WorldEmber 2021 Reading Challenge

I confess that I would not likely read 10 articles without this Reading Challenge, yet I'm sure I need to in order to train as a writer. This is a wondrous and significant challenge for me. I'm intimidated by the superior writing available in so many of these!

First, to accumulate the list of 10 that I shall study seeking self-improvement:

1. https://www.worldanvil.com/w/Adeos-angantyr/a/flurdubh-item
2. https://www.worldanvil.com/w/the-morning-realm-nnie/a/imperial-teleportation-network-technology
3. https://www.worldanvil.com/w/empire-of-the-covenant/a/case-for-a-new-taxation-on-the-growth-of-clysseme-creeper-plants-species
4. https://www.worldanvil.com/w/araea-qurilion/a/sparklights-article
5. https://www.worldanvil.com/w/adin-golemancer/a/flesh-dim-or-kursu-article
6. https://www.worldanvil.com/w/cathedris-stormbril/a/shattercaps-species
7. https://www.worldanvil.com/w/star-wars3A-shards-jarissa/a/honloo-dust-ocean-location
8. https://www.worldanvil.com/w/the-spheres-of-oblogga-rumengol/a/clouds-law
9. https://www.worldanvil.com/w/age-of-gray-revyera/a/scorpion-wagon-vehicle
10. https://www.worldanvil.com/w/shadowfire-ononomad/a/sudengard-settlement

I think one of the things I've picked up from a lot of these is that formatting matters. Many of these are beautifully formatted. I am trying to put down two columns for my self-improvement section, but I haven't entirely figured out how to do so. I feel like I'm giving away a lesser quality of thought, but I'm going to persist. What ensues are my attempt to transcribe some insight or lesson from each of these.

1. Item: Flùrdubh

2. Magic: Imperial Teleportation Network

I took this as a recreational substance, and the author pointed out that within the setting it also has the potential to provide a kind of guided visualization of concepts. I feel the lack of recreational substances in Theoma thus far. I do consider them important experientially and for the development of creativity. The cerebrality of their Tamers of Æter setting also supports this takeaway. Customs on Earth about set and setting can be given new foundations in new worlds.

This one reminded me so strongly of the Jaunting Grids from The Viceroy that I wonder if there's some shared common root of inspiration/reference between the two ideas. Are great empires known for their establishment of great transportation networks? I think they might be (consider Rome's famous roads). This is a reminder of something that risks being lost by the countless small polities of Theoma: the benefits of organization spanning large geographic regions.

3. Species: Clysseme Creepers

4. Species: Sparklights

The presentation here of a dispute between the supporters and opponents of a particular legislative action with regard to a plant blurs the lines between worldbuilding and creative writing. A great deal of implicit information is carried by this style of address and the sense of wonder is powerful here. The potential of the worldbuilding files themselves as a creative writing project is emphasized by this, and I see how it aids in manuscript-writing, too. This item demonstrates the power of conflict! It's a reminder that narratives need people disagreeing with each other.

This one is sterling silver to me. It's a strange and playful hazard from a strange and dangerous biome. I need inspirations like this to build up Theoma. Sparklights could play in some of the theomes of Theoma (although now having read it elsewhere, I think I'd ask first). More to the point, this is a reminder to get wild. Theoma's hostile theomes are places of deadly wonder, and so far I've given them nothing wilder than (in ONE hostile theome) super-sized wild animals.

5. Profession: Kursu

6. Species: Shattercaps

It's so heartening to see someone else writing of a kind of sacred necromancer. The Kursus in their underworlds keep the dead 'alive' indefinitely, and in this setting people can visit their 'dead' loved ones. I am glad to have independently devised a deathless world! It's an easier work to think of sacred necromancers for Theoma when I have this good example to review.

I am intimidated by the idea of going through the world and devising all the flora and fauna. I think I need to read more of these. Each one suggests a wealth of other things - see how in this example a kind of mushroom is added to the domain of tourism implications! It is even used for patriotic implications. So many of the thoughts of the people are recorded by other wikis on World Anvil!

7. Location: Honloo Dust Ocean

8. Law: "Clouds"

This one was a nostalgia trip for me, but an important one. I had originally intended a tremendous diversity of biomes for Theoma, and reading this one puts "dust ocean" as a kind of biome. I'm thinking emulating this may be a good idea for an underground ecology if/when I start detailing the underground theomes of Theoma. It'd be a cold take on Naumachia as well. The Myrghon could even be creating the dust sea in part by their mining activities.

What a trip! This is such a glimmer of an alien mind. To look up and see unusually shaped objects limmed in light far above you in the "sky" makes perfect sense, and yet there's no ephemereality to these "clouds"! I could build societies in the sea which would look up and see such "clouds" in the far north of Theoma; I already have my Veserus to provide a fishy foundation.

9. Vehicle: Scarabeus Wagon

10. Settlement: Sudengard

I love this one. It's a straightforward use of weird magic in mundane ways. I love magic being not its own untouchable thing, but something that people live with day-to-day and reckon with in their plannings. Are the yellow color bars in this wagon a commodity traded at market? Whether they are or not, it's a reminder to me that I should feel free to create commodities tradeable at market, like the Necromantic Box.

This one is hard for me to read, not because it is bad, but because it is excellent. The contrast between Sudengard and my own writing shows off what is awful about my writing to a very great extent. There is so much investment here! What can I front, but Akilno and Mosdenechrak? I have given the most devotion of any settlement to Mosdenechrak, and it is a paltry collection of two quotes across three sections. This has twelve sections, or sixteen counting the different districts. It even has a demographic breakdown! I could write such a thing in Theoma, and I think I tried once in my notes for one theome, but I'm so intimidated. I feel like I would be bound to get it wrong. I am not sure I should list Sudengard, in fact, as I am not sure I can learn from it, though its minor disfluencies and errors speak to the relative ease with which it was produced. I can tell that I still worry too much, a lesson that I have faced many, many times and from which I have learned sometimes the wrong lesson...