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Kei- That sounds like a fun assignment, actually. Are there any rules about what the site should be about? I've never worked with Flash, or anything similar. Such things are beyond me, I'm afraid.^_^
I remember my first website- it was back when I was Wiccan. I did mine up in an interactive story kind of style- you know, where you go to a page and read some descriptive blurb about where you are and what you see. There's a few links to pages with information that fit the theme, and descriptions of various possible paths which are linked to the next page in the "story."
Since I was Wiccan at the time, naturally my website then was a cache of Wiccan history and information. Actually- the splash page would allow the visitor to wander off into the realm of anime, another major obsession of mine, and I figured it was nice to have an option for folks who didn't want to hear me going on and on about my religion.^_^ In hindsight it was probably not the best thing to lend credibility to a spiritual site, and a lot of other things about the site ended up making it look rather RPGish rather than strictly spiritual... redface ... but it was my first, I wanted it to be the sort of thing which was interesting just to read, and I wasn't really out to impress anyone.^_^' I probably could have done it better if my judgement had been a bit more mature at the time.
But putting it all together was a lot of fun- first I had the seeker walk along a dark forest path, where they encountered a guardian dragon, who gave the usual disclaimers about a spiritual site laying ahead which might offend some folks, and you should turn back now if you don't want to see it. For the background image I found a picture of some birch tree trunks- stark enough to give a mysterious kind of atmosphere (and make the text legible), but still very natural.
If they chose to keep walking, they came upon an old temple- the stairway leading up to which was flanked by certain statues which I can no longer remember. They were probably cats, knowing me.^_^' Possibly a cat and an ibis, actually- I met Bast and Djhwty fairly early on. At the top of the stair you met the temple cats and a guide- who was rather feline herself, but at least looked human. Human-ish, anyway.^_^'
Inside the temple there was a double row of statues, each dedicated to an animal spirit with whom I worked. If you clicked on one of the statues (links) it would take you to a page which had some small chant or poem about that animal, and it would describe the statue temporarily coming to life to tell the seeker something about what this animal spirit taught us- what traits it carried and so forth.
The temple had two wings, an altar room, and a set of double doors leading out the back. The left and right wings of the temple were dedicated to the Goddess and God, respectively, and were pretty much mirror images of one another- long hallways punctuated with three heavy wooden doors, on which were carved mysterious runes and which led respectively to collections of chants/invocations and poetry, a description of the role(s) of the God and Goddess, or descriptions of specific god/goddesses with some small images of various god or goddess figures. (At this point, I was one of those "all gods are one God, and all goddesses are one Goddess, and both are two Halves of the One" people. And I loved Scott Cunningham.^_^')
The altar room was basically a reconstruction of my own altar room in cyberspace, and I had pictures of my RL altar room to illustrate it. There was a link in the description which would allow someone to check my library (links to Tables of Magical Correspondences, versions of the Rede, essays on magical theory, descriptions of different types of magic, traditional Wiccan chants, Pagan Humor, an essay on Wiccan history, and pretty much anything else I could think of to put in there). I had a link from the description of the altar which would take the person to a series of photos of various altars I'd set up through my time in practice, and explanations about the significance of each. I think I had a kind of slideshow tutorial on magical tools there, as well. I think there was a link to my desk, which may have had information on magical alphabets... at this point my memory is foggy as to what exactly was there. Oh, and of course there was a picture of my cat- guarding the doorway into and out of the altar room.^_^
My favorite part of the site, though, and one which I was always trying to build upon as my experience in the religion grew, was what lay beyond the double doors. Out there was a courtyard of sorts- a sacred wilderness. I'd walk my visitor through forest paths, pointing out natural phenomenon and using them as metaphors to segue into some aspect of Wiccan theology. That part of the temple led through fields and forests, along a creek, and down into a cave which eventually broke through back into the lobby of the temple.
Ah, I enjoyed building that site. That was back when I was in college, too.^_^ I'd stay up all night at the computer lab, typing out quotes from books and looking for backgrounds which fit the style of each page without rendering it illegible. I got a lot of compliments on that site, actually- it was informative and fun to use, apparently. Too bad it was on one of those free servers, and when the server decided not to be free anymore I let it all go. It used up a lot of memory space, after all, and being a poor college student I couldn't conceive of ever having enough money to actually buy a domain to host it.^_^'
As it turns out, I ended up exploring a different path after all- but sometimes I wish I still had that first site. Just to take a stroll down memory lane, you know?
But anyway, that was where I first learned how educational website building could be! It really was a labor of love, but I learned a lot while looking for things to put on that site. Writing that bit about the courtyard walk especially helped me to explore Wiccan theology in an inspiring way, and those metaphors also proved to be quite useful in later talks during my interfaith/religious activist days.^_^ I considered doing something similar after I became Kemetic... but I still haven't forgotten how many hours I put into that other site just to lose everything, suddenly and rather randomly.>_<
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