Blacksite: Summer Camp Prep 2026
Fun? In the sun? It's more likely than you think.
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Week One - Love
Love in Blacksite
But of course within the secret government Blacksites, love might look a little different at times. While Blacksites vary, all of them are dangerous to some extent. Here people love their weapons, they love each meal they might not have gotten without a little luck. They love managing to sneak past government agents or a horrific Monstrosity. They love when the Specter accepts their offering and allows them safe passage. They love each and every day in a way we could never.
And the intelligent non-human entities within the Blacksites? Hell, they love too. They love in ways even the people living among them might not understand either. There's more life out there than just humanity, and with it a vast ocean of emotion and experience utterly alien to the human mind.
A Devil may love their God-Empress, the Outrider with a reverent devotion the pope couldn't achieve. An Abomination can love a ruined childhood toy, the last fragment of their previous life as a human. A Monstrosity can love the low-frequency rumbles an elephant makes, a sound a human could never hear with the naked ear. A Specter can love their haunt, their ruined home appearing pristine to their ghostly senses. And an Aberration? There's no easy way to explain the things they may feel, let alone love.
Assignment: Pledge, Center of Mass
Writing things down was the solution, but also the enemy for me. It was always just so much easier to think things up, but so boring to write things down. New things were easy to write, I'd get the thoughts down on the page as they entered my mind. But I had a mental filing cabinet full of old stories and ideas that felt like a slog to get through, so they often went forgotten once enough time went passed.
But this year I told myself enough was enough. I don't want to forget all the characters I've created, all the stories I've told or have yet to tell. So I buckled down and actually started taking this seriously. Summer Camp 2026 is just another way for me to dive into the deep end of worldbuilding, to make something cool not just for others to enjoy, but so I have more space in my brain for the next page of this book with no end.
I've decided to take things sorta maybe kinda slow. While I've got a lot of fire in my heart for writing right now, things change and my free time isn't what it used to be. So for my first Summer Camp I've decided to shoot for the middle of the pack, a solid sixteen prompts for my first go at this. I figured it was a high enough number to keep me motivated, but not so high that I'd stress over getting done in time. If I finish more than sixteen prompts I'll be happy, but if I gotta cut it at 16 then I'll be satisfied too. But even if I don't hit sixteen, anything is better than nothing, so here I go I guess.
Week One Hopscotch
Updated Homepage and World Primer
Instead I got to adding stuff. Using the custom fields I added some important info, mainly the gimmick for how my world is presented. Essentially, I aim to avoid meta articles and information as much as possible. The articles are presented from the point of view of the people who live in the world of Blacksite instead of some omniscient narrator. It's a good start to the world, and I'm excited to add to more overtime and especially during the Summer Camp event.
Finally, for a little bit of styling, I went and found what is Blacksite's main banner image, and the default as well. I was happy just using the default that comes with the Eldritch Horror theme, but it felt right to at least customize the banner now. Eventually I want Blacksite to have it's own unique styling, and the banner is a good place to start.
I went with this piece by Raffaele Mainella, an Italian artist who lived between 1856 to 1941. The piece doesn't have a title, it was an illustration for a book called Nos Invisibles from 1907. It's an interesting work, written by a French spiritualist named Clotilde Briatte, who claimed to channel famous deceased writers of the time to write once more. It's the right amount of strange for the world of Blacksite, and the art is no different.
I'm glad public domain art like this is available for projects like mine which can shine light on and reinterpret previous works like Nos Invisibles, which I would have never heard of if I didn't go out searching for art to use on Blacksite's homepage.
Check out the homepage here!
I quickly decided to write it in-universe, like my other articles, but the thing is, a world primer is something that should be explained a bit more directly than other articles. I knew it would be tricky to make sure the information I wanted to convey was easy for people to pick up on, and I ended up putting together a decent draft. But of course what's clear to me isn't what's going to be clear to everyone.
I handed my draft to my editors and got some really good feedback. Mainly, that hey, this is the world primer so maybe meta information is required here. So I took a different approach, writing a separate article written by another in-universe author who could be more clear about the information I needed to get across. Unfortunately, the article just didn't meet my standards. While it was a lot clearer on the relevant information, it simply lacked the raw vibe the other draft did.
In the end, I decided to do a hybrid article of sorts. I went back to my first draft, cleaned it up a bit to be more clear, then added meta information in the sidebar and footer. This ended up being the best solution, and I even took some meta information I initially put on the homepage and stuck it onto the world primer.
In the end, I got an even cleaner homepage and a world primer that I'm proud of. I don't intend to do much more meta writing, but this definitely taught me that sometimes I need to suck it up and be crystal clear for the sake of the reader. Massive thanks to my editors for helping me realize this.
