Summer Camp 2022 (31 Days, 31 Prompts, 300+ Words Each)

The Pledge

Reference: Set your Writing Goals with World Anvil’s Summer Camp

Creative Goal

I'm going to (try to) focus on expanding and enriching two of my worlds, Ysireth (fantasy world with a hard magic system) and Aerune (my homebrew D&D world). I'm not going to strictly limit myself to these two, though, if a prompt doesn't fit either but does make sense in a different setting.

For Ysireth, I would like to further explore the history of the lost continent of Harokin, continue developing the established settlements and political powers of the continent of Lumasca, and probably throw some more goodies at the Shattered Isles.

For Aerune, I recently made a substantial change to the dominant races that will cause cultural and geographic ripples across both known continents. Whatever prompts I add to it will hopefully support and flesh out the new direction and flavor of the world.

Motivation

Y'all, I just really, really love worldbuilding. It brings me joy.
Yes, I'm writing novels set in Ysireth. Yes, I'm running little one-shot games based in Aerune.
But even if I did neither of those things, I would still worldbuild, because it makes me happy to do so. That's my real motivation.

Support

Reference: Planning for Success in Summer Camp!
I don't do well with scheduled writing time--I catch as catch can--but my support network for creativity is the same as it has been for the past dozen or so years: my partners J and K.
Maybe I'll also connect with some fellow Anvilites or just get some little hearts on new articles, which is also helpful to the ol' serotonin!

Challenge Goal

As a deadline-motivated NaNoWriMo writer, I am absolutely aiming for Diamond in this challenge.
I'm not going to adjust the wordcount minimum--I will always write well over that--but as an additional challenge to myself, I'd like to read and leave kudos on at least one other writer's new article per prompt. (Note: That doesn't mean one per day, as I am notoriously inconsistent. Just, y'know, 31 by July 31st.)
Heck, who knows - I might even peek into the World Anvil Discord... oh no i did it _{why are there so many people}

Preparations

There are a few things it would behoove me to accomplish before July actually starts. In no particular order...

✅ I need to go through my images in Ysireth and Aerune and add attribution. (They're all made by me if they're unattributed, so don't give me that look.)

✅ I would LOVE to update Aerune's labeled map. Click to see before and after! Man, that'll take some getting used to; I've had the original map as my laptop wallpaper for years now.

✅ I'm going to fill out the Resources section below with quick links to my favorite worldbuilding tools, so I have them all in one place and don't have to go hunting around the internet if I need one. (As a bonus, maybe someone reading this page will find them helpful, too?)

And, if we're getting really ambitious...

✅ I'd like to go through Aerune's core pages and edit things as necessary to account for the addition of [TEXT REDACTED] to the world, so when I start adding new articles in July, it's not completely janky and unaligned.

☐ I'd like to get a "welcome to..." primer page up for both Aerune and Ysireth. They each have a WIP introduction, so maybe this is doable in advance of July?

Resources

AI Art

Adjustably-Random Portraits and Landscapes: Artbreeder

Random Photorealistic Humans: This Person Does Not Exist

Art From Text Prompts: Hotpot

Art From Text Prompts: Wombo (Dream)

Free Stock Images

Pexels, Pixabay, PXhere, Unsplash

Public Domain Pictures

Copyright-Free Historical Paintings (Also on Rawpixel)

Wikimedia Commons

NASA Images

Historical Portraits

...and more

Custom Art

Characters: HeroForge

Landscapes: FlowScape

Maps

Azgaar's Fantasy Map Generator

Donjon's Fractal World Generator

Nortantis World Generator

Dungeon Map Generator

Donjon's Town/City Map Generator

Watabou's Town/City Map Generator

Inkarnate's Town/City Map Generator

Battle Maps

Floorplans

Scifi Solar System Generator

Downloadable Map Software

Generators: Donjon and Seventh Sanctum, but specifically...

Calendar

Inn/Tavern

Medieval Demographics Generator (Fantasy version)

Star System

Names:

People and Places

Any Type of Name Ever

People, Places, and Creatures

Real-World Naming Conventions Across Cultures (PDF)

Languages: Vulgar
D&D 5e Reference:

5e Wikidot

5e Tools

Theme Brainstorming

Reference: Achieve your goals with Summer Camp’s prompt themes!

Expanse: deserts, prairies, oceans, urban expanse, pocket dimensions, planes of existence, or nebulas.

Leadership: monarchs, presidents, generals, revolutionaries…

Discovery: research, exploration, and investigation.

Monstrous: things considered villainous, cruel, unlucky, unnatural, or just “wrong”!

EXPANSE

In Ysireth, many of the expanses are oceanic or extraplanar. There are two parallel planes--the spirit realm and the sidereal realm--that lie alongside the material realm. And I've hardly touched upon any of the seas and oceans across the known world; none of them are even named yet!

In Aerune, by contrast, the expanses are terrestrial: the impenetrable wilderness of Krimisthaal, the Desert of Pearls on the island of Hiavhos, and the unmapped land of Qelira that swelters under dragonwing. The unnamed ocean that reaches the shores of Bragash and the northern Winter Sea could also be explored.

