Worldbuilding Awards 2024 - Ninos Submissions!
A.K.A. what I am most proud of this year (which is eligible to submit lol)
Shortcut if you just want to access the links
Best Worldbuilding Article
Ever since the last WAWAs ended, they kept occupying a small part of my brain. Even as I flew back to Europe and began working on my PhD last summer, they were there, in the recesses. Now that we are here again I am brimming with excitement! I have picked out seven articles which I submitted this year and below I wanted to write out a few sentences on each of them. I hope you check the articles out and if you enjoy them, I want to encourage you to vote for them using the widget on the articles and your email (for vote verification only!). I am very proud of all of these articles and hope you will like them as much as I do :)
Article Categories
Hearts & Minds
Summary: A look at how people in Moondoor celebrate entering a new year and the last harvest. Written to be the first of a series to take you through the year of an average citizen in this world. My thoughts!With this first submission we dive into a world that started to take shape during october of 2023. I was itching to take a break from creating for Focis and at the same time had been meaning to make my first collaborative worldbuilding project. Enter Thræsh's Hold a spooky, supernatural world in which fourdimensional beings exist and are worshipped, resisted, fought against, bargained with and misunderstood by a human civilisation that is just now making the leap from classical medieval conditions into the era of the printing press and effective gunpowder weapons. Burning Lord Thræsh takes us right into that society, exploring the tradition by which the new year is begun in the city of Moondoor.
Rise of Nations
Summary: Witches often form the spiritual and medicinal backbone of the communities far from the reaches of the Church. This article summarizes what it means to be a Witch, from education to abilities and occupational hazards. My thoughts!As we developed the new world, Ben and I were drawn to the sometimes nebulous but almost omnipresent concept of Witches. These predominantly female practitioners of magic and knowledge of the occult fit right into our world and given that we needed to answer who would seek magical power outside the more rigid confines of the faith, Witches were a no-brainer to us. They form an nice counterpart to the Church of Order and also give the world a type of magic that is not tied to the church, while also not being explicitly evil. This article explains what a Witch his, how to become one, what she can do and what occupational hazards she faces. Out of the bunch, this article is probably the one I worked on the longest to get right from the worldbuilding side of things and I hope that this shows in a well-rounded article that can be used as a diving board deeper into the world we are constructing.
Wondrous Nature
Summary: Warning! This article deals with sensitive topics, specifically references to suicidal ideation. Make sure you are fine with exploring this before you proceed and please take care of yourself first <3 My thoughts!I think by the time October rolled around last year I was beginning to strain against the otherwise relatively positive type of worldbuilding on my main project Focis. Creating Thræsh's Hold (see above) was one of the symptoms of this, but I also dived into more unpleasant thoughts and topics on Focis as well. The topic of death is an important part of life on Focis that I had been avoiding, so I believe that this is one of my first attempts to tackle it. As I continued to make this article into the thing it is now, it very organically developed into an empty spot in the world. For example, I wanted to find a reason for the Whispers to exists and for this particular part of the world, the first thing that came to my mind were scars from the now ancient conflict that onces devastated the elves and dwarves of old. Keorins inclusion also seemed to come very naturally to me since her ties to the locations I am creating has always been tenuous at best. I hope I can further map her story throughout the ages as he feet carry her here or there in future articles.
Strength & Honour
Summary: The different ideologies for magic and the supernatural beings that bestow it are in constant struggle with another. What does this conflict look like? My thoughts!After our short trip into Focis and my main project in the last submission/entry, we return to Thræsh's Hold one last time. As part of the creation of Witches, I naturally had to answer quite a few other questions in the same area. How is the relationship between Witches (and other unorthodox magic users) and the church and its widespread influence defined? How would such an asymmetric conflict in this cultural landscape and technological era actually occur? The article I submitted for "Strength & Honour" is the result of the answers that I with the help of my collaborator/co-conspirator found as we dug into the topic. Alongside with Witches and a third article I sadly could not also submit, I think this is my favourite work that came from the world we are creating in tandem. I like to think that some of this enjoyment shines through in the worldbuilding.
Pillars of Progress
Summary: When you live in a inhospitable desert, you get creative with means of communication. This article explains the magical way the High Lords of Jadira send urgent messages between their oases. My thoughts!This category is a big one for me, because it is one of the two that I was nominated for last worldbuilding awards. I knew that I wanted to make something compelling again for this category specifically. Interestingly enough, what I ended up choosing is from the same area of Focis that I was nominated for last time. Jadira, with its Stronghammers and Oases. This year I found myself answering how someone might handle the distribution of important messages and information in such a hostile environment. The Deepwells and the associated technology, Wellcalling, are less written out than the Stronghammers were, but I truly believe that they were done and perfect when I had written it all out and I did not want to force more information into the article just to hit some arbitrary word count. As a result the two articles on this topic are short and compact, but hopefully also tightly written and entertaining nonetheless.
Myths & Legends
Summary: Long after the decline of the Osylanian Empire, their barrows and undead horrors still are there. What would the new fledgling human societies living on the rubble of this Empire think happened around the Barrows? My thoughts!Finally, for the last article category, I submitted the Barrow-Song, once again exploring the ramifications of the millennia of history upon which modern Focis rests. I got to reintegrate some of my early worldbuilding of orcish poems here and actually explain a throwaway part of map-based worldbuilding from the early days as well. What about this Necropolis on Eastern Noria? This article tries to answer some of the history of the area and also further interweaves the sometimes only loosely connected eras that are separated by so much time. In writing this one, I realised how potent myths were as connective tissue between the long distant eras I am juggling on Noria and Focis in general.
Major Categories
Best Article
Summary: An in-world dossier describing Dorralia Marigold, High Smith of the Winged City Guard, from the City of Storms. My favourite thing I made this year! My thoughts!Finally, we arrive at my crown jewel! Dorralia Marigold is a character from my novel 'Skinthief' and back during Septembers Challenge "Treasured Companions" she became the subject of my submission to that contest as well. Marigold has always been a joy to write in my novel and despite the fact that I did not win with her during "Treasured Companions", I still loved the process of making the article. Because of this I think she will have a special place in my heart for a while. Speaking a bit more on the article itself, the writing part of Marigolds solo article came very easily to me. I quickly found an interesting in-world angle to write from and because the world Marigold exists in as well as the POV from which her article is written are so well fleshed out in my head from planning out the novel, I very quickly had reached my desired length and written out what made Marigold who she is. Then however came the really fun part. With the gracious help of the incomparable Stormbril, CSS-Wizard extraordinaire, I was able to craft a very fun css interactable, allowing the reader to burn the dossier on Marigold, just as asked in the text itself. With some more help from Ben, an IRL artist friend of mine, I beautified the article a bit more and i really love how the final effect turned out. I hope you love it too if you have not seen it yet.
Comments
Author's Notes
Here we are folks! Again, I hope you enjoy any (or all ^^) of these articles and consider voting for them :)