WorldEmber 2023 Homework - November 2023

Second World Ember Prep Assignment

Thinking about Lorla and the Wilderness, I want to focus on the different settlements in this area. What kind of people live there? What are they worried about or interested in? What are their aspirations and their way of thinking? Since both regions aren't bound to elven or dwarven law, it will be crucial to gather information about the peoples' everyday lives and in how much their lives differ from their immortal counterparts. Since I probably won' t have the time to write about the entire region, I believe it would be beneficial to my goal if I stick to a handful of villages and cities, and their inhabitants.
The Crystalline Outpost would be a good start, as well as the halfelf settlement at the border of the mountain range surrounding Sithaline. Also, the spiral in Lorla's vicinity that I am currently writing about in my novel would be interesting to incorporate in the challenge, as well as creating a centre for Lorla's population. Up to this point, I only had Pa'axi's cathedral as the main focus of mortal life and that doesn't suffice anymore. I came up with a round table of celestials (in which Pa'axi participates in Aeva, the Aradeian equivalent to what we would call heaven) - reducing the cathedral to a place of Pa'axi worship would be insulting towards the other celestials. I need to find a better solution for that.
The themes and mood of Lorla and the Wilderness couldn't be any more different from each other. While Lorla is this friendly and warm place of prosperity and a tightly knit community where most of the people grow up in a good home and with everything they need, the Wilderness is quite the opposite. Most individuals living and settling in the Wilderness live there because they either love the challenge or had no other choice.
The Wilderness is filled with half- and mixed-folk that have been let down by society. Therefore, you will find a lot of rejects; abandoned children, criminals, refugees and beyond. Lorla can be seen as an oasis and only few manage to travel from Lorla to the elven or dwarven kingdoms due to the strong arcane connection that the Wilderness possesses. Many of the Wilderness's inhabitants went lost after entering it and just accepted their fate. Therefore, writing about it will be a play with duality - bright and happy vs grim and dark, as well as mundane and ordinary vs magical and extraordinary.
For now, I've set up a new category for WorldEmber and will edit my category list and its setup while working on my goals. Since I am currently focussing on NaNoWriMo, I try to keep my WorldEmber Prep at a healthy minimum. It will be a good foundation for December :) My main inspiration for the upcoming challenge are my conversations with my colleagues and my students (age 6 to 60), as well as diving into my favourite fantasy novels, films and video games (aka LOTR, The Fable Franchise, Dragon Age, TLOZ and more).

Third World Ember Prep Assignment

Looking at my homepage, I noticed quickly that there is still a lot to be done. I wrote some introductory texts for the different sections and chose to put some sections that I couldn't edit yet to private, so I can use December to fix these. Since NaNoWriMo was simultaneous to the Prep month, my focus lay on putting some order into what is there and finding out what I needed to fix in order to make the world more appealing to readers. I definitely want to look into different linking techniques, so readers and players have better access to the different articles I've written so far. After all, information is only useful if it can be read and used, right? I'll work on that.

Fourth World Ember Prep Assignment

Last but not least, it's time to do some last minute preparations:

• I wrote a lot during this month to get into the right mindset, use my imagination more often and get used to the English language again. (Honestly, it's hard doing so when you're mostly speaking and writing in your mothertongue).
• My support group is my DnD group that I regularly report to, as well as my students who are currently getting to know the world via a play that I am writing for them.
• I made sure to organise my tabs and bookmarks on my browser. It looks so much better now :)
• I don't really have a writing schedule set up yet, but I plan to take my laptop with me more often, so I can be more flexible.
• For snacks and drinks, I will be well stocked when Worldember starts. I can't go without a good cup of coffee and tea, some chocolates and christmas cookies.

I can't wait for it to start!

First World Ember Prep Assignment

For WorldEmber 2023, I chose the combined area of Lorla (The land of the Omni) and the Wilderness as my focus. I have a pretty good understanding of how the elven and dwarven kingdoms work in my story, but the area connecting the two is still a vague piece of land that needs more definition. Therefore, I pledge to flesh it out and create more lore for my wonderful world, hoping that the new content will help me write stories and lead ttrpg campaigns. I'm excited to tell my dnd mates about my new concepts, so that'll sure be fun. My goal is to type 50,000 words in December. Let's see how that goes.

Related Historical Events

• 2023 M.A.
  Worldember Prep