Check out the world primer here!
Week One Conclusion
Either way, I'm not upset about it. Considering the fact that I needed to do both the homepage and world primer from scratch, and I had very little time to do so, I think I did really great all things considered. While I wasn't able to do more than one hopscotch square, or the optional warm-up prompt, I'm still proud of what I was able to finish with my limited time.
If I end up getting more time in the coming weeks, I want to circle back to this week and try to do more hopscotch squares or even the optional prompt. But for now I'm okay letting this rest and being happy with what I was able to accomplish.
So that concludes the first week of prep for the Summer Camp, for now anyways. I'm really looking forward to the next series of assignments, because while I didn't do as much as I wanted to this week, next week I get another chance to do more.
Week Two - Growth
Growth in Blacksite
The time period I'm building out right now is known as the 'Reign of Control', at least that's what I call it externally. And naturally with Control there's going to be a lot of exchange of it, a lot of desire for it. That causes a lot of tension that serves as a backdrop for a lot of the conflict.
Summer Camp for me is a great time to grow those tensions even more, and let some of those springs unfurl and cause a little chaos from all the stress they've been under.
Assignment: Area of Focus, Agua Verde
Agua Verde, the Green, a cyberpunk Blacksite in Southern California ruled by blood sucking corporations and literal bloodsuckers too.
Week Two Hopscotch
The Why and Fun of Agua Verde
Agua Verde itself is a new addition to my lore actually. One of my friends linked the page of an upcoming RPG called Biophage in our discord server. It's a super cool system where its gimmick is that two players control a single character. A Host, and a Parasite come together to form what the game calls the Union, they fight for control of the Union and that leads to a lot of interesting character moments.
At the time when I decided to make a campaign for Biophage I was on a sort of cyberpunk phase. So it became a no brainer to place the story within a Blacksite that fit that vibe. I didn't have a cyberpunk location just yet, and so Agua Verde spung up to fill that void. It's the entire reason the Blacksite page it up to begin with. I've had a World Anvil account for years, and have dabbled in writing down my work here for a while, but never committed properly. I chose to commit when I started working on the Biophage campaign, which I'm calling Don't Fear the REPR.
Building out Agua Verde during this Summer Camp is going to be a lot of fun, and hopefully that fun translates into the campaign when it's ready <3
Related Articles
So for that reason, for the Summer Camp I've decided to just nuke all the blank articles I made before and start with a clean slate. No better time I think. So here's my new list of Agua Verde related articles. I'll start small, only three to start with, but I'll add more as inspiration strikes me. I've already begun my first draft of the first article, and I'll update the list with new items or check them off when I manage to finish them. Along with links of course <3
Each article will of course fall in line with the gimmick of my world's content being written by various in-world characters. My goal is for each article to paint a bigger and more detailed picture of Agua Verde, through the perspective of the people living in the world itself. I want readers to feel like they're standing in front of a stringboard with each article being a clue to a bigger mystery.
Concepts to Explore
Control: First and foremost, most of if not all the articles I plan on writing for Summer Camp take place during the 'Reign of Control'. This can take on many forms, but in Agua Verde it's mainly the control the megacorporations and The Family have over the city's populace. This Blacksite is cyberpunk to it's most extreme, a place where companies control where you live, where you can work, and how you can spend your money. If you're familiar with company towns, imagine that but on the scale of NYC. I aim to explore the intense control these corporations and government have on normal people trying to live their lives and how it's never to the benefit of the many, only the few. I want to explore how everyday people are pushed into extreme action to regain control of their lives as Control puts it's thumb onto the scale directly.
Survival: This one is more self-explanatory than the first, and ties into it as well. In such a hostile environment as Agua Verde and the surrounding landscape is, surviving day to day is a serious struggle for a lot of people. There are millions within the city who don't always know where their next meal will come from, or if they'll have a roof over their heads either. Even the people with more reliable living conditions have to fight for every scrap they can. There are very few people in Agua Verde that truly have no worries about the fundamentals of their existence. And still, this 1% fights for what they have as well. Not only did they likely have to fight for their position, but everyone in Agua Verde is one bad day away from poverty. It's very easy to vilify these people, who have everything they could ever want while millions die on the streets below their ivory towers. But everyone in Agua Verde is fighting for their own survival, even if that fight doesn't always look the same.
Morality: Continuing on with the theme, this concept also ties into the ones before it. Agua Verde is a messy place, filled with danger at every turn and plenty of people who have no problem stabbing you in the back to get ahead. Now, not everyone is like this of course. There's lots of folks willing to give you their last dollar or the shirt off their back if you need it. But that's where the line gets blurred. Just like in the real world, in Blacksite, and especially in Agua Verde; there's no clean separation between good and evil. Everyone you come across in the city has some blood on their hands, but they also have a halo above their heads. Everyone has to draw their own line somewhere, having to determine what they're willing to do to make sure they and the people they love are taken care of.
