Summercamp 2023 Pledge!

Hello, any and all Anvilites! The time has come again for one of the biggest challenges on the site! SUMMERCAMP!!!

Pledge:

This event has always held a piece of my heart, as it gives an excellent opportunity to grow and flourish your world in significant ways, as small or as big as you want to make it. In the past, I've been mired in the energy requirements of college, and then recovering from burnout afterward, but this year I'm coming it bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and I'm ready to light my forge!!! Now, for my actual pledge:

• In 2021, my first year, I completed 10 articles out of 31
• In 2022, last year, I completed 11 articles out of 31
• THIS YEAR! I pledge to complete at least 16 articles out of the total, in order to get the Silver Badge! However, I do not want to stop at silver should I surpass it! If time, energy, and inspiration allow, I'M GOING FOR DIAMOND, BABY!

Homework Week #1:

The first batch of prompts is gonna revolve around Power in its multitude of forms.
When it comes to Edda, the main nations all have their own seats of power in their rulers, obviously, but there are different aspects valued between them. Afallon, for example, is a Theocracy, so the nation's faith holds most of the social and political power. Compare this to, say, Agartha, which as a council-run nation, power is mostly held by social popularity and success, as you need public approval to hold political power.
Furthermore, each nation has magical power in the form of its own arcane institutions, fabled relics, or particular heroes and powerhouses that live within them. For instance, Magnum Opus' capital of Theogony is often credited as an epicenter of magical talent, along with King Diomedes himself being a famed mage, but the nation of Hippolyta has a tradition of magic education as well alongside their infamous core of wizard-knights as a form of both magical and political power.
When we get into the full prompts it's going to be really fascinating to see just what aspects will be focused on, and while my revised version of Edda is still in its infancy, I already have plenty of ideas ponging around the brain both from its original rendition and little snippets and strings of thought in my own head. Either way, I'm excited to get into it! As an aside, I'm also looking forward to potentially playing with the diplomacy/relationship widgets that comes with certain articles, as it's something that I've liked but haven't toyed around with much as of yet.

Homework Week #2:

The second prompt theme has been revealed, and it is Frontiers!
By a bit of my own design, Edda is a bit of an isolated landscape. All of the landmasses have been claimed one way or another and, on the literal/informational surface level, have been fully explored. While the people of Edda know that there are other places on Arcanoterra, the Wild Magic Zones keep them from exploring those new lands. Of course, that is itself one physical frontier, both the outside potential nations and the Wild Zones themselves.
Of course, there are also other planes of existence, and while the ordinary folk will only hear tales of them, adventurers of enough experience will have had at least one interaction with the Fey, an Elemental, or the rare Monstrous being that make up their own planes of life and existence. Not only are those frontiers to discover, but the places where they intermingle and overlay Edda itself are notable new lands to boot.
However, the more pressing Frontiers are the ideological times. Changing political opinions, the rise of new magic-less technology, the exploration of magic, faith, and the nature of the soul, etcetera etcetera. While caged in physically, the intelligent and creative minds of Edda are anything but, and new frontiers of discovery and innovation spread throughout the land.
This is an area I've always struggled with when it came to worldbuilding and running Edda. How do you include the mystery of exploration in a world that is already explored? And how would I make unexplored areas make sense in the kind of world I've made? So far, I've added in the mystery of historical revision, memory nonsense, and a hefty dose of underground exploration, but still had those question marks lingering. Hopefully, with this revision and recreation of Edda and its lands as well as the inspirational prompts this year, I'll be able to at least get a bit more groundwork on that front.

Homework Week #3:

I fully spaced on the stream, but luckily the blog was there for me! Our third prompt theme is Relics!
Ohoho does Edda have relics! While I haven't been able to devote a lot to worldbuilding/mechanic making, there is a whooooole slew of magical artifacts, priceless relics, long-lost experiments, and siege weapons all across the sphere of Edda's countries. And that's not even counting specialized divine weapons, mystic grimoires, royal arms, or specialized items from other realms to boot!
In Edda itself, probably the most well-known, yet least known about relics would be the ancient "Conceptual Code:" Weapons. Back when magecraft was in its infancy, mages performed direct contracts with the will of magic itself, often relying on primal, broad concepts and using their own skill and talent to refine them. In the modern day, magecraft has gotten to the point where all that contract stuff is built-in and even niche aspects of a concept can be used, but in those ancient times many weapons were made to symbolize those core concepts and wield them, mage or otherwise. For example, one that I have created already, mechanically at least, is "Conceptual Weapon - Code: Wall Dreaker". It's an ancient spear of brass and jade that attacks enemies on their flat AC instead of any other AC benefits, magical or otherwise, and can also ignore resistances and dispel abjuration magic, because it embodies the concept of breaking those defenses.
I'm excited to get into potentially more Conceptual Weapons or just the variety of other magical artifacts and items strewn about Edda, and I especially cannot wait to see the cool things everyone else is gonna make!

Homework Week #4 (FINAL STRETCH!):

The final theme of Communication has been revealed! We're only one week out from all of this starting, and I can barely contain my excitement!!!!!
Edda is originally a D&D World, so all of its usual magical methods of communication still exist, but despite what the players will usually have access to that kind of communication isn't very common. Letters of varying levels of security, messengers, and all the mundane options you can think of still exist.
On the more magical less-common side of things, enchanted carrying birds or teleporting familiars are a common way of sending messages throughout Edda, as well as using secretive stones and runes that would function similarly to Morse code. Of course, my world has one major new step in the field of communication, and that is the "Communication, Exploration, Leisure, and Lifeline Stones, a.k.a CELL Stones." As the punished acronym might imply, they function similarly to cell phones, with each owner having their own numerical signature to register others under, and it allows for text, voice, and video messaging, using the Leylines and their strength as cell towers. In high-density areas they even have rudimentary maps, and newer models have the ability to alert local guard outposts and their messengers if anything happens to the owner.
It's a new item on the world scene, and a luxury for sure, but it's part of a change in communication, and much like how cellular devices took off in the real world, it's the start of something new.
But communication isn't just about methods, it's about people and language too. Most of Edda has at least a passing knowledge of Common, which in this world is a universal conlang made up of all existing languages as a sort of universal merchants speaks. Other than that, there are Cultural languages for all manner of species and, once I start to go deep into them, regional dialects as well. Since I'm no Tolkien I use real-world languages as analogs, but I'm still working on recreating them on a country as well as culture basis instead of the full gamut that D&D has. For example, Magnum Opus has Frosttongue, spoken largely in the north snowy regions, Foresttongue, spoken in the middle regions of the country, and then Fieldtongue, spoken from the grass plains south, represented by Russian, German, and Norwegian respectively. When I get to writing, it might be interesting to explore how cultural languages might clash, and their importance in regard to identity, because while Common might be, well, common, so is English, but that also isn't everyone's first language, and it can be a struggle to learn properly.
Regardless of how I approach it, I am so excited to see how you all focus on and use the theme of the prompts! We're just one week out, and I'll do my best to be ~communicating~ with more of you to see what wonderful works we make together! See y'all next week!!!