NaNoWriMo 2019 [old]

This idea has been thrown to the side for now. It hasn't died but it won't be worked on during the 2019 NaNoWriMo. If you want to find out what I will be working on instead, please click here.

For this 2019’s NaNoWriMo I’m going to start creating the world of Asteria with a bang. The goal is to write 50.000 words in 30 days (meaning a little under 1700 words per day). This article will serve as a hub for my plans, progress and the outcome. Any ideas for things outside my topic I will also add here to keep them safe for later. But now ...

The Topic

For 2019’s NaNoWriMo I will fully focus on only one topic. After some consideration I’ve decided to go for creating a single city. A massive one, but only one. I will fully flesh out this city, its laws, structure, relationships and some of its most important inhabitants. This city will be the fantastic Flying City Celibar. A flying city sounded like a fun idea and maybe even a potential setting idea for a D&D campaign.
I already know that I want this city to be an independent city state. So while I’m only building a city, I’m also building a country at the same time. I don’t want it to have a king. More likely some form of council. I like the idea of an elected council. So there are going to be nine ... or maybe only seven council members. I’ll figure this out once I’ve got my deities down. Should every citizen be eligible for council membership? I don’t think so. After all a magical flying city is gonna require some magical knowledge of its leaders. So council members must be spellcasters. Any type? Equality sounds good here, so why not? Council Members will have to be powerful spellcasters though.¹
So, that’s the government. What about population? It’s going to be a massive city. Why? Because I want it to be. And because if this is going to end up as a setting for a campaign, I want it big enough to have enough potential for lots of different adventures. Let’s see ... according to this lovely blog post, there should be one castle per 50.000 people and big cities are between 12.000 and 100.000 citizens. I think I’ll go with a random number between ... let’s say 30.000 to 40.000. It’s a little much maybe but ... it’s my city and I want it to be massive.
Once I’ve got that number I’m gonna borrow donjon’s Medieval Demographics Calculator and note those numbers down. That should give me a good basis for my city.
I already said I have to prepare the deities before November. Another thing I’m gonna finish before November will be the calendar. After all I need to know how many holidays there are to describe what people in Celibar are doing on them! Lastly, I will take a look at the WorldAnvil Organisations Country template as well as the Settlements template. That way I can figure out which one is better for me to use and which information I should think about. I’ll take a few notes about my ideas, that way during NaNoWriMo I will be writing down the final version, hopefully no revisions needed.
One more thing: I’ll save some prompts or sites with writing prompts for world building. That way when I’m stumped about what to continue with I can always try and prod my memory. Alright! That should be all of my pre thoughts.

Country & Settlements Template

I’ll split this section up again into two sections. First I’ll take a look at all the information that goes into the sidebar. These are quick things that I may go ahead and prepare before November so that I really only need to write actual texts. Second I’ll take a look at the things that actually require some more thinking and longer texts. Which template I’ll use I’ll still have to decide but I believe that will be easier once I’ve noted down the fields I’m actually going to fill.

Sidebar

The following list are things I’m going to fill the sidebar with.

• Type [of Organisation]: most likely either country or city-state
• Motto / Slogan / Axiom: something about magic most likely
• Flag / Crest: I’ll probably design these ahead of time
• Alternative Names: The Flying City, Mage City, City of Wonders
• Demonym: Celibarian
• Founding Date: at ... some point in the past
• Leader: I might leave this empty and go for the more specific and better fitting ones
• Geographic Location / Base Settlement / HQ: Flying Island of Celibar (this is going to need it’s own article)
• Head of State: The Witch Queen (just came up with this so quick note: someone without actual power, but represents the city, completely under the control of the council and only needed because strong magic runs in her family)
• Head of Government: some dude’s name (technically the council but this guy would be the council’s leader)
• Government System: good question, will think about later how to classify this
• Power Structure System: see the above
• Economic System: same again
• Offical Currency: will get their own currency, but will likely be based off gold, silver and copper
• Legislative Body: council, but not the main one, probably a council you don’t get voted but chosen into by current members
• Judicial Body: need to think about this and the previous one a little more
• Recognised / Official Languages: Common, Orsian, one other?
• Offical State Religion: most likely following a god of magic
• Imports: lots of stuff probably, after all flying island
• Exports: magic items
• Population: still to be decided

Content

Now for the content area:

• Organisation Structure: probably closer description of the council and all parts of the government
• Public Agenda: goals and motivations, might be left out
• Assets: what does Celibar have (also see suggestions under text box)
• History: run down of history, split up in several parts
• Demography & Population: density, birth an death rate, life etc.
• Foreign Relations: generally fairly good, some exceptions maybe?
• Territory: mainly the mountain they are on
• Military: guards, military, etc.
• Religion: state religion, religious holidays, etc.
• Agriculture & Industry: might mostly be about “industry”
• Trade & Transport: public transport, transport in the city, magic item trade
• Education: don’t forget about famous mage academy
• Infrastructure: see suggestions under box
• Technological and Scientific Level: same as above

With this I have also come to the conclusion that I’m going to use the country template. It suits this city better than the settlements one.

State of the Deities

I’ll update this once I’ve gotten something done here.

State of the Calendar

This will be updated once I’ve gotten something done.

¹ So this world needs some form of system that ranks spellcasters. I think a worldwide or rather alliance wide system makes sense.