Each concept ties into the last and the one ahead. First comes control, where the powers that be put people into difficult positions where they need to fight for survival. The people fighting for survival need to do some morally wrong things at times to take back control of their lives. But these people are defined not just by the wrongs they did to take back control, but also by the good they do for those around them even at the expense of their own survival. In that way, they too regain control of their lives.
Agua Verde and Blacksite
The National Council for Anomalous Entities is a black budget agency that traces back to before the founding of the USA. Developing alongside the country it 'serves', the NCAE governs the Blacksites under its purview with a ruthless efficiency. While the NCAE technically reports to the US president, for all intents and purposes it's a semi-independent organization that makes its own rules and eagerly throws out the 'suggestions' the president offers. The NCAE is a lot of things, and a lot of people feel a lot of ways about it for good reason. But what no one can deny is that they're damn good at their job, which is keeping the existence of Blacksites and what happens inside them under wraps.
That's exactly why the NCAE is ideologically opposed to the Free Blacksite Collective. The FBC is a union of Blacksites all over the world that are not beholden to a world government. How they gained independence varies greatly, but they maintain that independence thanks to the FBC. Functioning similarly to the European Union, the FBC is an alliance between these independent Blacksites that all contribute to the independence of the others. It's the philosophy of FBC that the occurrences within Blacksites shouldn't be hidden from the world, that instead all humanity needs to do is learn how to deal with these extraordinary advancements and phenomenon.
Agua Verde itself broke free from the NCAE in the 1980s. Founded by a group of vampires known as The Family, they opened Agua Verde to various shadow corporations to buy up land and act with impunity. The influx of cash this brought in allowed The Family to buy their way into the FBC, promising advanced technology from the corporations and a cash injection to the FBC in exchange for membership. Ever since then, Agua Verde has been an NCAE target. Not just because they broke free from the NCAE, but also because Agua Verde has become the richest and most technologically advanced Blacksite in the world. This has started up a series of sabotage and covert operations between the NCAE and FBC as they struggle for control of the city. While this cold war isn't seen or heard about everywhere in the world, it's most certainly felt.
Category Structure
An issue I had before was making too many categories too quickly. I knew I would need them at some point, but it had the effect of making me feel overwhelmed by the blank space. Sure, eventually each category would be filled, but until then I'd have to look at those empty folders and pages every time I went to write.
To avoid that looming dread, I plan to keep things simple. I will only make a category once I have something fully written and ready to be categorized. I will also limit the amount of blank articles I make in order to keep myself motivated but not overwhelmed.
So as of writing this, the only category I'll make is the Agua Verde category. Inside that category will live the main Agua Verde article and the ones supplemental to it. Eventually more will join it if I write an article that would better fit a new category. And even further down the line when I detail another Blacksite I'll make a new category to hold the Agua Verde one alongside it's friends. But until then, simple is the goal.
Area of Focus Article
You see, for my world, I want to keep things in some way vague. I'm not a fan of spelling out exactly how things work in my lore, mostly because I feel it makes for dry reading. If I tell the reader everything in plain language, it'll feel like they're reading a Wikipedia page. That's fine at times, I enjoy going down Wikipedia rabbit holes at times too. But in my opinion that's only interesting for so long, or if you already have a strong enjoyment for the topic itself.
I want my work to be engaging, to make readers question the parts of the world I don't detail, to question the parts I do detail. My fear was that even with my articles being written in-universe and subject to bias and misinformation, writing a detailed article on something like Agua Verde would be too clear cut.
For that reason, my initial goal was for there not to be a main article for Agua Verde. That would also be the case for other large topics, such as major organizations and other Blacksites as well. Instead I planned on making those big topics categories instead. Then inside those categories would be articles that would come together to paint a bigger picture.
However, with the Summer Camp prep in full swing, I started to second guess myself. In times like this, my editors come in clutch with helping me clear my mind. They suggested that having a main article as an anchor would be better than not having one. That I was setting myself up for failure by being too vague, and I agree. Sometimes you get so lost in the sauce you fail to see the forest for the trees.
That's why for my area of focus article, I am making the main article. I have an interesting idea for it that's a blend of a few concepts. Essentially it will be sort of a collage of different in-universe writing. Instead of one writer giving a deep dive into Agua Verde, it will be several authors who's work has been complied to give a good foundation for further reading. The best part is that some of these sections could also be spun off into full articles themselves if they show promise.
