WorldEmber 2024
It's been crickets here for over a year...
Week 1
Pledge. Focus. Meta.
So, last year, I tried something new in that I didn't set a focus but rather went searching for prompts to keep the inspiration going. Last year, that also did not work out for other reasons, so... take 2? or take 3? Time to fire more stuff at the wall and see what sticks.
WorldEmber 2024 Pledge by World Anvil
The meta never really worked for me so this year is the year I'm going to stop using it to try and keep myself on track for WorldEmber. I've tried it a lot, and I've failed a lot. This year is about trying, failing, correcting, and learning.
This year... I think my WorldEmber challenge is best broken into a big goal and some smaller goals.
The Big Goal + Updates
System Conversion
My Big Goal for this WorldEmber... is to work on converting Chardovil's design from D&D 5th edition, to a system-agnostic one. It's been my goal for over a year, but with a whopping 367 articles and over 86,000 words... it feels so daunting. So instead of scrapping over 3 years of hard work (fun fact, Chardovil was first created June 25, 2021!) I am going to spend November moving everything into an "Archive" category and tag so I (and those who are interested) still have access to the old articles. However, it will allow me to start with "functionally" a clean slate.
The Archives category already exists, with the entire 5e category structure literally dropped into it without changing anything. Further updates will be posted to my new Chardovil Update Log.
TL;DR
My Big Goal for WorldEmber is to rewrite and update 10,000 of the 86,000 words that currently make up Chardovil.
Small Goal #1
Finish The Trifecta
My first "small" goal of WorldEmber 2024 is to finally finish my article about The Trifecta. It is the beating heart of both massive campaigns in Chardovil-- both Ascension and Godslayer revolve around this concept. And yet the article has gone unfinished since Chardovil was made. I think it's long overdue the care and attention it deserves, even as the draft sits at over 800 words, and articles about Voidwalkers and the Soul-Slivered have popped up in the years since.
Small Goal #2
Expand the Magic System
In a similar vein to my first small goal, many aspects of Chardovil's magic system have gone neglected over the years. Vericraft, Divine Magic, Negative Magic, and Soul Magic have all gone largely undefined, with limited exceptions popping up in the form of documents such a Vericraft: A Study in Reality.
Small Goal #3
Planes of Existence
Chardovil is not just a plane or world and being system-agnostic will give me the freedom to expand outward from the "Material" plane that the majority of the world fits into. These planes, along with the characters inhabiting them, have seen some development over the years (See the extensive Astral development during Summer Camp 2022) but I'd like to focus any extra attention I can give on these various planes.
Part of this reason is because I really enjoy developing these very different pocket worlds when I'm going through sprints. There's enough variety to keep my brain engaged for longer writing stretches. The other part of this reason is my players accidentally stumbled into the Astral Sea about half a campaign too early... so it needs some overhauled development and fast!
Week 2
Rebuilding the Community
So, this week's about our homepage, primer, and the community tools? Yeah, there's some work that needs to happen there.
Chardovil did recently get new subscriber roles though! The old roles still exist because I didn't want to redo permissions for 300+ articles. I've been on the fence about putting options to grab the old roles on the front page, but I think with so much of Chardovil currently being behind those roles, I'll go ahead and put them up on the front page as part of this week's homework.
Home Page
The Homepage
So the home page has seen a bit of work since I started updating Chardovil and moving it towards a system-agnostic setup. Mainly, the old subscriber roles have been cycled out in favor of new ones so I don't have to redo and rework 367 articles and however many secrets that are currently in the archives. I do need to update the blurb though.
Primer
The Primer
I never really thought to write up a Primer for Chardovil, though making one is certainly something I should, in all likelihood, get done. Though the articles it would highlight and link to are on my WorldEmber to-write list, it might actually give me a great launchpad for inspiration during WorldEmber. In all likelihood I'll make a tab in my notebook with stuff to write down and actually do the writing during WorldEmber, since life is super busy right now and finding the time to hammer everything out before then is going to be... difficult at best.
