Pledge Article

As always, PDFs hate me, however my intended pledge level, given my years of success, despite the last few months, is Diamond. Though I may not reach it, the Feral gremlin in me cannot resist the siren call of the shiny badge yes yes. And thus, this year Adventures in Valerick will once again pursue that shiny diamond accomplishment for better or for worse.



This year I am forgoing messing about with much of the homework, including the Meta. It simply does not appeal to or concern me in that way. My homework is simply to vibe, to get revved up, to get connected with the community I love and have missed once again over the month of June in preparation to be the absolutely Feral little SC hype gremlin I adore being. This and WE are the fuel to my love of this community beyond just my own obsessive creativity, the love and passion I have for touring other people's imaginations, for being welcomed into such places as a honored guest and welcome friend is simply a beautiful thing I adore. I believe the creative aspect of one's person, though by it's nature being imaginative, fictional, and well creative, making things up, that part of one's mind and soul is also something very sacred, very personal, and those whom share that with others are sharing a deeper trust than many ever share with each other in their lives outside family and romance. You are opening up some personal part of yourselves to gen pop as it were, giving them a peek under the hood of your labyrinth of a mind and personality through allegory, through story-telling, through artistic expression. That is fucking beautiful and I absolutely adore it. Thus my personal homework goal is to get active with stickers, with comments, with catching up on some reading in the worlds I follow, and most importantly to begin riding the hype in that wonderful Summer-Camp room and with the community I adore beyond any other I am part of again.

To that end as I am not involved directly in any way with SC this year, neither as a judge nor a prompt suggestion, nor with any prior knowledge of any kind, part of the fun I am going to have and welcome others whom are similarly without any knowledge (so most of us) to engage in on the comments of this pledge every week as we cover our homework, is a fun little bingo game. For each theme, once I discuss my thoughts and how I envision where this theme might lead me in Valerick, I am going to then present a list of eight article templates and very rough/broad 'promptings' of like my guesses of what me might see. I wish to test my precognitive abilities and I invite all of you to play along with me. Who knows perhaps one of us will discover we have a real life super power!



In Valerick, the word Nourishment of course first brings to mind, as I'm sure it does for many, the simplicities of food and drink. Those most necessary things to stay alive. Within just those two simple ideas alone we have a veritable plethora of material we could explore, any of us in our worlds, if that was our tastes. However SC has never been about it every prompt being so....simple within its theme, and thus, I would also beg one to consider taking the word to further heights.

Religions, for example, spiritual beliefs, those sorts of shared traditions and rituals that define groups and cultures and are oft referred to in ways such as 'nourishing' or fulfilling the soul or spirit. Education, for is not knowledge and the pursuit of learning and higher understanding nourishment for the mind? These are but the barest scratchings just below the obvious surface of such a word and have me eager to explore it in Valerick, a land filled with the mystic and the nightmarish, with dreams and nightmares and the supernatural playing such a deep role in the setting and world, I believe this wave of prompts might offer some interesting takes and some fun explorations of the world in directions and areas I have not yet fully fleshed out.

Nourishment is a wonderful word-cloud prompter that at first, might feel narrow. However as I consider my own setting, I would implore any whom fear it will be naught but food and food adjacent articles to consider this very practice and hobby we all engage in as an example of how broad such a word can truly be. For is this hobby, this passion, not nourishment for the soul, for the mind, creating fulfillment and joy of its own sort that whilst not keeping you alive in the most stereotypical sense, makes life worth living. For what is life without joy, it is naught but mere survival and for creatures with heightened sentience such as humans, that simply is not enough. We do not last long under such circumstances. Thus I beg you to consider the wider less direct applications of the word as you begin to try and parse and guess what sort of prompts might come from this wave. For myself, with the help of the lovely Strixxline and Owen as well as others, my list of eight was rounded out, and thus I present my first eight guesses as to some prompts we may see for the SC precognition challenge I am putting myself up to. If you read this far, I do encourage you, to test your own precognitive abilities (provided you are not one of those with some knowledge of what's coming of course) to take part, make your own little table as I will have for each week, and let see if any of us possess imaginative predictive powers!