I imagine this article will take a while to fully write, so I'll chip away at it when I can and link it here when it's done.
Week Two Warm-up Prompt
My second idea was about the Sonoran Desert, the portion adjacent to the city. While it is a real world for us, in the world of Blacksite it's home to raiders, anomalous entities, and other strange sightings. People need to cross the Sonoran to make it in and out of Agua Verde, a dangerous task that not everyone is able to see to its end.
After some thought I decided to go with my first idea, mainly because it was my first idea. But also because I have a feeling I'll be able to talk about the Sonoran plenty of times before Summer Camp ends. So it feels like a good idea to shine a light on one of the smaller aspects of the city.
Week Two Conclusion
I got farther along largely because the hopscotch squares for week two needed a lot less effort than the ones for week one did for me. For a lot of people, I imagine week one was also very simple, but since I'm still working on the foundation of my world, it's not surprising I didn't get to do more than one square last week. That only makes this week feel better, even if the effort required may not have been equal across both weeks.
I think it's only fitting that this week's theme was growth, because my progress certainly did. And the best part is that the coming week I have an actually good amount of time to dedicate to working on Blacksite. I'll actually be able to work on it every day of next week, which isn't an opportunity I had for the first two weeks of Summer Camp prep. My goal is to use that time to go back and work on some stuff I didn't get to finish before. I want to do some more of the week one hopscotch, as well as finish some of the articles I planned out.
Also, I've been getting some people reading this actually, and even one (1) comment! It's small, but extremely validating to know I'm not just shouting all of this into the void. That there's at least some interest in the world I'm making and the stories I want to tell. I want to also spend the time I have to check out other people's Summer Camp prep and spread the love. Thanks for reading, love you <3
Week Three - Loss :̶.̶|̶ ̶:̶;̶
Loss in Blacksite
But there is a deeper loss that sparked the world of Blacksite in the first place. The loss of the World Before scarred the most powerful beings in the world of Blacksite, the very entities capable of shaping worlds unable to forget the one they lost. This loss is the reason so much of existence is the way it is now. Because the only reason why these beings inherited the world, is because the ones that came before are no longer with us.
Loss is therefore, the inception of the world of Blacksite, and when it eventually disappears it's loss will be the inception of the world that takes its place.
Assignment: Writing Time In Summer Time
The section right above this one, about loss, is two hundred and twenty words long already. I was able to write that in about fifteen minutes. If I kept that pace I could write a three hundred word article in about twenty minutes. That means that with my goal of writing sixteen prompts, I could reach my goal in about five and a half hours of writing.
That's very fast assuming I only write three hundred word articles, but I can already tell you that's not going to happen. Unless the article is about something relatively minor, I can already see myself writing at least double that word count at a minimum. Assuming I keep the same pace, that means double the length would probably take me about forty minutes to write, which brings the total writing time to about ten and a half hours as well.
That ten hour estimate feels more realistic to me, but still somehow feels like too little time. I suppose that's because I don't publish my articles right away. After my draft is done I sent my articles over to my editors and get some revisions in before putting it out to the world. That part is less intensive for me however, and I can work on other things while I wait for them to get back to me.
At the moment, I don't quite know how much time in July I'll have to write. While one of my jobs has a set schedule, the other one doesn't. I really only ever know one to two weeks ahead of time if I'll have time to write. However there are some consistent times I have to write, mainly in the evenings after my main job. That's when I plan to get something done even if I'm too tired to dedicate a proper session to writing.
Week Three Hopscotch
Creative Process and Routine
When I go to write, I choose between two different modes, a free form session, or a more dedicated focused session. Free form sessions are when I either don't have a lot of time to commit to writing, don't have the energy to lock in that day, or just to get some work done in a more relaxed way if I'm ahead of schedule or haven't had a chill writing day lately. For these, I just pull up World Anvil and chip away at something. I let myself be distracted if I hit a block, and I freely take breaks as well. This is pretty much how I used to always write, but it makes for slow progress when you don't have something keeping you in line. I was frustrated with my lack of progress, so now I only do these kinds of sessions to chill or when the circumstances are right for it.
Under most circumstances, I like to do dedicated focused sessions. These are more involved, and I have a little ritual for them as well. The following is what I do to get in the right headspace to get some work done.
- I get something to drink. Water, an energy drink, doesn't matter. Just something to sip on while I think and in between paragraphs.
- I burn some incense. I love incense, the smell is super relaxing and it both helps me relax and stay on task. Conveniently, one stick of incense usually lasts about as long as one of my writing sessions. When it runs out, it's about time for an extended break.
