Summer Camp 2022 Pledge & Plan

Creative Goal and Motivation

This is an initiative (for me) to finally publish substantial information on Tahuum Itaqiin right here on WorldAnvil, starting with the 2022 Summer Camp. While I have been world-building for Tahuum Itaqiin for quite some time now, I'd like to go about it in a more organized manner (i.e., consolidate and expand on the contents of my multiple paper notebooks and MS Word docs), as well as build a more concrete foundation the first novel and short stories that will be set in this world.
Motivation: Progress itself! I've been a student in one program or another for two years now, and will likely continue to be one for quite some time, yet I really want to dedicate regular time to substantiating this world and its stories in addition to my studies and work.

"And why should I care?"

This is a perfectly reasonable question that I just asked for you, and I'm glad to answer it, first with the main premise(s) for this world and then with a summary of world-building progress I've achieved up to this point. Together, these will hopefully give you a better idea of the overall creative and design direction of this world.

World Premise

The low-magic fantasy continent of Tahuum Itaqiin can be seen as a test of how humanity fares when its leading civilizations, at a level of technological and societal development equivalent to the European Renaissance, the early Ottoman Empire, and/or Ming China, must contend with eldritch incursions into their world, including a previously unencountered magic system, former humans warped and twisted by this magic, and higher beings who transcend the conventional bounds of time and space. All of this with nothing more than steel weapons, the most basic of firearms and cannons, and limited magic which only a small portion of the world's people are capable of interfacing with.
(And what do I mean by "eldritch," that ubiquitous fantasy term for scary, tentacled stuff? Here, I follow the etymological basis for the word "eldritch," referring to something "hideous, gastly, and weird" but more importantly from a realm beyond this one.)
What will set this fantasy world apart from others? Primarily, I continue to enjoy developing complex cultures and extensive histories for this world using my reasonably substantial background in linguistics, anthropology, sociology, and world history. The leading civilizations in the current era of Tahuum Itaqiin's history are: (1) a complex of maritime city-states and petty kingdoms heavily inspired by North African and Near Eastern cultures, (2) three great kingdoms and several lesser states contending for hegemony in an East and Southeast Asian-inspired setting, and (3) an archaic, reclusive civilization of sorcerors whose have tense relations with the humans of the continent and are admired and feared for their mastery of magic.
Another distinguishing feature of Tahuum Itaqiin is its primary magic system, which has developed in tandem with the course of the world's history and human evolution. In ancient times, magical practice in Tahuum Itaqiin consisted of several shamanistic traditions in which a few exceptional and eccentric individuals achieved "sympathy" between a spell subject (the intended target of a spell) and a fundamentally similar spell agent (the material component of the spell). With the development of large, organized societies, societies' leaders sought to secure their own power, devising means to contact powerful beings and supplicate them (and refer to them as gods) in exchange for their "miracles" (magical works). More recently, this system of magic-via-supplication was upended by the rigorous study of magic in which mages use geometry (usually glyphs or kinesthetic movement) and acoustics (voice or music) to focus and redirect magical force.

Progress up to This Point

I first properly launched this project early in this decade, mostly starting from the large scale and working my way down into the details. Occasionally, of course, personal epiphanies do revolutionize aspects of the big picture. Here's an incomplete list of what I've developed up to this point:

• The climate zones and topography of the Continent and nearby islands, as well as the influences of these climate zones on regional cultures.
• The grand scheme of 11 cultural regions in the Continent and nearby islands. Each cultural region itself contains several distinct cultures which have been shaped by each other and by cultures in nearby regions.
• Linguistic family trees for the languages of these cultures.
• The overall timeline of the Continent's sociopolitical history.
• The basic forms of government for the Continent's leading civilizations.
• The principal magic system, including its costs, its limitations, its methods, the history of its development, and the relationship between magic and the world's organisms.
• At least one story arch (short story or longer) based in each of the 11 cultural regions.

Tentative Articles for July

Focus:

Since I've been getting back into the habit of writing--even story-writing!--and don't want to fully derail my progress there, I intend to use these prompts to guide me in strengthening the worldbuilding foundation for the current story I'm working through and other near-future writing projects. Therefore, I will focus on developing the sociocultural and geographic contexts of the settings for these projects, as well as fleshing out the relevant magic systems and the histories of their development.

Preparation:

• Goal: Gold (24 prompts). I may yet shoot for Diamond (31 prompts), but in July I will also be traveling, attending to family and school affairs, and working on a few small creative projects in addition to this massive one.
• Scope: A personal minimum of 500 words per article. Articles will be essentially complete upon publication, though I may expand and edit them at a later date.
• Prep work: Oops! I discovered this challenge for July on June 30th (or perhaps the 29th, depending on which time zone we're referring to), so I'm more or less going in raw, so to speak! Luckily, I have plenty of theme music organized into playlists, as well as world info and brainstorming (dis)organized in my various notebooks and docs.
• Additional/ongoing prep work: A much-overdue revision Meta section, as the creative and design direction for this project have solidified since I got started here on WorldAnvil.

Tentative Articles by Theme:

Expanse: Primarily, I plan to further develop geographic and sociocultural details of the main subcontinental regions, as well as major cities and polities, which will act as foundations for my largest anticipated writing projects the Haifatneh Sea and its surroundings, where the first major writing projects based in this world will be set.
Leadership: Political systems, major figures, and institutions for the teaching and regulation of magical practice all substantiate intergroup conflicts and put constraints on the behaviors of main characters.
Discovery: A rich, storied world history also means there is plenty that the world's people have yet to uncover, including ancient civilizations and minimally explored lands. The eldritch cursions into this world, too, are something to be discovered.
Monstrous(ness): What do we fear most if not the unknown? Eldritch magic, its practitioners, and their works will feature here, but only briefly--I'd rather not give away everything!

The Agenda Beyond: Projects for August

• A topographic and climate map of Tahuum Itaqiin and nearby islands via Inkarnate, as opposed to the crude versions I have in my notes and Paint.net files.
• WorldAnvil page cleanup: Reorganize article trees in light of my current vision for this world. (Fun fact: I once had plans to write this world for an RPG.) If I'm feeling ambitious, put up some art, banners, reworked fonts and the like.
• Get back on track with story-writing thanks to having a strengthened foundation in worldbuilding.