Regional Taskforce W15

Seagazer

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Regional Taskforce W15 - Vardýnn

« on: 17 November 2015, 03:56:07 »

Welcome to the primary thread for the first cycle of the Regional Taskforce system, the Winter 2015 cycle. Please reply on this thread if you want to join the taskforce or if you want to propose a change to the taskforce itself.

What is a Regional Taskforce?
A regional taskforce is a group project focusing on a particular area, either geographic or topical. The taskforce can be composed of any interested contributor to the Dream, whether an old hand or a newbie. A cycle of the taskforce is made up of two rounds.

The first involves the reading of a set of essential readings of entries that are already on the site, and then the composition by each member of the taskforce of a new short entry that is connected to some or all of the essential readings. In the second round, each member writes another entry, this time based on the entries of the first round. Hopefully, each cycle provides a group of closely connected contributions to the Dream that promote both integration and creativity.

Topic:
The Santharian province of Vardýnn, with a particular emphasis on the human inhabitants of the province.

Group Members:
1.   Seagazer (Witchking's Cliff)
2.   Altario (Cahlgrey)
3.   Val (Canyssa's Gate?)

Essential Integrations:
Each entry in the first round should integrate the following references.
1.   The Erpheronians
2.   Thar the Great
3.   Armeros
4.   Aerelian Lakes
5.   Churican

Helpful Readings:
Those who are interested in participating might find the following resources.
1.   Map
2.   Rayne's Masterplan

Ideas for Entries:
Rayne compiled a list of possible entries, but I made consolidated some entry ideas below.

Remember: SHORTER IS BETTER. We want momentum in this, so entries should take no longer than a few weeks to write. Don’t pick some monster entry unless you’re willing to spend serious time each day on it.

Places:
1.   Hèckra
2.   Twinnean Peak
3.   Crow Hills
4.   Witchking’s Cliff
5.   Island of Paragonj
6.   Vandrina River
7.   High Fores
8.   Efirhal
9.   Midlanir
10.   Westhorn
11.   Accam
12.   Thyslan
13.   Cemphiria
Natural World (take note of Rayne’s analysis in Masterplan thread):
1.   Pill bug: little wingless bugs that can roll up into a ball for protection.
2.   Centipedes: Things with multiple legs. Feel free to use your imagination to spice them up.
3.   Spiders: Both poisonous and not poisonous to create beautiful webs in our plains and forests!
4.   Grasshopper and cicadas: they hop, they fly, they sing—Vardýnn would love to have some of these talented creature.
5.   Moths and Butterflies: Small creatures that live off the nectar provided by the flowers that grow in the area.
6.   Water Bugs: Little insects that live in the water or that, in their larval stage, live in the water.
7.   Finches: Small birds that eat insects like Malise, Myrmex, spiders, and flies
8.   Falcons and hawks: Predatory birds that eat small snakes, fish, and rodents
9.   Sea-birds: We have gulls, but some other shore-birds might be nice!
10.   Turtles and Tortoises: Reptiles that may hang out around the lakes and rivers, eating small fish and insects that live there.
11.   Snakes: some common snakes, poisonous and nonpoisonous, would be wonderful for our grasslands.
12.   Newts and salamanders: Slimy creatures that like moist conditions.
13.   Frog and toads: We have some, but I would love a few more to join our croaking choirs!
14.   Rabbits: Animals that hop around. We need some for our forests and plains!
15.   Chipmunk and marmot: Small, scurrying creatures to inhabit our forests and plains.
16.   Moles and groundhogs: Under-ground, digging rodents to cause terror to the local farmers.
17.   Weasel: Long and slender creatures with short legs that slink about prairies and plains, similar to the mimsey.
18.   Racoon: Bandits in furry forms.
19.   Otters and Beavers: As well as any cute, water-friendly creature you can think of!
20.   Trout: Fish for our rivers and such that eat small insects in the water as well as other fish.
21.   Minnows: Silvery little fish perhaps similar to the Mithralfish.
22.   Shiners: Silver fish, very minnow-like with big eyes.
23.   Flounder and sea-fish: Fish to populate the western coastline.
24.   Crabs: Small crabs, large crabs—salt and fresh water—for our lakes, rivers, and shore!
25.   Flowering plants: Flowers for sunlight and flowers for shade—enough flowers to throw a great flower parade!
26.   Vines and creepers: We need some for our forests, to clime and drape gently from our trees, and those for our plains, to creep quietly across the ground.
27.   Fruits and Vegetables: I would love some more squash-like plants, as well as pears, plums, etc.
28.   Water plants: Algae and other water plants that grows in or near rivers and lakes.
29.   Grasses: Perhaps some more varieties of grasses in the spirit of alth’ho and wean grass?
30.   Grains: For the baking of bread and the brewing of beer and ale!
31.   Mushroom: We need many more!—for woods, for lakes, for teas and cakes! For slime and stink, for waste and rot, we need some ‘shrooms, and need a lot!


