Naelin's Worldember 2023 Pledge

The Month of Burining is Coming

Winter Teal'Jin by Naelin

"The glimmer of the Winter Teal'Jin's horns can already be seen in the forest.
Every year he inspires us to do our best during the month of Burning with his burning passion and his cold breeze.
Every year we shall strive to inspire him to keep coming back the next one with our hard work and our sustained effort."

— A Thaurian citizen

WE Prep Week 1: So, what are the plans?

"Look at your world and choose an area you want to write about. Keep in mind the area doesn’t have to be a geographical one!
What are you excited about? Make a list of directions you could go in. Take a moment to review any related articles."

— Worldember Prep 2023, week 1

Weaving Threads

Weavers' Wool by Naelín

Three years ago, for SummerCamp 2020 I created the Weavers' Network, to this day one of my favourite organisations in SoP.
Have you clicked the link? no? Well, good, because that poor neglected article is still in Spanish.
Going back to the Weavers and expanding their web of articles is a pending task of mine, one I started in Spooktober 2023 by translating the articles about the associated profession and one character that is definitely not an agent of the network.
But there is so much more to say about them!
The Weavers cast their net wide, so here are some potential related topics to write about:

Lush Enis was a famous weaver that changed the course of the cult to Rheshnaghty, the divine concept of Intention. I can write a proper article for Rheshnaghty, for their temple, and in general expand the whole area of the Autonomist religion.

They say that sex workers make great spies. Bartenders are portrayed as having the latest intel. Both probably also make great contact weavers. I can write about the Houses of Pleasures and their potential connection to weaving.

I know a person who behaves as if she made her mission in life to be a real-life contact weaver. I want to make her a homage with an SoP weaver based on her.

WE Prep Week 2: The Mini-meta

Autonomism

Regicielo, the Chemistry

I kind of already wrote the mini-meta for the Weavers in the text above, so I decided to write instead about the other area of interest I plan on developing: The religion of the Dhalmanite, Autonomism.
Back when I started thinking about this concept, the idea was to create a religion without gods that placed spiritualism on their knowledge of the world and managed to still have a sort of pantheon.
What I devised was a system where people venerated the rules that manage the universe itself and the abstract concepts that make their understanding of it, such as the dimensions, the time and space, the chemistry, the physics, etc.
Then I made a genesis story, put custom names to the main "laws of the universe", then eventually added some characterisations and implied personality traits and--- ah, damn, I have made gods.

Symbol of Autonomism by Naelin

The Dhalmanite and therefore the Autonomist art takes heavy inspiration from the Mayan style, whereas the name of each law follows some loose "feel" for the Dhalmanite language that a certain other Anvilite will one day chastise me for not developing further.
I am not so strict about that impossible goal anymore, and I've had a lot of fun and pride with some of the stories and topics I wrote about the people who follow each of the temples dedicated to the members of the pantheon.
However, up until very recently, most of these members didn't even have names! Now at least each has a name, set of pronouns, and a short list of professions they are the patrons of, so I am ready to start actually talking about them and give some extra life to one of the two first islands I developed in the archipelago.

WE Prep Week 3: Homepage

I will be skipping this week's homework, as I quite like my current layout. However, feel free to give me feedback if you think something on my homepage can be improved.

WE Prep Week 4: Last Minute Prep

As I do each year, I have set up a new Worldbuilding Planner for this WE with my goal, writing speed, and some inspirational phrases.
The last several times it helped me immensely to stay motivated and keep track of how close I am to my daily target (and what is that daily target).
This year seems like it will be quite harder due to some family issues, so I appointed 10 free days instead of the 2 I planned for last year, which gets me to a starting daily goal of 1087 words per day. Hopefully, these blocked-out days will just be bonus writing days instead!

The Author by Naelin & TJ

"I, Master of Skulls Naelin, pledge to work methodically, consistently, caringly, to reach my yearly goal of 25k this WorldEmber"

— The author

World Primers

Look here's the thing about life and dance: you can't tell what will happen in advance.
Sometimes your moves don't work so hot, but it's best to keep dancing with what you've got.
And even if you are whittled down to one, remember that you started all this for fun.
You haven't really thought about that for a bit, but your love of dance is why you started it.
You focus too hard on what others feel, your anxiety and worries will start to seem real.
But the truth is that your dancing doesn't have to be great, they'll have more fun if you don't concentrate
And the best way to get you back to a smile is to give yourself a chance to freestyle

— Brian David Gilbert, "Dances Moving! Ep. 7: Freestyle"

Articles Created for WorldEmber 2023