Community
The Community Tools
So... I didn't really realize that "World Follow" and "Article Follow" are different things. So I'm not entirely sure which articles I should put world follow buttons beyond "all the big ones" (which are many) because what might be a hook for someone else isn't necessarily a hook for me. There will definitely be ones on the Big Important Articles though. My twitch account where I sometimes stream writing and worldbuilding stuff is already linked to my profile and in the footer of Chardovil though, if people feel like popping in.
I'm not making a section for CSS Wizardry because despite Chardovil being modeled after D&D 5e books, I really like how it looks and I keep a private article that acts as a CSS guide to myself because I have a habit of using lots of custom classes for my in-article formatting.
Separating blocks of text to be read aloud from the red boxes I use for important notes during articles was an extremely helpful change I made last time I overhauled Chardovil. It's made it much easier to run sessions in Chardovil, though I do think I'll bold certain key words with this new update for faster at-a-glance DMing. Think of them as built-in bullet points, especially in long descriptions, for DMs like me that like to ad-lib a lot.
Week 3
Drawing Inspiration
So... my usual methods of finding inspiration have changed a lot in the roughly 3-4 years of competing in WorldEmber, and it's really helped me focus on what works to get my brain cooking, and what doesn't.
Admittedly, a lot of media has a habit of making my "Worldbuilder's Syndrome" worse rather than helping me focus and get inspired. If anything, the opposite tends to happen, where I am too inspired and whoops now I have 50 new stubs I'll probably never finish. Given this year I went back to college for Music Production and Audio Engineering, music is going to be my main source of inspiration and my "moodboard" this year, with my favorite sources separated below.
During most of my writing though, I plan to have Spirit City open in the background with the "Rainy Day Incantations" playlist running.
Artists
Music
I have a handful of artists I turn to depending on what kind of mood I want to set for my work. Travis Savoie is one of my go-to artists for instrumental tracks of varying moods, and I link his work in many of my virtual tabletop sessions to set the mood.
I linked some of my favorite tracks on bandcamp in the "Embeds" spoiler, along with any world/characters I might associate them with.
Embeds
Nadyra's Theme:
Week 4
Last Minute Prep...
So for finding a community, I recently started trying to be more active in the WA discord after being quiet for so long. I've also recently started sharing my writing and worldbuilding with the new friends I've made outside of writing-focused circles since then and it's been really nice to see their support, and a huge thank you to EldritchWifeRiteburn for double-checking my archiving process for me!
Writing Schedule
For my writing schedule, I currently stream 3x a week on Twitch so my goal is to make one of those weekly streams my writing stream! They're usually 4-6 hours long so I'll need to write about 2,500 words per stream to make my WorldEmber goal (not counting any other writing I do when the inspiration strikes!)
Fresh Air
Real life took a hard turn towards hardship this week unfortunately, so it'll be an extra challenge and I refuse to be hard on myself if I can't reach my goal. Thankfully my last day of the semester is December 10th so I'll have lots of time to catch up if finals season makes it hard to get traction at the start.
WorldEmber 2024 Tracker
Event Progress
3,908 words out of 10,000
39%
Average words per day: 286
Day 1
Words Written:
1104
Day 2
Words Written:
194
Day 3
Words Written:
0
Day 4
Words Written:
0
Day 5
Words Written:
0
Day 6
Words Written:
0
Day 7
Words Written:
845
Day 8
Words Written:
0
Day 9
Words Written:
0
Day 10
Words Written:
0
Day 11
Words Written:
0
Day 12
Words Written:
0
Day 13
Words Written:
497
Day 14
Words Written:
0
Day 15
Words Written:
0
Day 16
Words Written:
0
Day 17
Words Written:
0
Day 18
Words Written:
0
Day 19
Words Written:
0
Day 20
Words Written:
1268
Day 21
Day 22
Day 23
Day 24
Day 25
Day 26
Day 27
Day 28
Day 29
Day 30
Day 31
Day 32
Day 33
Day 34
Day 35
Word Goal Tracker by
Nulcheck
December 12, 2024
Week 1 Update
So it's been... an age since I've done any solid writing on Chardovil, and I'm super pleased to say it's gone pretty well so far! I've taken huge bites out of my Trifecta articles, originally intending to make just one but splitting it into multiple parts when the original crossed over 1,000 words! So at the moment I have 2 articles tallying over 1,000 words each.