Article Template	Broad Prompt Estimate	Y for Yes, N for No
Species	A species that is/provides a core staple to the tables of people in your world	N
Document	A document that exists as a guide to enlightment in some spiritual sense OR a cookbook	N
Condition	A condition that alters, supresses, accelerates, or otherwise changes or twists appetite/dietary needs.	Y
Settlement	A settlement that is sustained through nourishing a larger beast.	N
Species	A species that acquires nourishment and subsistence in a strange, altered, or uncommon way.	N
Profession	A profession tied to insuring the nourishment, nutritionally or otherwise, of society	Y
Building	A place where the peoples of your world can seek nourishment, be it of body, mind, soul or in some other fashion.	N
Tradition/Ritual	a common tradition/ritual known to replenish the body or mind	0.5

And thus, with that, the homework begins, the anticipation begins, and the weekly updates to this (which I will be resharing weekly after all, I want to keep showing my updated precognition table) begins. So what do we all think of my guesses? I'm confident I'll likely get at least 3 right (or reasonably close to right) from week one. Are there any that I didn't put here you believe will come up more likely than some of mine (I'm sure there are) or what are your own guesses, either just a couple, or even if you want to play along, a full eight set. Go ahead and comment, or even add your own guessing game table to your SC prep, I highly encourage it. With that, we await with bated breath the week two reveal of our word-cloud prompt and the next bit of discussion and idea storms that come with it.



This second theme has me wandering the halls of history and I must say its a messy and convoluted place, with a lot of threads to pull and interesting tidbits to explore. The Void may very well play some part in that week's articles, depending on the prompts and what they inquire about. To me roots immediately brings to mind things like linguistic ancestry/family trees, as well as sort of Great Person theory type history, those people whom are the person who makes the moment in some way, despite of course it often taking a village as the saying goes, around them. However it also brings to mind the sort of foundational discoveries and innovation in sciences (mundane and magick alike) that can open up and birth new entire fields of study and understanding. It can also be a question of evolution in nature, the clades and their splits, the split off and birth of entire new branches and clades, those first real diverging species whom ultimately birth a new entire track, much like when birds split forth from dinosaurs, eventually bringing us to the wide variance we know today between reptiles and birds. Those first 'proto' birds that were more reptile with feathers and kind of wings would seem to fit that sort of theming as well. So with that in mind, I have a wide variety of guesses to choose from, but here are my guesses, my bingo table, for theme two, Roots.

Article Template	Broad Prompt Estimate	Y for Yes, N for No
Language	A language that is a progenitor language, a sort of ancestor from which multiple modern day languages in your setting descended from.	Y
Character	A person whom founded an organization of great importance in the world today.	0.5
Technology	A technological, scientific/magical discovery that opened up a new branch, a new field of study and understanding.	N
Species	A species that diverged from on clade/family and was the progenitor species for a new clade/family.	0.5
Building	A building/piece of infrastructure that was the catalyst for a settlement forming around it (A mine as one easy example of this sort of thing)	0.5
Material	A material that is used as a foundational material for some sort of industry or field (think iron ore, think stone or concrete for foundations, the sort of base upon which an entire industry can be built)	N
Military Conflict	A conflict which became famous (or infamous) for being the root, the birthplace of a shift in how conflicts are waged, where a new understanding of strategy, logistics or some sort of tactical methodology was born	Y
Document	A document that would come to alter in some notable and fundamental way, the understanding of the world by those whom inhabit it, seeing the roots of a new and deeper understanding of the world around us.	Y

With that, we have week two, and honestly though I think it will be an interesting wave I will admit this thus far is the wave I am least confident of my guesses. I certainly think I'll get close enough to say 'Yes' on some of them, but if I get more than half I'll be genuinely shocked! However we lock in the guesses, and we await with bated breath to see how good I am at the game of prediction. Can't wait to hear what our last two themes are, so far I think we have a lot of potential for a lot of fun and brain-teaser like prompts and that is very exciting.



