Adventurer's Challenge: Week 15
On the road
Huzzah!
Good evening, and welcome back fair adventurers.
I hope last week gave you some space to breathe and a little more fuel for whatever you’ve been tending. Whether that was on topic by being your chosen hobby, or just good self-care.
Now it is time to grow a little though and fan the flame! I’m struggling to withhold a Hunger Games reference given all that is going on…but I’m sure you can put that together yourself.
Week 15 is quite the accomplishment, and I am proud of each and every one of you for continuing on with our challenge. I hope the fire you have been growing is one you can feel the warmth and value of— I know I do.
Now off with the wind you go!
For grit and glory,
Sir Kadean
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April 2025: The Fires We Tend
Travel long enough, and you learn that movement alone is not enough. To endure the journey—to enjoy it—you must carry sparks of your own making. Stories, crafts, rituals, habits, skills: these are the fires we tend when the nights grow long and the road stretches far ahead.
This explore the practices that keep your hands nimble, your mind bright, and your heart curious. Perhaps you rediscover an old craft, begin a new pursuit, or share your skills with fellow travelers.
Hobbies are more than diversion, or a way to pass the time—they are survival, connection, and celebration. They are how we keep sharp, stay soft, and remember who we are along the way.
Week 15: Fanning the Flame
The fire is no longer tentative. It wants to move. It wants to stretch.
This week is about energy in motion—about feeding the spark not just with kindling, but with momentum. It’s time to let your curiosity wander, to fan the flame through motion, variation, and play. Try, tweak, tinker. Let enthusiasm carry you. Chase the “what if.” You don’t need mastery. You need movement. Let the flame leap, swirl, and stir. Dance with it.
Resources for ye:
(main quests are essential to your journey)
The Finding Entropy
Energy wants to move. Let it.
Action: Change one thing about how you engage with your hobby this week. Try a new tool, switch your space, add music, change time of day, or adjust your pacing. Even a small variation can shift how the fire moves. Consider sharing with the group to provide inspiration.
Steady Bellows
Sometimes a fire needs steady and direct attention to ensure it grows.
Action: Create a “mini sprint” for yourself—set a timer (15–60 mins) and immerse fully in your craft without pausing. No perfecting, no hesitating. Just movement. Let yourself get lost in it.
A What-If Wind
A curious breeze stirs the flame.
Action: Ask one new question about your hobby this week. Not “how to be better,” but “what if…?” Follow the thread. Let curiosity lead.
Matching Energy
This quest comes from Bran Forrester:
Adventurers,
Fire needs movement, and so do you. A still body breeds a stuck mind.
This week, match your spark’s energy. Let motion carry your craft: pace while you plan, stretch between strokes, move while the ideas simmer.
Don’t wait for energy. Create it.
Action: Pair your practice with a physical rhythm this week. Move while thinking. Pace while creating. Ponder new approaches while training. Let motion be part of your method.
Consider sharing with your training ground
A Message in the Flames
While tending your fire, something shifts. The flame flutters sideways, and in the curling smoke, and you see it. Not quite words. Not quite images. Whispers etched in haze. A message, half-formed, pulsing like a memory just out of reach. You lean closer. The smoke stirs—poof! A burst of air. A single black feather falls into your lap. The message is gone. But you remember something…
Action: Draw, write, or express what you saw. A phrase, a symbol, a sketch, a shape. Capture the whisper before it fades. Consider sharing with the group to compare notes— you may need to come to a consensus later if they come asking.
Rewards for this week’s quests: 🐇
(a note- you may want to keep track of these, they could be of use to you later in the guild)
(Strengthen your skills, build your arsenal)
One Day This Week
Revisit your goals from earlier in the challenge
Two Days This Week
Practice your chosen language OR training
Three Days This Week
Engage with your chosen guild
Four Days This Week
Sit in silence for one minute
Five Days This Week
Fuel your personal fire with good nutrition
Rewards for this week’s trainings (all five to succeed) 🪺
(a note- you may want to keep track of these, they could be of use to you later in the guild)
(toll bridges must be crossed weekly in the realm)
Week of: 4.13.2025
ATTENTION: All those currently under investigation are not permitted for crossing.
Minders: Woodland Nymph Infantry
Accepted Pittance:
Complete daily side quests as posted by Sir Kadean 3 days of the week
OR
Complete your taxes
Deep clean your oven
Book a medical appointment
Retaliation:
-Four food items removed from inventory
(side quests are optional to your journey, but may aid you in the path ahead)
Roll of the dice
Task: Sometimes the spark finds you. This month, let fate guide your hand. Using the “Roll the Dice” scroll, cast the dice and allow chance to choose your hobby or area of exploration. You need not master it- only try something new to see if a spark comes up.
Action: Roll two six-sided dice (or use a free digital roller) and match your result to the scroll. Try that hobby at least once this week in any way you can—reading about it, watching others do it, trying it yourself, or joining a space where it's practiced.
The Thread Between Us
Task: A craft is rarely kept alone. This month, seek out a group, guild, or gathering space—digital or physical—where others are tending the same flame. Whether it’s a local class, an online forum, a club, a library event, or a cozy Twitch stream, your quest is to find the others who share your spark.
