Project "Nonfi Nis" - Week 38

The articles I wrote during that challenge are listed here: Summer Camp 2021

Also, I kept track of ideas for how I could include them in the game.

As you can see below, I did not complete all of the challenge's prompts. Besides time, one reason was that I could not think of any answer to those prompts that would benefit the Nonfi Nis project. (Or the main game, for that matter.) And while background flavor is always nice to have, I was trying to stay on track this time.

However, for those prompts which I did answer, I could think of a use more often than not. At the very least they could serve as decorative objects or as the inspiration for idioms used by the characters.

So... one reason why I did not get to writing this blog post earlier is that the people behind WorldAnvil are very generous with inspiring challenges. By the time I had recovered from the weeks of writing, September had arrived and with it came the "Shipwright Challenge". I did not want to miss that chance to write about Ycalla, the very ship around which the entire worldbuilding project had formed. The result is here: Ycalla (vehicle)

Then as soon as that challenge was finished, along came the "Spooktober" prompt list. And I thought: "Hey, why not do the same thing as I did with Summer Camp?"

As of writing this post, I have answered 5 of the 30 Spooktober prompts. This time around I am focusing on fleshing out ideas that I already had in some form - stub articles, concepts mentioned in earlier articles and so on. And I'm happy to say that 4 of these 5 are useful for Nonfi Nis! Yay!

• I wrote the long-overdue article about the Ralenlos Mountains where the shelters are located.
• I wrote about the day-night-cycle on Ranul - the reason why the "Empty Night" lasts about 8 days.
• I wrote about the lanterns used during the spring festival.
• I wrote about the crest on the Rul skull and finally settled on its function.

Let's have a closer look at the lanterns for the spring festival. What purpose will they serve?

At the most basic level, they can appear as background elements that make the storage room appear chock-full of the Op family's belongings. That may not sound like much, but as I've learned in recent years, flavor details should not be underestimated. Like 3D models that need a scratched texture to stop looking completely artificial, or fantasy costumes that look kinda bland before you start adding pouches, talisman amulets and/or a knife strapped to the ankle. But why are these little details so important?

Well, first of all, they add to the overall look-and-feel of the environment. As an artifact of the Rilanga culture, they will reflect their aesthetics, which in turn gives rise to different ideas about what their culture is like.

In case of the Rilanga, I wanted something elegant but at the same time well-ordered, emphasizing their ideal of conformity. This is why I went for clean, geometric shapes. The ornamental pattern is mainly composed of circles and ovals, repeating seamlessly. I always associated the Rilanga more with soft, smooth curves whereas the Ran-E-Zu have more harsh and edgy "feel" to them.

To stress the idea of a spring festival, I wanted these basic shapes to form something like flowers. I decided to color them in yellow and orange hues, partly because yellow is the national color of the Rilanga Union and partly because  these colors are warm and sunny. Fitting for the celebration of longer daylight phases and rising temperatures.

But for the background color between the petals, I faced a dilemma. The obvious choice would be a nice grassy green, reminiscent of the plants beginning to sprout from the ground and the leaves growing on the trees. However, green is the national color of the Ran-E-Zu, the mortal enemies! Awkward. I tried making the background red, but that looked more like an autumn color scheme than a spring one. Not ideal, either.

In the end, I went for a pale, yellowish green. Not quite fitting the color of Ranul's vegetation, but more in line with the color palette of the Rilanga. And it still looked nice and fresh.

One other thing that I had to think about was the material of the light screen. My first idea was paper, but this would be unlikely since Ranul is mostly a desert moon. Sure, there are lush forests on the coasts of Mustik Hamesi's seas, but I figured people would have better uses for those than turning them into lanterns which are only lit once every 521 days.

So what else could they use? Pergament? That would be a sensible option - a by-product of keeping livestock, probably. But then my mind locked on to another fact - they have lots of sand! As in the main ingredient of glass. This made stained glass the most logical choice.

The next thing I had to decide was the kind of light source that these lanterns would contain. I thought about using harnessed crystal fire - a volatile crystalline substance carefully exposed to oxygen. But that didn't really strike me as safe. Electric lightbulbs? Hrm... not quite. Those lanterns were supposed to be a long-standing tradition, and the Rilanga are a rather conservative culture. Candles, maybe? Or oil lamps... yes, that one felt about right.

Mind you, the oil that they use could not be fossil fuel because Ranul has very little of that. So I settled for oil extracted from certain tree nuts. That's another plant that may become useful in the long run - as environmental vegetation, as a trade resource, and who knows what else.

In the end, this gives me a set of lamps which are of a non-flammable material and offer an alternative to electric lighting. Hehe, I sense a power failure coming up in the Op shelter... and without a maintainer to fix it, these festival lanterns may be the only light source for a while... See how the ideas from the different prompt answers are coming together, forming a semblance of a game plot?

Finally, there is one more thing that these lanterns tell us. Why did the Op family bring them to the shelter? If they wanted emergency light sources, they could have brought regular candles or flashlights. Which they may have, too.

But these lanterns are used in the celebration of an annual event. A celebration that brings the community together. A holiday that is certainly tied to fond memories. In other words, the lanterns have sentimental value for the family - people who are now separated from their community and who probably expected to stay in the shelter for so long that they would celebrate there at least once.

Suddenly, these innocent background props became loaded with emotions. Emotions that make the characters relatable and that may bubble up to the surface at the worst possible time. Because of the rule of drama. Yes, that will be useful for increasing the stress level among the family members, and I can see a couple of dialogue lines appearing on the horizon.

Prompt lists are a great tool for exploring one's world. They can lead us in unexpected directions and spark random ideas that can be developed into something of actual use.

Everything inside a fictional world is connected to the rest somehow - the difficult part is figuring out the nature of those connections. Sometimes they emerge when we think things through to the logical conclusion. Why is that thing designed the way it is? Why would it be here in that place and at that time? What is it used for? What else can it be used for?

To avoid getting sidetracked by prompts, I also found it important to remember that these are only suggestions, not mandatory tasks. For instance, I'm following the Spooktober list very loosely, picking prompts out of order and trying to prioritize those that I can tie to the Nonfi Nis game on some level. What use is "winning" a challenge if it derails the project?

I'm curious where else the Spooktober prompts will lead me. I'll try to squeeze in another blog post between that challenge and the preparations for the next big challenge WorldAnvil challenge in December - also known as "WorldEmber".

Have you worked with prompt lists to develop your worlds? Feel free to let me know your favorites, and/or what you got out if it!