The theme of week three takes us into thought process of change and alteration, however metamorphosis is not merely change for change's sake. Metamorphosis describes, most commonly, a sort of alteration in nature, a drastic alteration from one form to another in some creature's life cycle. Perhaps the most common example most of us might be able to think of off the top of our heads would be the ever classic caterpillar to butterfly. However if we take this word deeper, Metamorphosis can perhaps best be described as a sort of 'natural' change, unguided by a sapient choice or decision, driven by the wide and complex factors of environment, biome, and more. If we were to take it into the realm of sciences and magicks, one might describe a golem or robot that would alter its form in response to certain parameters a 'metamorphosis', for the transformation is not a willing one, but one driven by exterior parameters and predetermined protocols or conditions of the spells or technology used to construct the well...construct.

Beyond this, if we wish to take the idea perhaps to a more metaphysical level, Metamorphosis can be applied to decisions and shifts in people and cultures whom are capable of sapient thought and 'free will' as we know it, if the alternative to the change is well....ceasing to be, or other such extremes. These sorts of examples would often be tied into some dark and grim dark worldbuilding but are not without merit. In Valerick, my own setting, such a metamorphosis exists in how those....afflicted with the Touch of Arcanis are viewed. Culturally they are seen as.....not quite human/humanoid. They are generally purposely seen as different, ostracized as different, talked about as different, and this is in large part is because the complexities of the arcane, combined with the folklore of the Void and tied around magick lends itself to regular people needing to believe those so 'licensed' by the Magisterium and those so 'cursed' with the Touch are different, because the alternative, to admit it was merely random chance and a roll of the dice, would see many simply refuse to have children. The risk would not be worth it. So their is a cultural shift, a metamorphosis amongst many to simply ignore reality and documented science of this condition and to treat such people as something distinctly different and seperate from themselves. This could be written as a sort of tradition type article perhaps tied to a metamorphosis themed prompt, as one off the cuff example. As such, I think the guessing and potential article types and prompts we might see in this wave will be a wider bunch then many, (myself likely included) might first suspect. With all that said however, let us get on with the predictions! Here is my week three prediction table!

Article Template	Broad Prompt Estimate	Y for Yes, N for No
Species	Describe a species that undergoes some great physical alteration or change in its growth cycle in your world	Y
Building	Describe a building associated with great change or growth	N
Organization	Describe an organization in your world that at one point or another had to rapidly shift, alter, change or adapt their structure or the essence of their identity.	N
Material	Describe a material who's uses and properties vastly differ depending on the state it is in, that is perhaps as a classic example, a solid versus a liquid.	N
Condition	Describe a condition that sees the creature/plant/entity afflicted with it undergo some sort of metamorphic alteration or change.	N
Profession	Describe a profession that thought its name has remained, the tasks/job it actually describes and the responsibilities it encompasses have changed over time, and how they have changed.	N
Language	Describe a language that has kept its name to the current day, yet has evolved and shifted over time (think of how English is not just English, 1800s versus today)	0.5
Document	Describe a document that led to widespread social overhaul and alteration in your setting.	Y

I kept my guesses as broad as I could as always which does mean some of them may read as merely 'change' not 'metamorphosis' however that is merely a wording choice to make the guessing game I'm playing even remotely reasonable, so I can get 'close'. Now we simply wait, one more week, one more theme, one more time to update this little article as the excitement and anticipation grows!



The future is now!! We have arrived to it, and are living it!!! Ahhh what a final theme, an interesting and some may consider, difficult theme in some ways. As worldbuilders and writers and gamemasters, we often live solely in the past and present in our projects, I know I am guilty of this. Especially as a Gamemaster and Worldbuilder being the primary pair I focus on. Valerick is very purposefully written and built as a snapshot of the 'present day' and laying out a broad world, with characters, some depth, plenty of locales, groups and beasties, but the worldbuilding either focuses on the past elements, the history and roadmap through time of events and such that led to what exists in the current present day. Because I worldbuild for storytelling, I worldbuild the setting to run games and recently to write some fun manuscript projects, which I won't shamelessly plug with links, though I will say they are their if anyone is curious what some stories (and games I've run which the stories are loosely based on) in the setting might look like.