- I put on some music, usually ambience of some kind because vocals while I'm writing tend to distract me. The specific type of ambience varies depending on my mood, sometimes I try to match it to the topic I'm writing, but that's not always possible so I don't sweat it.
- I start up my pomodoro timer. This guy might be the most important part of it all. Before using a pomodoro timer, I'd get distracted all the time, but having dedicated short breaks to cut up my writing really helps me stay on track. I do the basic twenty-five minutes of focus split up by five minute breaks, with an extended break after four focus timers. That's two hours of productivity, plenty of time to get some work done.
I am transparent with my use of AI, as seen on Blacksite's homepage. I only use AI for low level tasks which speed up my writing, but never replace it. I think AI can be a useful tool when you have proper boundaries in place, which is why I am very careful with my usage of it and limit that usage as much as possible. But I do understand that my boundaries are not the same as everyone else's. That's fine by me, we live in strange times and we all need to be careful with how we use this potentially destructive technology. But now that I've hopefully cleared that up, I'll tell you a bit more about how I actually do my writing.
My main focus is on my center window, the World Anvil one. That's obviously where I do the bulk of my writing, but if I need to dig deeper into a topic for research I'll use this main window as well. The support window on the left is for quick google searches or if I need to have something up for reference. For example, right now I have the World Anvil Summer Camp page open so I can see this week's hopscotch.
But that's all just setup, when it comes to actually writing something I have another little process. Since my articles are written by in-universe characters, I need to have something to help me embody them. To that end, in my notes I have writer profiles for the authors of the articles you can read on my page. Each one lists their background, reliability as a narrator, their strengths and weaknesses, all that kind of stuff. I want each of them to have their own voice, so having a reference document like that really helps to stay in character. And the fact that my articles are in-world documents means I need to use a variety of formats. Transcripts, emails, memos, it's a lot of fun exploring these different ways to write.
Once I've written my draft, I then send my work over to my editors. I call them editors, but really they're my friends who have agreed to let me send them stuff to look over. They've provided me with good feedback in the past and they make my writing better every time. Once they tell me what works and what doesn't, I go back and refine my draft until I'm happy with it. The amount of times this process repeats can vary, but usually it's not super excessive. After all that, I can finally publish the article, and that's the best feeling, being able to say I'm done.
Each article I get to do something new, something a little bit different. It helps keep me inspired and even just writing about my writing process is kinda fun. I don't imagine this section is terribly interesting for people to read, but it was neat getting my workflow down in some capacity.
Go for a Walk? Touch Grass??
It's a walk I wouldn't have been able to take a few weeks ago. I fell at work and couldn't walk for the next two days. The days afterwards I could only be on my feet for a few hours before the pain became too much as well. Thankfully though I've gotten it taken care of and am mostly recovered now. The walk didn't hurt at all and it was just nice to remember that. Nice to get away from what I felt like I needed to do.
In the past, I would always get in my head about whatever I was working on creatively. Mostly my TTRPG campaigns. I'd feel so bad for spending time not working on them, I'd get married to the effort needed to bring them to life and it really sucked the life out of it for me. When Summer Camp started, I decided to put a hard pause on the ones I was planning before. To focus on the fundamentals of the world and worry about the games later. That's done wonders for my mental. I don't think I'd have enjoyed the walk as much if I was constantly thinking about what I needed to get done for my games.
The sun wasn't too bad, and despite it being hot out I wasn't too uncomfortable so I walked around my apartment complex for a while. It's something I used to do a lot more often a few years back. When I moved out of my parents house, I brought our family dog with me since she had effectively become my dog over the years. She's still around, but just gotten old and has retired to live with my older sister instead. But for the time that I had her, I would take her on long walks around the property each day.
Spending Time in World of Darkness
A lot of my favorite worlds are video games. I haven't played any games too recently, I think before today it had been a solid month+ since I played anything. But I had a pretty big gaming phase in my teenage years like a lot of people do. I still play games, I have a massive backlog. But I just don't have too much free time to play them as much as I used to. I don't mind really, gives me more time to worldbuild and do TTRPG stuff. My gaming habits tend to come in waves really, I'll play them a bunch for a few months, then cool off while I do something else.
Since I've largely used games to engage with my favorite fictional worlds, it made sense to boot up a game from one of these. Now, since Dragon Age is my favorite fictional world it would make sense to play some of that. But honestly, I just don't think I can commit to a one hundred hour long playthrough of one of the games. So instead I picked another one of the worlds on my list, Word of Darkness.
