elves.

By Jontaro.
Firstly, it’s criminal this Article has not got more love. Shame on you all. Jontaro entered a strong article this year for the species category with the Valkyr, but honestly, their Elves Article is just fantastic a read. Having done a half-dragon race ourselves this World Ember (Honestly we are not being biased!), it was interesting to see someone take a common aspect such as Elves and really make them their own. The lore and detail Jontaro goes into and their style of writing has a lot of personality, really demonstrates their passion about their worldbuilding.

The Rae-Matathii in History.

By Eldknightterrant.
Having an MA in history and working as a part-time historical tour guide, I’m a massive nerd when it comes to anything history related. So- this was a rather delightful read with the sheer scope and level of detail. I loved the details that eldknighterrant brought to life; It has mystery, compassion, and political intrigue! Really creating a captivating historical journey. Again, this is a shame that this article didn’t get as much attention over World Ember as it deserved.

The Threedan Order.

By SunlanceXIII
An absolutely Sublime article! Really loved the formatting here as well as the short-but-sweet sections, it's made reading oh so easily digestible! We will be secretly rooting for the negotiations to go well with Baron Axetide and some form of peace can be fostered.

Rorqual.

Orl.

Valensra.

Species Short-list.

Well, you guys didn’t make it bloody easy, did you? It was painful trying to whittle it down to a few finalists as so many of the articles’ you guys submitted were fantastic. By the end we managed to come up with a shortlist of nine and spend a weekend with the two of us arguing the case for each.
I would honestly like to thank each and everyone of you for you hard work and creativity that went into these articles, I can really see the time and effort you went to. It was a privilege to be able to read through, and an agony to judge them. I won’t bore you with the criteria, but every entry was given a fair chance. If you did not make the short list, don’t put yourself down about it, you created something amazing that you should be proud of. SO, without any further ado. Here are the shortlisted articles for the Species Category for World Ember 2023.