World Ember Insights and NYR

For the NYR-challenge I decided to ask people on Discord if they want to share articles that were written for TTRPG campaigns. Because that is something I want to do, but sometimes forget how things could even play a role in my campaigns. So I asked other anvilites how they do it and got some really interesting articles. And most of them are worth a read even if you are not writing for a TTRPG system yourself. So don't just move on, keep reading and you might find something interesting. Especially as not all of the articles I read for the challenge have been written for World Ember, so you might find some, that you have not seen yet.

My 10 chosen or recommended articles:

The first article I read I found in the leaderboard of World Ember. It is called "Mervidel" and it is the description for a country. The layout of the article is something I want to keep in mind when writing about my own countries. You really learn about the most important policital, geographical, cultural and historical points of the country, without being overwhelmed with a wall of text.

Again and again, Waking Materia by Hallucigenica shows me, how a well build world can look like and how things connect with each other. It's not always easy to understand everything, but reading the articles is still worth it. His article about the goddess Asphodel shows brilliantly that even gods can develope and change with time and circumstances. Something mine don't do yet and something I need to change, to give them some darker elements.

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Theiket recommended to me his article about the Titanheart. And it was worth it. Although this is ceratinly a shorter description for a species then those of my Augalai for example, it reminded me that you should always think about the ugly things as well. In a world like Mirintha, not everything is nice, so I need to keep in mind the prejudices my species have to deal with, to make them more interesting.

The next article I read was proposed by the author, Keon Croucher, himself, after I asked for some articles written for TTRPG campaigns. And it is one that I'm glad I have found this way. The mechanic behind the Fae Heart is really intriguing. I myself have problems coming up with such wonderful ideas and this one has been really inspiring. Luckily I only need mechanics for one system, not two.

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Clara Bellows is an amazing example for a character description in a TTRPG setting. And Tillerz' Plot hooks and GM information are perfect examples on how to integrate a character into a campaign right from the start. I'm not sure I will ever be able to do this, because it would take me weeks to come up with all the ideas he does. But I could at least try to think about how characters could be part of a campaign a little bit more then I currently do ...

This species exists specifically because one of Demongrey's players wanted a shoulder octopus. A great characteristic of a GM is to respond to the players as good as possible. And creating a whole species for one is certainly something a lot of GMs wouldn't do. At least not in such a comprehensive way as Demongrey did with his Tree Octopuses. Which are also really cute by the way, so it is worth reading about them, even if you are not into TTRPG.

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Imagica's Eaglors are such an interesting species. A great example how much exotic species can develope a TTRPG setting. Those species make a world more unique and I really enjoyed reading about this avians. I also like the way she seperates the racial descriptors from the rest of the text. Something I might add within Mirintha.

Before Annie Stein, aka nnie, recommended her article about Vampirism, I wasn't even aware that she had more worlds than Solaris ... Shame on me. The most interesting part I read in this article, is the mechanic of drawbacks and how everyone in the group has to agree, that it is a fitting one for the character. A great way to inculder all players into a decision, so everyone can stand behind it.

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The "Cultures" article by Twilightinsanity is a great idea to keep things simple for your players. It is basically just a list of all cultures with the essential information one needs to know in a TTRPG campaign, like what traits each culture has. This is most likely a big help for players to decide what culture their character should have, as they can see everything at one place and don't have to switch between several articles.

The last article is called "The Lovett corpse" by Michael Chandra. It's a rather short one, giving some intel on a vilan of his world. But although it might not be extensive, it bring's to a point what players deal with. It shows perfectly that short character descriptions sometimes can be enough for a TTRPG campaign. Especially when you are writing about a corpse.

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To come to a close, I'm supposed to add some resolutions for 2025. Normally, I don't do resolutions. But I'm willing to make an exceptation here. Five resolutions might not seem a lot for most of you, but for me it certainly is. Why? Because this "forces" me to write about specific stuff allthough I might want to write about other things. Like articles for all those amazing inofficial challenges out there. And despite the fact that those articles might not develope Mirintha as much as would be beneficial, I (mostly) enjoy writing them. Though, my time for writing is limited, and so I might struggle to keep everything in balance. But let's just see how it goes and what I will achieve in 2025.

• Write the introduction articles for all playable species
• Write down some rules for the cypher system
• Add the missing nine deities
• Get the new world started and add at least one article per month here
• Don't forget about Mirintha while working on the new world!