I was first introduced to Word of Darkness through some videos about Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines. It came out before my time, but it's well known for a reason. I went ahead and played it and just like a lot of people, I thought it was pretty damn good. Mind you, I think it's a bit overrated at times, but it's a special game that is very capable of turning someone into a Word of Darkness fan. After playing through the game, I played three other Word of Darkness games, played in a brief Hunter: The Reckoning campaign, and now I'm planning a Vampire: The Masquerade game myself. That RPG is largely on the backburner, but I do plan to run it at some point
Either way, for this square of the hopscotch I finally got around to playing the DLC for Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2. I know a lot of people have a lot of opinions about the game, so do I. But this isn't really the place for that. I'll simply say that I enjoy the game, I think it's cool even though it's not the best thing ever either. It could be better, but so can a lot of games, I'd give it a soft seven out of ten.
The two DLCs for the game are officially out, and I had put off playing them until now because I was so busy with work and now worldbuilding. However now my worldbuilding directly involves it, so it was nice to have an excuse to play a video game again. I haven't finished the first DLC yet, but I'm enjoying it so far. I can't tell if they ramped up the difficulty or if I'm just washed. I'm getting the hang of it slowly though, I'll try to finish it either tonight or tomorrow. However even this brief dip back into the World of Darkness made me realize how much I missed exploring someone else's worlds.
I get so lost in the sauce when it comes to Blacksite sometimes that I forget that there's more out there. Tying it back once more to this week's theme, I feel like I lost a lot of the appreciation for my influences with how much time I've spent away from them recently. I should explore other worlds again, especially the World of Darkness. Just that little time gave me several ideas for plot points in that future V:TM game I want to run eventually. But that's for the future, I still need to work on Blacksite.... after I finish the Bloodlines 2 DLC of course.
I’m Not Much of a Reader
Since this is for Summer Camp, I decided to check out the Summer Camp articles from the people who liked this article. Along with that I read one additional article from that creator as well.
From Bit17, I read their Summer Camp prep, along with their settlement article about Valora. Bit17's world is certainly different from Blacksite. It seems to be a lot 'brighter' than the dark places Blacksite is intended to explore. But honestly I love that, reading the about the cute settlement of Valora within the world of Tydas was a nice change of pace. Also, just like me it's Bit17'sfirst Summer Camp as well! So lots of love to them, I hope we both cook up something cool for our projects.
By now, I've also noticed something pretty clear... My stuff might be a bit too long. My Summer Camp prep is already huge, I guess since I've been treating it like a diary of sorts. But also the articles I'm drafting up are already longer than what Bit17 did for their Valora article. All while making that article perfectly fine and fun to read. On their Summer Camp prep, they mentioned writing the basics and then expanding later. While that feels strange to me, I get a bit in my head at times for when something is done, it's a good thing to keep in mind. Because the article on Valora was a good one without being super long, and I need to remember that long ≠ quality.
From Make lore, not war, I read their Summer Camp prep, along with their character article about Asunta, the Black Maiden. They have a fun spin on Summer Camp this year, since they have four worlds, they're going to dedicate one week to each of them. I think that's pretty cool, so when I went to pick an article of theirs' to read, I chose one from the world of Crux Umbra. It's dark, spooky, and supernatural just like Blacksite so it was an easy pick to learn more about for me. I said before that I'm not much of a reader, and I think that's largely because words alone struggle to hold my attention, but this article sure did. I love the vibe of the world, and I definitely intend to read some more. And once again, the styling is cool as fuck and now I really will set aside some time to make Blacksite look half as cool as Crux Umbra does.
More importantly though is what I read on Make lore, not war's Summer Camp prep page.
Somewhere along the way, I stopped treating the prompts as ideas and started treating them as obligations.
Reading this hit me so hard. Because I recognized there and then that I was already doing this now. I began week one okay with not doing it all. I said that I'd do what I could and be happy with doing something at all. But then week two hit and I insisted on doing every hopscotch, and I'm doing the same thing now. I'm even updating my progress on this page every step of the way.
And while I don't think any of that is necessarily wrong, it's certainly something that has the potential to be wrong. Fact of the matter is that I've written more on this prep page than on my real deal articles for my world. So I do think some course correction is in order!
Putting it all together, here's what I learned from checking out the writings of my fellow Anvilites.
- Articles don't need to be a mile long. Sometimes short and sweet is all you need. After all, I can always expand them later.
- Summer Camp is NOT an obligation. It's for inspiration, for fun. I need to remember that I don't need to do everything. If there's a hopscotch or prompt I miss, then I miss it. I need to remember my initial statement, that I'd do what I could and be happy with doing something at all.
- Take some time to work on not just the content of the world, but also the presentation. It's the way readers see the world before they look at the words. Not that a fancy layout will make my world more compelling, but it certainly won't hurt.
- It's also okay to get a bit carried away at times. Writing sections in this page for each hopscotch is fun! It helps me get my thoughts down and internalize what I've learned. So I certainly won't stop anytime soon. I'm at over ten thousand words right now, what's a few thousand more?