The Trifecta
Both articles are going to need a bit more TLC at some point, but I'm already extremely proud of myself for finishing these, because anyone who's been around for a while likely knows that the original Trifecta article went unfinished for years. Plural. The main Trifecta Article mostly just needs a space for "Further Reading" that links to its related Articles such as the Broken Trifecta, rules about Magic and the Trifecta, etc, so I'm not going to sweat it for now.
Broken Trifectas
The Broken Trifecta article could use some formatting TLC, and I'd like to include pictures, but as a general overview, I think it's pretty good! I'll go into more detail about each condition in their own standalone articles but the fact I managed to get all 6 combinations written down and broadly explained in one sitting is impressive for me! It's another article that's sat unfinished for literal years, so I'm happy to finally get more than just a skeleton completed.
In all likelihood, I'll add a section to the bottom that explains what happens to the Trifecta combinations not specified in the list, but that'll be another time since I have to go be a functional adult human being soon!
Finished Articles
WorldEmber 2024 Pledge by World Anvil
System Conversion
My Big Goal for this WorldEmber... is to work on converting Chardovil's design from D&D 5th edition, to a system-agnostic one. It's been my goal for over a year, but with a whopping 367 articles and over 86,000 words... it feels so daunting. So instead of scrapping over 3 years of hard work (fun fact, Chardovil was first created June 25, 2021!) I am going to spend November moving everything into an "Archive" category and tag so I (and those who are interested) still have access to the old articles. However, it will allow me to start with "functionally" a clean slate.The Archives category already exists, with the entire 5e category structure literally dropped into it without changing anything. Further updates will be posted to my new Chardovil Update Log.
TL;DR
My Big Goal for WorldEmber is to rewrite and update 10,000 of the 86,000 words that currently make up Chardovil.
My Big Goal for WorldEmber is to rewrite and update 10,000 of the 86,000 words that currently make up Chardovil.
Finish The Trifecta
My first "small" goal of WorldEmber 2024 is to finally finish my article about The Trifecta. It is the beating heart of both massive campaigns in Chardovil-- both Ascension and Godslayer revolve around this concept. And yet the article has gone unfinished since Chardovil was made. I think it's long overdue the care and attention it deserves, even as the draft sits at over 800 words, and articles about Voidwalkers and the Soul-Slivered have popped up in the years since.Expand the Magic System
In a similar vein to my first small goal, many aspects of Chardovil's magic system have gone neglected over the years. Vericraft, Divine Magic, Negative Magic, and Soul Magic have all gone largely undefined, with limited exceptions popping up in the form of documents such a Vericraft: A Study in Reality.Planes of Existence
Chardovil is not just a plane or world and being system-agnostic will give me the freedom to expand outward from the "Material" plane that the majority of the world fits into. These planes, along with the characters inhabiting them, have seen some development over the years (See the extensive Astral development during Summer Camp 2022) but I'd like to focus any extra attention I can give on these various planes.Part of this reason is because I really enjoy developing these very different pocket worlds when I'm going through sprints. There's enough variety to keep my brain engaged for longer writing stretches. The other part of this reason is my players accidentally stumbled into the Astral Sea about half a campaign too early... so it needs some overhauled development and fast!
