Nino's New Year '24 - Isolating gives you reading time

Oh hey, it me! Oh god, another year has snuck up on me and its suddenly time to face the looming realisation that youve spent another year on this planet. Ain't that funky, people? Anyways, it is time to reflect and also read some new articles. Since this time around, I have been around the WorldAnvil playgrounds for the entire year, after my tumultuous start last year (and by that I mean 2022, I haven't come to terms with the realisation that 2023 is now last year yet), there is so much more to reflect about this time around, including goals I had set for myself both last January and last July. Before we get around to those though, lets talk about all the cool stuff that happened this year in chronological order.
If you don't want to read my thoughts on the previous year and instead would rather immediately get to what I've been reading, click here!

Part 1: Last year in Review

How the year started

So to give you a bit of real life context, prior to my active start on WorldAnvil, I had flown halfway across the world. I originally was (and currently am again) from Germany, and at the time I was nearing the end of my Masters studies in Chemistry. The last piece on the agenda was a research stay abroad, more specifically, in a PChem lab in Tokyo, which had graciously agreed to host me for 5 months.
So there I was, in a new country, with a handful of not quite-yet friends among my coworkers. While they eventually did become my friends, the beginning of my stay in Tokyo was sometimes lonely, which I think did contribute to me spreading my wings among the WorldAnvil community and the Worldember chat throughout December. The warm welcome that I received there and am very grateful for definitely played a huge role with me sticking around until now.

Bestiary February

Not counting the reading I did in January, my real activity began in Feb '23, with a challenge from WorldAnvil. We got a cool list of animal prompts, and I had time to burn between all the lab work I was doing in Tokyo still. I decided to write all of these in character, more specifically one character my brother had played during our first ever TTRPG campaign.
While this was a great deal of fun, it did establish a bit of a worry-inducing pattern, namely my need to take part in every, single, one of the challenges. More on that further down the line

Worldbuilding Con (and Awards?!)

While there were quite a few amazing unofficial/community challenges during March, I was busy with tying up loose ends in my research, since my time in the Lab in Tokyo was coming to a close, so not much was happening in March...

Okay that was a lie, an absolutely wild and bonkers thing happened. The amazing Worldbuilding Con organized by WorldAnvil happened, and it was spectacular from start to finish. It sometimes was a bit of a hassle for me personally, because of the expected timezone issues, but there isnt really a time for such a con that suits people from Asian, American and European timezones at the same time.
Then, at the end of the event, there was the big ceremony for the Worldbuilding awards and somehow I had managed to be on the shortlist for not one, but two articles. "The Hammers of Jadira" was nominated for the "Pillars of Progress" category and my article about the "Ksrizka" was nominated for "Best Article" as well! I couldn't believe it (and sometimes still can't) that I got on the shortlist and despite not winning either category, I still consider this one of the greatest honors I received so far... Both articles are still among the worldbuilding things I am most proud of in my life, if you havent seen them yet, I have linked them here.

Adventure April

April was right around the corner though, and with it, I had a whole month that I had sat aside to actually see some of Japan, since I didnt want to fly all the way just to go to between the lab and my 7 square meter room in Sugamo. Anyways, during this time, there was another official challenge, called Adventure April that seemed right up my alley, as a long time GM in various systems.
However, as April went on, I found myself struggling to finish the adventure in time. While i succeeded in the end, as you can see by Badge on the left, I wasnt very happy with my adventure, which is why I have since privated it. Perhaps one day I'll rework the concept and make a version I can be proud of but for now it'll be banished to the abyss.

Me and my tomies in May

May was spent playfully on WorldAnvils end with three of the adventures written in April being played out on the WorldAnvil twitch channel, but for me it was time to take a much needed breather. Looking to rekindle that passion a bit, I joined the chapter of my choice, the Seven Tomes, which primarily focuses on Fantasy as a genre and setting. I have not regretted this choice in the slightest and can highly recommend you check out the chapters that are currently recruiting, even if the Tomes themselves aren't your thing.
In May I flew back to Germany, where I had some short time to rest and readjust to the new (old) environment, and prepare for the next step in my education. In Germany its sort of expected in chemistry to go on to your PhD after your studies have concluded, which is why my June was spent finding a flat in a new town so I could begin the PhD position I had been offered there.