Week Three Conclusion
I mentioned in the section about reading the works of others on World Anvil helped to ground me. I really took what I learned to heart and just chilled out after finishing up what I had. Instead of continuing onward, I just took my time and went back to finish two articles I had neglected to wrap up. It feels really nice to have them be marked as finished. Even if I can already think about how I want to expand one of them, I don't mind. I'm really trying to focus on what I said about being happy if I do anything at all. So far it's working.
I really recognize now that I really bit off more than I could chew, and I was in danger of choking if you'll allow the silly metaphor. For week four, my goal is to not repeat the same mistake. I'm going to take it easy and focus on keeping myself on a good pace more than anything else.
Week Four - Family
Family in Agua Verde
I've mentioned it before on this prep page, but The Family are the shadowy overseers of Agua Verde. Before they became monsters they were part of the Russian aristocracy. Then one of their own emerged from the Festival of Blood as a first generation vampire. This family slowly spread, before a splinter group eventually made their way to what would eventually become Agua Verde. Back in the day, it was a small fishing town, but over a hundred years The Family transformed it into the most technologically advanced city on planet earth. One of the most prominent Blacksites to have ever existed. A Blacksite whose true rulers are for the most part anonymous. From the outside, you'd think the megacorps owned Agua Verde, but they just lease the land. The true rulers, The Family, are beyond the scope of comprehension of the people they rule over.
The Family does have an actual name, Volkovsky, but that name is so hidden that no one in Agua Verde calls them that. They trace back their linage to a prominent boyar family from the 1400s. Back before Russia was even Russia. They changed a lot over the many centuries they've been around, barely surviving a political purge and climbing their way back to aristocracy hundreds of years later before eventually becoming vampires.
To the waking world, the Volkovsky family vanished. They were so close to reclaiming their lost status. But in reality the became something far different. Now an ocean apart from their original home, The Family rules over Agua Verde from the shadows. The last time they ruled in the light, their family was purged and barely survived. This time they know better, and the people the subjugate will know nothing.
Assignment: My Worldbuilding Goal
I see people who are obsessed with a fictional world, they live and breath it. They know everything about it and have piles of fan theories, fan art, fanfiction and everything in between. I want someone to love my world that much. I want for someone to say "Blacksite" when someone asks them what their favorite fictional world is. That is my biggest dream. If even one person is as crazy about my world as someone is for Middle Earth, then I know I've succeeded.
That's why I'm hyped about Summer Camp. It gives me a chance to fill out my world and put it out there for people to see. It will be a part of the groundwork for something much bigger. And perhaps that something bigger will land in front of the person I'm looking for, Blacksite's biggest fan that isn't me.
Week Four Hopscotch
Taking a Break
Summer Camp prep has lead me to properly create a homepage, write three articles, plan out several articles, and most importantly get my mind straight when it comes to worldbuilding. That last one is going to take some discipline to keep steady, but I have hope that I can keep myself in check. I'm proud of the prep I did, and I think Summer Camp itself is going to go just fine so long as I remember what I've learned.
So this time, unlike with weeks two or three, I will be doing zero additional hopscotch squares from week four. Instead I'm going to take it easy... but that doesn't mean I won't do something. I'll spend this last week doing a little clean up. I think I'll actually do some hopscotch squares from week one, since they are much more fundamental to the world. I also want to chip away at some of the articles I have planned out right now. But hey, maybe I won't do any of that either? Maybe I'll just vibe and play a video game or something. I'll say it one more time: I'm going to do what I can, and be happy I've done something at all.
Summer Camp Prep Extras
Cleaning Up
Now, I'll be completely honest. I don't really expect people to actually read this thing. It's a lot of words (11,962 as of right now), and I'm not going to pretend like my ramblings are particularly interesting. Maybe a few people will skim it? I'm not sure, but this document got unwieldly sometime around week two. But it was still bothering me how much scrolling was involved, and how poor the layout honestly was.
So I set aside today to fix that. If you happen to be like the one (1) person who saw this page before the reformatting, you'll remember what it looked like before and I hope you agree that it looks a hell of a lot better now. Granted, that one person I'm talking about is me, but still.
Even if this was just for me however, and even if I broke the page like ten times, I still think it was a good use of my time. While I don't expect most of my articles to ever get this long, learning some proper formatting is never a bad thing. It was a good way to learn the advanced editor also. In the past when I initially tried out World Anvil, it's what I used exclusively. That was back when the simple editor wasn't as powerful though, so when I returned I mostly used the new version of that. To be honest, I still intend to use that editor even after relearning the advanced editor.
