READ THIS FIRST - Contribution Guidelines

Welcome to Duskara Collaborative Worldbuilding

Duskara is published under CC BY-SA 4.0 (Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike). You're invited to expand this world by creating settlements, characters, creatures, and cultural practices that fit within the established setting.

What Makes Duskara Unique

Duskara is a learned cooperation setting where eight centuries of survival on a tidally-locked planet have created a society that resolves tensions through institutional mechanisms, not violence. Your contributions should reflect these core principles:

Cooperative Survival – Duskara has no warfare, no military forces, no conquest narratives. Settlements compete for resources but resolve disputes through councils, neutral Wayseers, and trade negotiations. Violence is culturally taboo because it threatens everyone's survival.
Environmental Challenges – Primary conflicts come from wind storms, thermal extremes, water scarcity, dangerous fauna (wind serpents, heat hounds, auroral phenomena), and resource management. Not from other settlements.
Sensory Worldbuilding – Duskara is experienced through constant wind, thermal gradients, perpetual twilight or darkness, psychic impressions, and the struggle to maintain warmth and water. Your writing should evoke these sensory details.
Resource Scarcity – Water, geothermal energy, and rare minerals drive the economy. Every settlement carefully manages resources through councils and the Duskaran Accord. Population control, trade negotiations, and conservation ethics shape daily life.
Psychic Abilities – Weatherworking (sensing/influencing storms), thermal sensing (reading heat signatures), deep bonding (psychic connection to native creatures), and water-finding are established abilities. Don't invent new psychic powers—work within these frameworks.

How to Contribute

Step 1: Read the main Compendium to understand Duskara's tone, naming conventions, settlement types, and cultural frameworks.

Step 2: Choose what to create:

Settlements – Twilight belt cities or night-side cave communities with unique resource specializations, cultural practices, and trade relationships
Characters – Named characters with proper Duskaran names (follow phonetic guidelines), roles, psychic abilities if any, and personality
Creatures – Native fauna adapted to wind, darkness, thermal extremes, or bioluminescence
Cultural Elements – Festivals, ceremonies, mourning practices, coming-of-age rites, artistic traditions, music, crafts, social customs, governance practices, or philosophical movements tied to Duskaran life

Natural Phenomena – Environmental events, atmospheric conditions, geological features, psychic anomalies, or ecological patterns unique to specific regions or the twilight/night zones

Step 3: Create a new page in the appropriate "Pending Review" chapter of this book. Title it clearly (e.g., "Settlement: Stormhaven Ridge" or "Characters: Zhayrin kin-Moto Velkara").

Step 4: Write your contribution. Be detailed and sensory. Reference existing lore where relevant (wind-clan affiliations, thermal zones, psychic specializations, trade networks).

Step 5: I'll review your submission. If approved, it moves to the main compendium with your name credited. If rejected, I'll leave feedback explaining what needs changing.

What Gets Approved

✅ Fits cooperative survival tone (disputes resolved through councils, trade pressure, mediation—not violence)

✅ Uses established naming conventions (see Duskaran Names Guidelines in compendium)

✅ References existing lore appropriately (wind-clans, thermal zones, psychic types, resource scarcity)

✅ Adds sensory detail (how wind feels, what settlements smell like, thermal signatures, psychic impressions)

✅ Respects resource constraints (settlements can't have unlimited water or energy, population control exists, trade-offs are real)

✅ Stays within established tech level (wind turbines, geothermal exchangers, hydroponics, preserved Earth tech—no FTL, no nanotech, no AI beyond basic automation)

What Gets Rejected

❌ Warfare, military expansion, conquest narratives, armed conflict between settlements

❌ Names that violate phonetic rules (check compendium naming section for consonant clusters, vowel patterns, gender-appropriate endings, wind-clan designations)

❌ New psychic powers inconsistent with established abilities

❌ Technology that breaks setting (advanced AI, nanotech, FTL, energy weapons)

❌ Content that contradicts core canon (e.g., claiming a settlement has no water scarcity, ignoring wind phases, inventing a new environmental zone)

❌ Grimdark tone (oppressive authoritarianism, graphic violence, cynical nihilism—Duskara is hard but hopeful, cooperative not dystopian)

Writing Tips

For Settlements:

Where is it? (Twilight belt or night-side caves? Near day-edge or night-edge? What thermal zone?)
What's its resource specialization? (Geothermal energy, water source, rare mineral deposits, agricultural hub?)
Who lives there? (Wind-clan demographics—kin-Hanga surface weatherworkers, kin-Moto thermal specialists, kin-Kivuli cave dwellers, etc.)
What makes it unique? (Architecture adapted to wind, specific cultural practice, festival tied to aurora cycles, trade relationship with neighboring settlements)
What tensions exist? (Resource disputes with neighbors, internal class divisions, generational debates about risk vs. caution)

For Characters:

Full formal name (Personal name + kin-Clan + Surname, e.g., "Aelira kin-Hanga Thornvale")
Role/occupation (Weatherworker, thermal engineer, caravan trader, council mediator, water warden)
Psychic ability if any (Weatherworking, thermal sensing, deep bonding, water-finding—or none)
Personality sketch (2-3 sentences on what drives them, their conflicts, relationships)
Settlement of origin

For Creatures:

What environmental zone? (Twilight belt, night-side caves, day-edge extremes, subterranean depths)
What adaptations? (Wind-riding, thermal camouflage, bioluminescence, geothermal dependence)
Behavior and ecology (Predator/prey? Solitary/pack? Migratory patterns tied to wind phases?)
Human interaction (Dangerous? Bonded by beastwalkers? Hunted for resources? Avoided?)

For Cultural Elements:

What's the practice? (Festival, ceremony, craft tradition, musical form, governance custom, philosophical movement, social ritual)
What's the occasion or purpose? (Seasonal transition, life milestone, resource allocation, conflict resolution, spiritual observance, entertainment)
What actions/symbols/materials? (Water-sharing, wind-listening, thermal offerings, specific instruments, artisan techniques, dance patterns, data crystal recordings)
Who participates? (Whole settlement, specific wind-clans, age-grades, psychic specialists, guild members, family groups)
What does it mean culturally? (How it reinforces cooperation, resource ethics, psychic development, community bonds, or historical memory)
Regional variations? (How twilight belt vs. cave settlements adapt the practice differently)

For Natural Phenomena:

What environmental zone? (Twilight belt, night-side caves, day-edge transition, subterranean depths, upper atmosphere)
What are the physical characteristics? (Wind patterns, thermal signatures, light/aurora effects, geological formations, atmospheric composition)
What triggers or cycles? (Tied to wind phases, stellar activity, seasonal variations, geothermal fluctuations, tidal forces)
What are the dangers or benefits? (Threatens settlements, provides resources, creates navigation hazards, enables psychic phenomena, affects creatures)
How do humans interact with it? (Prediction methods, avoidance protocols, harvesting opportunities, psychic sensing, cultural significance, trade route planning)
Where does it occur? (Specific regions, settlement proximity, frequency and duration)

Attribution

Approved contributions will credit you by name (or username if you prefer) in the page metadata or a Contributors section. Under CC BY-SA 4.0, your work can be adapted and built upon by others, but you'll always be credited as the original author.

Questions?

If you're unsure whether your idea fits, create a page titled "Question: [brief topic]" in the appropriate chapter and I'll provide feedback.