Action: Find and join a community related to your hobby.
April Guild Trials
Task: Complete the quest for the month as outlined in your guild’s charter
Scholars: “The Curious Thread” – Pick a niche topic or hobby-related fact and trace it. Follow rabbit holes, find sources, and learn one unexpected thing. Share what you uncovered and why it intrigued you.
Artisans: “The Everyday Craft” Create something useful. Not fancy, not decorative—just something that serves a purpose, however small. Let your craft live in the daily rhythm.
Bards: “The Hobby Confessional” Tell a short story (written or spoken) about a time you tried something new. Was it a disaster? A surprise success? A secret love? Share the tale, warts, wonder, and all.
Sentinels: “The Watchful Flame” – Observe how others tend their fires—watch someone else’s hobby, join a community space, or simply take note of the rituals and care around you. What can you learn from their steadiness?
Alchemists: “The Mood Mixture” Design a blend to match your current creative energy. This could be a playlist, a recipe, a tea, a scent, even a list or collage of colors or textures. Capture your atmosphere and give it form.
April Guild Badge Design Challenge
Task: Create a design for the April Guild Badge, a symbol that we may all look back on to celebrate the month’s success. Each month, a winning design will be selected that best represents the theme and highlighted on social media. Challenge partakers will be able to collect them all.
This month’s theme is “The Fires We Tend”
How to Submit: Share your badge design in the Discord by April 25th
Rewards for this month’s quests: 🦄
(a note- you may want to keep track of these, they could be of use to you later in the guild)
Signs of Spring, Continued: Arimurks Roam, but With Unusual Guardianship
As the thaw deepens and the bloomline pushes north, fresh sightings of Arimurks have stirred both wonder and unease across the realm. Yet the creatures' behavior is not as expected.
Reports from realms forests suggest the towering, antlered beasts are no longer roaming aimlessly, but instead moving with purpose—frequenting clearings known for wild rabbit burrows and displaying what can only be described as protective behavior. Witnesses speak of Arimurks circling the warrens, intercepting threats, and in one case, stamping out a campfire with deliberate force.
That account comes from a visiting member of the High Council, encountered near the treeline under circumstances described as "undisclosed business."
“It was a private errand. Entirely unrelated,” the guest clarified, brushing a speck of ash from his glove. “I merely happened upon the creatures. The rabbits were…peculiarly calm. And the larger beast, the scarred one, charged straight down and extinguished my fire as though it had been waiting for an excuse.”
The Arimurk described fits the growing accounts of a bull marked with old wounds, swift of foot and unusually alert. Whether it is the same beast seen last moon remains unconfirmed, though Rangers note the behavior accounted for is highly atypical.
Among the scholars, debate simmers. Some argue that changing leyline patterns or atmospheric shifts may have altered natural behavior. Others, more drawn to the mystic arts, reference elder forest texts, where symbols of fire, horned guardians, and lagomorphs mark periods of judgment, balance, and resistance.
What message this strange pattern carries, if any, is yet unclear.
For now across the hills, early blooms rise in colors bolder than expected, stirring cautious hope among farmers and apothecaries alike.
The soil softens. The signs grow stranger. The year unfolds.
Realm Advisory: Toll Bridge Reopens Under Strict Watch
The Toll Bridge has reopened to limited passage, now under strict guidance and constant surveillance by the Woodland Nymph Infantry. All travelers must adhere to posted instructions without exception. Loitering, questioning, or deviating from designated routes will result in immediate detainment or forced reroute. Barricades remain in place along unapproved paths.
Select Kingdom Representatives have returned to active posts—no longer solely engaged in the raids—to assist with maintaining order around the realm’s continued irregularities. Their presence is described as “stabilizing,” though their exact jurisdiction remains unclear.
Meanwhile, Fionnán’s whereabouts are still unconfirmed, and the search continues beyond the region. No further details have been released.
Protective measures otherwise remain unchanged. With spring’s strangeness mounting, the Council urges all to exercise caution and report any signs of abnormal behavior in flora, fauna, or flame.
Rewards for last week’s quest— gifted by Marilda, local chef at the Gilded Mare
To those who completed the task: well done.
New knowledge means more options, and more options mean fewer complaints come supper time. Keep what you’ve learned, and don’t let it rot in the back of your mind like a bruised plum.
We’ll need it.
Reward: 🥘🍲
Bonus Quest, Week of 04.13.25
Submitted by Orvyn, academy student- year 3
Travelers
The season is shifting, and with it, the stories begin to stir. I’m collecting signs—omens, patterns, and whispers tied to the arrival of spring. The Academy, of course, calls it “seasonal superstition.” Naturally, I disagree.
If you know of any local springtime folklore, peculiar weather sayings, or omens tied to bloom, bird, or beast, I ask that you write them down and send them my way.
Now that I have met with the Goblin Order things are quickly becoming more clear. The realm remembers more than the Council cares to admit.
Blessed be,
Orvyn