Finally, reformatting this helped my finalize my formatting rules for Blacksite. I already had a few in place, such as every instance of the word "Blacksite" being bold and in the color red. But there were some I hadn't standardized yet, such as if I should use italics or bold for emphasis, when to use single quotation marks over double quotation marks, how to color code internal and external media.
That's also a thing that's not terribly interesting, but consistency with this kinda stuff is important. Not that Blacksite's formatting will be entirely consistent though. Since the gimmick of this page is that the articles are written by in-world authors, they will have their own variations for this kind of stuff. But that's okay, because now that I know what the rules are, I know how and when to break them... like I did on the Blacksite homepage by making all the emphasized words in the world intro red when they technically shouldn't be. But I'm, sure you can forgive me <3
Return of Week One Hopscotch!
New Timeline
I originally had a different timeline, about The Silent City Blacksite. But that was when I was more actively planning some stuff for that Blacksite. Right now since Agua Verde is the focus, and since I don't plan to revisit The Silent City too soon, I just deleted the timeline and its historical events to start from a clean slate. Eventually it will live again, but that day is not today.
The timeline for Agua Verde is fairly empty right now. There aren't too many events on it, and none of them have any kind of descriptions either. I'm considering it a draft for that reason. I'm still trying to figure out exactly how I want to present the timelines for my world. As in, who of my in-world authors writes the descriptions? How much context do I want to give readers? That kind of stuff. All questions I need to mull over before I commit to anything just yet.
So instead I focused on getting some key events I already know about on there, plus establish some world eras. More fundamental work that will help me later on down the road. I'll have the timeline simmering in the background, adding events as I cook them up, and eventually filling out those historical events properly. Until then, it's a good start.
Speaking of start, I didn't start any maps like the hopscotch mentioned. Right now, I'm trying not to overdue things like I did in previous weeks. I've never messed with maps before on World Anvil, so I don't quite want to learn a new feature with my limited time. That's something I'll figure out eventually, I'm in no rush when it comes to that.
World Meta
At first, I didn't intend for it to be public actually. I've said before that I want to avoid as much meta information as possible. So a document literally called "World Meta" didn't seem like it would be something I'd share with the world. However as I was filling it out, I noticed that I was wrong about it. It's not the first time I've filled out a world meta, but it had been so long since I gave World Anvil a go that I forgot what the process was like.
In the end, there's nothing in the world meta that spells things out in the way I feared. Mostly since I was careful with my wording, but even so the questions posed in it weren't hard to work around. And now I have a meta document that has no more dangerous information than my world primer did. For that I'm thankful, and hopefully anyone who cares about my meta document will be thankful as well.
Just like the Agua Verde timeline however, I wouldn't consider my meta document to be completely finished. While it is more finished than the timeline was, it could still use some tweaks. I'm not bothered though, the meta document is supposed to be a living one as the world expands from what I understand. And besides, the main thing I want to fix up is the inspiration section. I want to make it look nicer and detail how those things inspired me.
Check out the world meta here!
Week Four & Summer Camp Prep Conclusion
I thought I'd be able to jump in and knock out the prompts I wanted to do and that would be that. But when I started working on the homepage, on the world primer, on the small things I didn't realize mattered, that's when Summer Camp really sucked me in. Sucked me in so hard I still didn't take week four as easy as I originally intended. It's a good thing I rolled to take a break, because it helped me catch up on the remaining articles I started during the prep phase but didn't finish. But I don't feel like I failed to pace myself, even as I'm finishing at 1AM on the day Summer Camp starts for real. Because these last few days I've been nothing but inspired. And that inspiration could've only come from the prep I had to do to begin with.
I learned so much and developed a lot in this very short period of time. I have the prep phase to thank for that. And I have the people I've met along the way to thank for that too. I started this page thinking no one would read this wall of text, but some people have. Some of them even went on to read my proper articles too. The kind words they left behind also did wonders for my mental, kept me going when I started to get tired. If you were one of those people thank you, I hope to spread the love sometime soon when I'm not so locked in on my own stuff. And if you're reading this now for some reason, thanks to you too. Come along for the ride? <3















Best of luck on your first SC! I think challenges like this one is a great way to make some room for your mental cabinet and explore ideas you had under different percpectives! Have fun with it ^^ Wish you the best!
Summer Camp is here and so is My pledge! <3
Visit my world of Kena'an for tales of fantasy and magic! Or, if you fancy something darker, Crux Umbra awaits.
Thank you so much for the support! It's super nice to know that I'm not just shouting into the void with this. I'm already really enjoying it so far and can already say this probably won't be the last time I participate in these kind of events <3<3<3<3