« Last Edit: 24 November 2015, 01:02:21 by Seagazer »	Logged

Coren FrozenZephyr

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Re: Regional Taskforce W15 - Vardýnn

« Reply #1 on: 17 November 2015, 04:02:26 »

May I make a suggestion? Instead of five major entries, could we perhaps select 1 major entry and 4 smaller ones? Those five entries are quite a lot to go through and might discourage people who don't know anything about Vardynn from participating.

The added benefit of this suggestion would be that (depending on the five entries we nominate) it would challenge us to be creative to find connections.

Remember: For round 1, each entry has to incorporate all 5 entries somehow.


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Re: Regional Taskforce W15 - Vardýnn

« Reply #2 on: 17 November 2015, 04:07:41 »

Coren, absolutely!

I think that the Erpheronian entry is probably the most important, so that has been moved to the primary entry, and I removed some of the larger ones.

Check it out and see if it works for you.


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Seagazer

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Re: Regional Taskforce W15 - Vardýnn

« Reply #3 on: 19 November 2015, 09:37:20 »

Who wants to contribute to the group project?

I assume Coren is interested, given the origin of the idea, but it would be cool if it was a genuine group project.

You don't need to do something very big, just a grass or turtle or hamlet.

Don't all come at once!


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Coren FrozenZephyr

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Re: Regional Taskforce W15 - Vardýnn

« Reply #4 on: 19 November 2015, 15:31:22 »

Or a myth, story, person, artefact. Small is good.


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Re: Regional Taskforce W15 - Vardýnn

« Reply #5 on: 20 November 2015, 10:08:29 »

Okay, I will tentatively be writing an entry on Witchking's Cliff and surrounding folkore on the Island of Saenyhal.

It should be spooky and unsettling, but undeniably Santharian.


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Altario Shialt-eck-Gorrin

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Re: Regional Taskforce W15 - Vardýnn

« Reply #6 on: 23 November 2015, 08:39:58 »

I would like the village of Cahlgrey, which includes origin stories for the naming of the Bow and Crossbow rivers. I had ideas when I suggested these names for Arti when the map was being created.


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Val O´Neil

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Re: Regional Taskforce W15 - Vardýnn

« Reply #7 on: 23 November 2015, 15:29:36 »

I would like to participate... I was scrolling around the map and in particular Canyssa's Gate piqued my interested, as did a lot of the things in the area surrounding it. I simply cannot stop thinking about the gate...

However, I have a dilemma- I don't even know what story to give it. And the deadlines you have posted up are daunting to me. I know we're going for momentum here, but I'm not sure I can keep up with your status quo. I have three jobs in the real world, and while I do carry around a notebook exclusively for writing santharian material whenever I have a moment to, I am undoubtedly busy and worried that taking up part of this will result in frustration on your part.

Perhaps I am looking at this wrong? Perhaps I'm trying to eat the sandwich from the middle out?


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Re: Regional Taskforce W15 - Vardýnn

« Reply #8 on: 24 November 2015, 01:00:57 »

Don't worry about the deadlines.

I'll remove all the dates, it was perhaps overly ambitious.


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Artimidor Federkiel

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Re: Regional Taskforce W15 - Vardýnn

« Reply #9 on: 24 November 2015, 03:29:43 »

Yeah, I guess deadlines probably aren't the best option here. We all have very different time resources, and that's part of a spare time project - that people can choose what and when they do it. Should be fun for contributors to do something, so I personally would always recommend to allow everyone a good deal of freedom. We cannot enforce contributions, we can mainly try to provide the atmosphere that people enjoy working on something. Or strive for that.

Anyway, personally as I already said have other things on my plate right now, so it's unlikely that I can write something myself in the near future for the Vardýnn project. However, I've got a week off from the 7th until the 12th of December, so I'd like to do an update then with the stuff we have ready then.

We'd also need a couple of pics, so maybe check out some galleries from artists who allow us to use their works:

Hugo's gallery
Bkiani's gallery
Reegen's gallery

Maybe you've got a suggestion or two where we could put something. Just be aware that some works are commissioned and therefore cannot be used, see the notes on some pics (e.g. at Reegen's gallery).

P.S. The "Odd House" (by Bkiani) might fit into the last part of my "Journey" story - the protagonist ends up in a hut like this somewhere out in the spooky middle of the swamp, so I'd like to pick that.