Summer Camp

But before we get to July, I was also preparing for my first Summer Camp!. During SC homework I set the admittedly ambitious goal of achieving Diamond (meaning 32 prompts out of 40 answered). Well, as July rolled around and I found myself moving to a new city and starting a full time job as a PhD, it turns out that maybe this was a bit too ambitious after all. I struggled a with hitting that 32, but as you can see in the hub article I linked below, I got it done in the end. This time however I was feeling the pressure much more than WorldEmber of 2022, which also partly resulted in me reading far less of other peoples work during SC than I wanted to and mainly interacting with my new chapter rather than the community at large.

Still, I am happy with what I came up with in July, and am also proud that I did hit Diamond in the end. As we move into the second half of the year, there came another chance to reflect on progress so far, in the form of (surprise!) a reading challenge and resolution for the second half of the year. While I will go into the goals set during that resolution further down this article, I can summarize that I was happy with my progress over the first half of the year, but concerned about the pace I was going and if I was in danger of burning out. Because of this, I vowed to set lower goals for the rest of the year (and we will see how well I did with that, right away.

Treasured Companions and Spooktober

Because after the reading done in August, we had a short and sweet challenge: describe a treasured companion in your world, a sidekick, secondary character, that kind of deal. In my case, I decided to write about Marigold, a secondary character in my novel, which is both a friend to one of my main characters and a conscience dragging him on the right path by the ear from time to time.
The article itself was simple enough, a cool (hopefully) dossier written in world about the character from the perspective of a ring of spies. Simple enough and a good first challenge to practice taking it easy in, right? Well yeah, but apparently I hadn't learned that much yet. I spent parts of September setting a high goal with this article: I wanted to learn css so I could pretend I was Stormbril or Hanhula and make a button, which when clicked would set this secret dossier on fire and burn it to ash!

Turns out css is kinda tricky, but I did get the hang of it before the deadline ^^ I am particularily proud of this article, so if you click on just one thing that was written by me out of the whole bunch, have it be this one! Moving along the months, we get to the first challenge that I succeeded in taking it easier. Spooktober required us to answer at least 13 of the given prompts and I did just 13 keeping them as stubs instead of overexerting myself.
In fact, I used this challenge to kill two birds with one stone. In October I partnered up with my real life friend Ben, who does a lot of Worldbuilding of his own, and together we created a collab world called Thræsh's Hold, in which we want to explore Spooky themes and the human condition in that specific context. Anyways, I specifically created the answers to the prompts from Spooktober to be my foundational articles in the new world, so that once we got to WorldEmber in December, I could reset their creation dates and expand them into proper articles and start cooking from there.

November, with novel plans and glassy planshredders

Warning: Image contains blood and an injured hand. You've been warned!

by Ninodonlord, picture taken by Philipp F.

Ouchie!

Before we get to the end of year and my favourite event of WorldAnvil, there was November, which featured NaNoWriMo, which I wanted to try for the first time, and WorldEmber homework. It seems I hadn't fully learned my lesson yet, but a little hiccup took care of my hubris anyways: For that I want to give you a little bit more context.
Did you know for example that when you're training to be a chemist, during safety training you are taught to not try to catch stuff when you accidentally drop it? The reasoning behind this is that you are working with potentially dangerous stuff and catching it may cause you to injure yourself. This rule is especially important when working with glassware, because chances are you won't catch the glassware itself but instead will catch the shards after it has shattered.
Did you also know that overriding instincts borne from millennia of evolution can be pretty tricky to do in the heat of the moment? In my specific case this nifty combination of fun facts ended me in the ER with a cut of about 1 cm into the flesh and seven resulting stitches.
While that sucked for a plethora of reasons, I can see a silver lining in it, because I took it as a sign and withdrew from NaNoWriMo on the second day, giving me enough time and energy to still do the homework even with a hand that took its sweet time healing up.

WorldEmber!!!!

Oh hey, we are finally here again! As I mentioned previously, WorldEmber is where I first actively started participating on WorldAnvil and in its community and because of that it holds a pretty special place in my heart. I however also by now knew, that I needed to be careful with burnout and, seemingly having learnt this lesson at last, set the "low" goal of only going for 10k words, instead of trying to match my 25+k from last year.
It turns out that that was a smart choice, because I only got it done on one of the last days of the month, with far less participation in the community than I had hoped for. Part of that is that I had some worrying health news in the family (my dad unfortunately has a tumor he is in chemotherapy for, which is pretty tough on him and by proxy us, even when I'm no longer living in the same house), but also I was now fully settled in my job as a PhD, which of meant less time and energy left for whimsical or in this case spooky worldbuilding.

