New Years Resolutions 2023

A Starting Point

I decided to focus on Ethnicity articles for this challenge. They're such a critical part of any well-developed world, and I always feel so vague when writing them, so I thought to look through other articles in that category to get a better sense of what to include and what makes a good article. Overall I didn't learn anything spectacularly new and exciting, but it was a lot of good reminders about good practices and questions to ask when writing an ethnicity.

The Articles

1. Arthurian, by StardustScrapper. Chosen because I love Arthurian legends so the name caught me. The history and the way of porting a more familiar legend into a fantasy world was intriguing. I liked that details about typical physical features were included, even though they were pretty standard humans. A good reminder that even seemingly basic details like that can provide depth.
2. Gnome, by Mutterwolf. Picked because I'm making a gnome character for a campaign so that drew me in. The best part of this article to me was the mention of the rite of passage. While a tradition article could flesh that out more, having a brief mention here in the ethnicity article itself was useful. I also liked how the compulsion they have for hospitality was fleshed out, giving cultural ways this was expressed. Showed how useful it is to expand on traits. Every little detail can be expanded upon and extended into other areas, enabling broader worldbuilding.
3. The Leybound, by Spiveystrange. Chosen because the name was interesting. I liked this article for the potential it left. The Leybound don't seem like a monolithic species, but rather coming from a variety of backgrounds and interests and with differing opinions about what should happen to them. This isn't outright stated but suggested through the details showing some of the different choices a Leybound might make. It offers an interesting look at more subtle ways of suggesting possibilities and options instead of a specific path that all of an ethnicity would have to take.
4. Mahri, by Nated123. Picked this one because I liked the name. The details that struck me were smaller ones. The writer included the approximate population, which was surprisingly helpful in reminding just how large a group this might be. There was also a mention of how their values had changed after a geographic shift. A good reminder of how things might change over time for an ethnic group. There were also a number of traditions mentioned that could be directly tied to the kind of place they lived in.
5. Coastal People, by hughpierre. This one popped out because it seemed like it might be a similar kind of environment to my #4 pick and I wanted the contrast. This article was my favorite up to this point, except for the part where there wasn't a summary at the beginning describing what kind of people they were. I missed that more than I thought. The links were also fantastic and I liked having a plethora of other information to look at if I wanted. There were also a ton of unique details, most of which focused around cultural practices. Also, interestingly, I was drawn in by the list of taboos. It's good to remember what people might dislike as much as what they prefer.
6. Cornavii, by Dr Know. Chose because name. This article was interesting for its focus on the geography of the area and on the relationships with other groups. It would have been nice to have more cultural details about the ethnicity itself, but knowing how they interrelate with others is really useful information. Knowing how a culture has interacted with others, both in the present and historically, is important, but I do like it better as a function of more baseline knowledge. So it reminds me that it's a good later step when developing an ethnicity, to see how they might have developed in conjunction with others. It's something I hope to go back and do now for some of mine.
7. City Kobolds, by Mark0. Chose because I know very little about kobolds so seemed interesting. The detail that caught my attention here was the acknowledgement that while still fitting into the larger ethnicity, there would be differences depending on which city the kobolds came from, taking on some of the characteristics of others found there. Ethnicity articles tend to benefit from both pointing out the differences between subgroups and highlighting the generalities between all of them. Also I'm discovering as I go through these articles that I do enjoy a good external influence shaping the culture. Gives the world more depth to see the different groups interacting and affecting each other.
8. Bower Bog Harpies, by firebrat. Chosen because harpies are interesting. (As an aside, this is the second article that I found that didn't have the ability to like or comment which was rather odd.) I liked how this group was differentiated from the rest of the harpy groups in the area from the first paragraph. If you're going to get specific like this, focusing on a smaller group of people, those differences in ideas and customs become essential. One of the other things I noticed about this culture was that when traveling or otherwise separated from the rest, the harpies were encouraged to remain true to the ideals of the clans, which got me thinking about how important it is to know how a culture might react to outside exposure and how differently people might do this. It gave me a new question to ask my own ethnicities: how strongly do they hold to their culture when interacting with other cultures?
9. The Axuans, by Evendawn. Chosen because interesting name. I like the concept of this article, a nation composed of many blended-together tribes. This was the first article where it felt really incomplete, though. Not that every one of the 50 different tribes needed to be detailed, but I found myself wanting a lot more. It didn't quite live up to the promise of the concept without those details. So it's a good reminder for me to make sure that I deliver on the core promise of the articles I write. If I write about a color-changing butterfly, I can of course also write about how many eggs they lay, but I would have to write about the colors, what they were and why. And on a less critical note, I really liked the simple layout of the history behind the Axuans. Nothing too long, just enough to understand context.
10. Zegdelian gnomes, by Scalenex. Final article chosen because, like #2, gnomes. This was my second favorite article overall. I really enjoyed just the general spread of information. Nothing got super detailed, but I felt like there was a good overview of how this culture would live. A good note for an ethnicity: while being specific and focused and on-theme is good, you also need that variety of the basic information, especially for something that's not just an offshoot of another culture. If it's similar to something else you can build off that, but for something distinct it's a good idea to make clear what everyday life might be like. My favorite detail for this article was the sidebar. "Want more reindeer? Yeah, you do." And then linked to a list of reindeer-themed articles. That was fun.

In Summary

What I learned overall was two contradictory things, but that's writing for you. On one hand, it's a good idea to simply go through the basic details, like what the culture wears and what their values are. On the other hand, it's also good to not spend too much time on those basics and include the fun quirks and details that make the ethnicity unique. But looping back around to the first part, if there's too much quirk and not enough of the baseline details, it can get confusing and feel incomplete. Also, the balance for this changes from article to article. Mostly, I came away with the idea of trying to find that balance.
Also, it's always a nice detail to see how a culture interacts (past and present) with the others around them, and thus how they fit into the world as a whole. There were also a few questions I walked away with that I plan on using in the future to help get my brain going.

New Year's Resolutions

I'm not sure how this year is going to go, with several big events popping up through the year, so I'll try to keep my creative goals smaller. I'm hoping to complete maybe half of these items, but including them all means I have options. This way, I have a choice of which task to pursue, and also if my schedule clears up or I get a ton of motivation then I can push myself and do more.

• Submit "Princess and the Pea" to agents, or start the process for self-publishing
• Plan out Overlord series (or possibly multiple series, but figure out what I want to do with this world)
• Plan out Season 1 of Star Trek Adventures campaign (so approximately 15 more sessions, with ongoing arcs and figuring out which NPCs to nudge forward and which details to slip in the path of the players) (and have about a session a month)
• Participate in all World Anvil challenges, big and small, to at least some degree
• Finish outlining and then write first novel for Thaiterra stories
• Make Chronicles for Thaiterra and Overlord
• Start Avatar Legends campaign (if I ever get my dang books)
• Organize and tag all the articles on all my worlds on World Anvil which you wouldn't think would be too difficult and yet I still haven't done it at all other than Thaiterra
• Do NaNoWriMo in November, with smaller projects for April and July camps

And also this one is more of a personal thing but it's still creative so...

• Figure out if it's feasible to have a massive wedding-themed TTRPG session the day before I get married (there are like 4 GMs in the wedding party and it's not even that big of a party, and that's not even considering guests) (we could totally split into different tables, accept a bit of railroading, and come together for a big ol' fast-and-loose boss fight at the end) (this is possible but will this make all of us insane because let's face it these sessions can be rather exhausting on their own? Also I will need to decorate. Hmmm)
• Input welcome from anyone who sees this! Please. I'm so torn.