However to me, that makes this theme very fun and interesting. The only concern I might have, though it is appropriate thematically in its timing for the event, is that this is week 4, meaning we will have less time to sit with the theme and prompts I would wager a great deal of us have never really considered before, and attempt to write them. I believe we will uncover some interesting and unique tidbits, odds and ends and visions of the future for our worlds, our homes away from home, however I do wonder how....refined such ideas will be capable of being. Its a tall order to explore the unknown in such a short time frame. Yet again, it could be no other week, elsewise it simply would not feel....appropriate. Talking about the future as Summer-Camp comes to a close? Chef's kiss it is perfect, all is how it should be.

In considering my guesses for this theme, having nothing else to work off of, I had to consider Valerick and where my own mind would go if I were to attempt to 'portray' how events might move forward 'organically' that is without any of the protagonists from any of the stories, any of the adventuring groups I've run for, as I"ve purposely not canonized any of that, because if I had, well then they would be part of Valerick's present and past, not future now wouldn't they? The resulting list and considerations and thought processes this led me to were equal parts interesting and also....actually some of the easier 'broad stroke' ideas to come up with for guesses for my bingo card. Without further ado, let us boldly and perhaps appropriately, shamelessly blindly throw darts into the dartboard of the future and make some guesses!!!

Article Template	Prompt Broad Guess	Y for Yes, N for No
Military Conflict	A brewing conflict that is seen to be approaching on the horizon, but has yet to properly erupt	N
Technology/Science	An invention, discovery, or hypothesis in your setting that if proven to scale/be properly replicable , will fundamentally alter some deep understanding of the world's inhabitants of the world around them.	Y
Organization	An organization of (insert type) whom are attempting to bring about some 'vision' of the future.	0.5
Rank/Title	A position of power in your setting, where once it is filed, the person whom holds it has the potential to notably and perhaps drastically change the world.	0.5
Document	Describe a newly signed law, treaty, trade agreement, or some other such documentation that is set to fundamentally alter how some aspect of how a society or group or social structure operates	0.5
Building	A building/infrastructure project that is currently under construction or in the planning stages in your setting, describe the reasons for it and the goals of its construction and how they will change/help the people/society who are building it or intending to build it.	Y
Myth/Legend	Describe a tall tale/prophecy/great prediction sort of myth or legend in your setting.	N
Character	Describe a character in your setting actively trying to change/alter the world's future in some notable way	Y
Geographic Location	Describe a region that perhaps was historically not viewed with any real importance or desire in your setting, however for some reason(s) or other(s) that view point is noticeably and actively changing	N
Material (Bonus Guess 1 cause this theme got me actually)	Describe a material/natural resource in your setting that once was seen as waste or unimportant, but due to changing technology, sciences, or some other need/understanding, is now increasing notably and drastically in desirability and importance.	0.5
Item (Bonus Guess 2 cause this theme really lit up some stuff in brain)	Describe a new object or invention, some sort of new crafted tool or other such, that is going to fundamentally change an industry, trade, or some other part of society and how it operates.	0.5

And with that the great prediction attempts have been made. The bingo tables are prepared, the feral embers have roared to life, and we look forward with hunger, anticipation and excitement to this coming Saturday! Welcome home everyone, welcome to the multiverse of madness and creativity that is Worldanvil if its your first ride here and if you are a veteran like me, welcome back, welcome home, the fires are warm, the food sizzling, the drinks ready and the tents pitched. Let the festivities begin, let the songs of our people ring out and let the party roll!!! Remember this space is about fun, creativity and love. Cheer each other on, enjoy the ride, hydrate often, burnout is illegal. Buckle up and have fun!!!!