The Homepage
So the home page has seen a bit of work since I started updating Chardovil and moving it towards a system-agnostic setup. Mainly, the old subscriber roles have been cycled out in favor of new ones so I don't have to redo and rework 367 articles and however many secrets that are currently in the archives. I do need to update the blurb though.The Primer
I never really thought to write up a Primer for Chardovil, though making one is certainly something I should, in all likelihood, get done. Though the articles it would highlight and link to are on my WorldEmber to-write list, it might actually give me a great launchpad for inspiration during WorldEmber. In all likelihood I'll make a tab in my notebook with stuff to write down and actually do the writing during WorldEmber, since life is super busy right now and finding the time to hammer everything out before then is going to be... difficult at best.The Community Tools
So... I didn't really realize that "World Follow" and "Article Follow" are different things. So I'm not entirely sure which articles I should put world follow buttons beyond "all the big ones" (which are many) because what might be a hook for someone else isn't necessarily a hook for me. There will definitely be ones on the Big Important Articles though. My twitch account where I sometimes stream writing and worldbuilding stuff is already linked to my profile and in the footer of Chardovil though, if people feel like popping in.Music
I have a handful of artists I turn to depending on what kind of mood I want to set for my work. Travis Savoie is one of my go-to artists for instrumental tracks of varying moods, and I link his work in many of my virtual tabletop sessions to set the mood.I linked some of my favorite tracks on bandcamp in the "Embeds" spoiler, along with any world/characters I might associate them with.
Nadyra's Theme:
For my writing schedule, I currently stream 3x a week on Twitch so my goal is to make one of those weekly streams my writing stream! They're usually 4-6 hours long so I'll need to write about 2,500 words per stream to make my WorldEmber goal (not counting any other writing I do when the inspiration strikes!)
Real life took a hard turn towards hardship this week unfortunately, so it'll be an extra challenge and I refuse to be hard on myself if I can't reach my goal. Thankfully my last day of the semester is December 10th so I'll have lots of time to catch up if finals season makes it hard to get traction at the start.
Event Progress
Average words per day: 286
Day 1
Words Written:
1104
1104
Day 2
Words Written:
194
194
Day 3
Words Written:
0
0
Day 4
Words Written:
0
0
Day 5
Words Written:
0
0
Day 6
Words Written:
0
0
Day 7
Words Written:
845
845
Day 8
Words Written:
0
0
Day 9
Words Written:
0
0
Day 10
Words Written:
0
0
Day 11
Words Written:
0
0
Day 12
Words Written:
0
0
Day 13
Words Written:
497
497
Day 14
Words Written:
0
0
Day 15
Words Written:
0
0
Day 16
Words Written:
0
0
Day 17
Words Written:
0
0
Day 18
Words Written:
0
0
Day 19
Words Written:
0
0
Day 20
Words Written:
1268
1268
Day 21
Day 22
Day 23
Day 24
Day 25
Day 26
Day 27
Day 28
Day 29
Day 30
Day 31
Day 32
Day 33
Day 34
Day 35
Word Goal Tracker by Nulcheck
Both articles are going to need a bit more TLC at some point, but I'm already extremely proud of myself for finishing these, because anyone who's been around for a while likely knows that the original Trifecta article went unfinished for years. Plural. The main Trifecta Article mostly just needs a space for "Further Reading" that links to its related Articles such as the Broken Trifecta, rules about Magic and the Trifecta, etc, so I'm not going to sweat it for now.
The Broken Trifecta article could use some formatting TLC, and I'd like to include pictures, but as a general overview, I think it's pretty good! I'll go into more detail about each condition in their own standalone articles but the fact I managed to get all 6 combinations written down and broadly explained in one sitting is impressive for me! It's another article that's sat unfinished for literal years, so I'm happy to finally get more than just a skeleton completed.
In all likelihood, I'll add a section to the bottom that explains what happens to the Trifecta combinations not specified in the list, but that'll be another time since I have to go be a functional adult human being soon!
In all likelihood, I'll add a section to the bottom that explains what happens to the Trifecta combinations not specified in the list, but that'll be another time since I have to go be a functional adult human being soon!
WorldEmber 2024 Homework Squad by World Anvil
WorldEmber Pledge
I pledge to complete WorldEmber and the articles or ideas listed here, to the best of my abilities, without sacrificing my obligations to myself or my friends.This year has been very hard, but I'm hoping to take this WorldEmber to pick up some of the pieces and return to this world and hobby I still love.
Cozy Cottage Enclave badge by Rin Garnett
I hope this year goes well for you <3 magic systems and planes of existence! I've been writing a lot about those lately, it's really fun! :D