LEADERSHIP

Ysireth has paragons throughout its nearly-hundred-thousand years of recorded history. I'd like to write more about the queen-turned-tyrant Ilysandra, the arcane scholar Cutlafrã who fell into being a cult leader, the first known Abyssal sorcerer Hyldanpev, and the rebel leader Salesira who felled Ilysandra.
In Aerune, my choices are broader and less specific. I have almost no named leaders of any nation, faction, city, guild, religion, or institution. I also lack for major deities, and even those I know don't have pages yet, such as the clockwork divinity of the Fates.

DISCOVERY

Ysireth is full of arcane discoveries: how Hyldanpev learned to work with Abyssal magic without being eroded into dissolution, how interplanar travel even works for both mortals and spirits, and the benefits--and enormous costs--of performing communal acts of conjuration magic within leylines.
And Aerune! How did the island of Molthuth have its sky rent asunder? What truth is there to the creation myths that mention the alloy of the gods? Why are the dragons returning to the mainland, and why are they so drastically different from their forebears?

MONSTROUS

Most of Ysireth's true horrors come from other planes: radioactive demons and the feckless warlocks who summon them with infectious, corrupting Eldritch magic. Even more terrifying are the alien titans who destroyed civilization across an entire continent during a worldwide arcane tempest thousands of years ago.
Aerune's monsters are classic by comparison: aberrations, devils, the undead. Worse yet, though, are the too-clean, impossibly perfect cities built by the threshers, an industrious race of people that emerged from the blanched, mutated survivors of the reaping plague hundreds of years ago.

Inspiration

Reference: Gathering your materials and resources for Summer Camp!

Ysireth

Mini-Meta

Ysireth is a high fantasy world with nearly a hundred thousand years of recorded history from still-living civilizations. It has a hard magic system that pervades every aspect of society, and it boasts refined, elegant clockwork technology that can power magical efforts as easily as be powered by magical energies.

There are many intelligent creatures in Ysireth, but only three races hold a strong place in wider society: Aeldvari (elves), Duovari (dwarves), and Hymvari (humans)--and humans only barely being counted with the elder races. The oceans and bays are controlled by Mervari and Nagvari, but they're not considered among the prime kinvari. Ultimately, Ysireth is an elf-dominant world.

Ysireth is bright and beautiful and rich in possibility; its vibe is solarpunk-but-make-it-fantasy. Most places in the known world are long-established and stable, there is no widespread warfare, and it's been eleven thousand years since the last world-changing catastrophe. Any darkness is well-hidden beneath the pillars of light, logic, and arcana.

Because Ysireth is so well-established with such a long history, individual people do not usually leave a significant mark. This is rarely seen as a negative thing; a person can still make contributions to society with inventions or studies or derring-do, but the world is balanced enough that it would take much more than a few mortals to kick it into a new spin.

Inspiration

Essek Thelyss from Critical Role by Arisu

Shaun Gilmore from Critical Role by Kuma-La-La

Aaravos from Dragon Prince by Darth Shizuka

The Enchanted Treehouse by Namko Art

by David Abouaf

by Julie Dillon

Aerune

Mini-Meta

Aerune is a classic sword-and-sorcery world with a bevy of unique peoples living alongside monsters of every shape and size. It uses D&D 5e's soft magic system and a relatively low technology level to create rare feats of arcane artifice, which exist in sharp contrast to the medieval-flavored living conditions of the greater populace.

One of the joys of Aerune is its impossible number of different intelligent races of varying sizes, shapes, cultures, and influences. While some races are more well-known than others--Ophidians and humans are tied for the most populous race, and both are cornerstones of functional societies--there are truly very few places where a dozen or more different peoples don't live and work together.

Aerune is pulp fiction a dynamic chiaroscuro; it has spots of hope, wonder, and harmony interspersed with power imbalance, natural and magical threats, and a general disposition towards interpersonal violence in order to survive. Most safe and healthy places in Aerune are as lilypads floating atop deep, troubled waters.

Because Aerune is only tenuously balanced, it's easy for individual people to create a significant, lasting impact on its culture, politics, and history. There is a wide gap between a commoner and a would-be hero, bridged more by opportunity and resources than by any measure of heart or courage. It is implicitly understood that an "average" person, given the chance and the means, can and will rise to meet the challenges the world hurls at them.

Inspiration

by Artist Unknown :(

Sidewinder Naga from MTG: Hour of Devastation by Victor Adame

by Sandara

Nithari by Angevere

by Adela Quiles

by Kieran Yanner

Kanarak by Jack Kaiser

Prompts and Articles

Stay tuned for the first of July!
Bronze Prompts

The Bronze Expanse

Prompt 1

Prompt 2

Prompt 3

Prompt 4

Prompt 5

Prompt 6

Prompt 7

Prompt 8

Silver Prompts

The Silver Paragon

Prompt 9

Prompt 10

Prompt 11

Prompt 12

Prompt 13

Prompt 14

Prompt 15

Prompt 16

Gold Prompts

The Discoveries of Gold

Prompt 17

Prompt 18

Prompt 19

Prompt 20

Prompt 21

Prompt 22

Prompt 23

Prompt 24

Diamond Prompts

The Diamond Monstrous

Prompt 25

Prompt 26

Prompt 27

Prompt 28

Prompt 29

Prompt 30

Prompt 31