Part 2: Reading Challenge

Well, as I said, I spent far too little time on reading other peoples stuff during December, which I hope to rectify now! This list will update as I read the articles I have picked for my reading challenge.

Reading list:
Serukis by Serukis
The Escapist's Fantasy by MelissaPlaysRPGs
Witches by CrazyEddie
Cerise Stork by Mochimanoban
Peacekeeper Alliance by elspeth87
Mineral vs Organic Magitech by AmélieIS
The Boss by EBelt
Ink Spot by AwsmChimera
Sins by jandis
Alexandria Ganges by Kefkejaco
Reading done! Will write out my thoughts here on Saturday (long train ride then, which should give me plenty of time).

Tomie Articles:
by Blue Fairy
by tjtrewin
by strixxline
by Endrise
by EbonxGaming
by Kydra_Hunter
by KajetanWrites
by TheDumbOwl
This part is for highlighting some of the amazing stuff being done by my Tomies currently. Will give brief thoughts on these as I go, but far less in depth than the 10 proper reading articles ^^

Honorary mention candidates:
by Alishahr
by VideoKill
by M.R.R. Shelswell
by AuroyaRhenyan
by Dazzlinkat
by KittyMonster
by 1337spectra
by RiverFang
by Callyxtus
by Noons
by Vazdimet
by Frod0_baggins
by nnie
by Catoblepon
by MGatta
by Absinthe
Tbh, this is now just my new reading list, of cool stuff that I also wanna mention by name!

The Future

What's currently going on

Prairie Sunset by Ninodonlord

My main project is still Tai'Sans Hearth, or Focis as the planet itself is called. Focis, for those of you who don't know it yet, is a fantasy setting/world, in which several of the classic fantasy races, including elves, dwarves and humans have carved out their own domains in a world that was primarily built for the orcs, who lived here since the dawn of time.
Throughout 2023 I was fortunate to flesh out much of the core content of this world, meaning that I now have a pretty good understanding of what I want the world to be and also what I don't want it to be. Because of this, I am putting Focis on a bit of a backburner for now. It is not discontinued, but I have decided, that I want to take some time to explore other genres and play with new ideas, so that I can fully appreciate whenever I come back to build more of the orc-world itself.
Especially when and if I continue writing my novels, I will flesh out further parts of Focis, but in the meantime I have some exciting new stuff I want to share with you...
As some of you may know, I have broken my initial expectation, that I would always only need one world for my worldbuilding! I already mentioned it earlier in the review of 2023, I started a collaborative project with my good friend Ben in October. It is called Thræsh's Hold, and it is a spooky world in which we want to create occult happenings, explore the fear of the unknown and try to figure out our take on the human condition: What makes us tick, what parts of our behaviour is innate to us and what comes from the circumstances that we are born into?
If all that and more sounds up your alley, I would love to welcome you to the Hold! Thanks to WorldEmber and a wonderful writing buddy on this project, you can already find some neat lore of this world. Follow us into Moondoor, an bustling city sitting below an ancient castle that no-one dares approach.

Yet another world?

And then there is a yet another new project in the works. I am currently setting up a new TTRPG campaign for a few friends in my new hometown and I believe this campaign will turn into a wonderful setting, which I hope to slot into an unexplored part of Focis (see above).
The campaign itself is going to be a mix of Western and Mystery, set on a continent on which the previous sapient race has died out several millennia ago.
Now a rush of new settlers has discovered this treasure trove of natural resources and everyone wants a piece of the pie. My players will be part of one of the waves of settlers that are now on their way there, seeking their fortune or for other reasons, depending on what we come up with during session 0.
I have also been inspired by a my fellow tomie, TJ, and his excellent new project Journals of Yesteryear, and want to try my hand at a new artstyle for this project, PixelArt. To the right you can see my first attempt at capturing the vibe of the setting, which I hope to build out as we explore this new continent together.

New Years Resolution!

At last we get to the Resolution: My goals in August were the following:
The overarching goals I had set after Summer Camp were:

1. I want to finish my novel (ideally before NaNoWriMo, so that I can focus on a new story by then.
2. I want to put my TTRPG ruleset into words.
3. I want to listen to my body so that I dont run the risk of burnout.

I also had set some specific, tangible goals as well, those being:

• There are 8 prompts I created articles for during SC but did not work on. I want to flesh them out at least a bit. (The articles were Tennet, Northwatch, Cognitor Leti, Frenia, Of the Elusive Ksrizka, Octopuns!, The church of the Trinity and Lisandro Orazios)
• I want to do more collaborative stuff with my Tomies! Hopefully things can start happening in that regard in the near future :)
• The unknown as a terror is something I feel can satisfy my itch for darkness in the world quite nicely. I feel like I should therefore think about what is out there (quite paradoxical no?). If I can write two or more articles about the things beyond Tai'Sans veil I would be very happy.
• I need to think about things that have great influence on my world more. Two of those is my magic system(s) and organisations powerful and longlived enough to actively change the path of the world. I want to write about three world-level organisations this year and finally work out some of the rules of magic

To address the big goals first, I can happily say that I avoided burnout so far and I think I am getting better at setting lower goals for myself. When a challenge really gets me excited, I can always adjust the goals as I go and this way I can hopefully see better results. I will play this method by ear and when Summer Camp has rolled around and its time to review, I can say more on this. The other two goals completely fell by the wayside in 2023, so I am retiring the TTRPG ruleset for now and will just focus on the novel in 2024.
Regarding the smaller goals, two out of the four goals came true, but not in the way I had planned out originally. Both the fear of the unknown and the need for collaboration are now realised in the new World Thræsh's Hold! It's been great fun and I really want to continue working with Ben in 2024. The articles from Summer Camp went completely untouched since then, but I have to say I can live with that, since I don't feel they would add enough to the world on their own to warrant all that effort.
Considering these goals and my previous retrospective on the year that has passed, I can honestly say that while not all went as planned in 2023, I am overall very satisfied with how its going! I am looking forward to what will become of 2024 for me!

New goals

Meta goals

As I mentioned already, setting lower goals was a lifesaver for me during WorldEmber, so considering I am still working full time for my PhD and will probably continue to get busier with that, I will keep that goal around for 2024. I will also try to finish the draft of my novel this year, by working on it in bursts whenever I need a break from the other projects and need a change of scenery. The TTRPG ruleset is getting retired for now, but one day I will try to pick it up again.

Worldbuilding goals

Time for a brand new list of specific worldbuilding goals compared to the ones from last year:

Goals from 2023

Non-Worldbuilding/Longer term

1. I want to finish my novel (ideally before NaNoWriMo, so that I can focus on a new story by then).
2. I want to put my TTRPG ruleset into words.
3. I want to listen to my bodies response after SC and if necessary set better goals to avoid potential burnouts.

Concrete goals

• There are 8 prompts I created articles for but did not work on. I want to flesh them out at least a bit. (The articles were Tennet, Northwatch, Cognitor Leti, Frenia, Of the Elusive Ksrizka, Octopuns!, The church of the Trinity and Lisandro Orazios)
• I want to do more collaborative stuff with my Tomies! Hopefully things can start happening in that regard in the near future :)
• (The unknown as a terror is something I feel can satisfy my itch for darkness in the world quite nicely. I feel like I should therefore think about what is out there (quite paradoxical no?). If I can write two or more articles about the things beyond Tai'Sans veil I would be very happy.)
• (I need to think about things that have great influence on my world more. Two of those is my magic system(s) and organisations powerful and longlived enough to actively change the path of the world. I want to write about three world-level organisations this year and finally work out some of the rules of magic)

Future Goals for 2024

Non-Worldbuilding/Longer term

1. I want to continue setting low goals first and then increasing them when I notice that I can do more for a specific challenge so I can avoid potential burnouts.
2. I want to finish the first draft my novel whenever I need a creative break from straight worldbuilding.

Concrete goals

• I want to learn more CSS, ideally by perfecting the already existing theme of Thræsh's Hold and by building the new one for the campaign.
• In addition to the collaboration with Ben, I want to do more collaborative stuff with my Tomies! Hopefully 2024 is the year we kick off that shared world idea we had :)
• I want to do a lot of my own pixel art for "The Frontier" (the new campaign). At least 6 art pieces by summer camp seems achievable.
• I want to round out the core articles and concepts of Thræsh's Hold and write out the important lore I need for my players to understand what is going on on "The Frontier".