So about a year ago, in February 2024, I wrote a post asking for you to vote for which worldbuilding articles you’d like to see. I posted the results a couple of weeks later, and the four subjects with the most votes were:
- The Five Limits
- The Branches
- Houses
- Limiters
So I decided to do those first.
All of these have now been completed (okay, half completed in the case of the branches), and since it’s been almost exactly a year and since it worked well the last time, it seems like a good time to give it another go. So, time for our 2025 worldbuilding poll!
Which subjects would you like me to cover next?
Here are the options. I’m describing them in a bit more detail this time since I’ve had more time to think things through.
• Corporations: This will be similar to the mini-series on Houses that I did in May of last year. It’ll mostly involve a one-by-one look at the bigger and more influential corporations in the drucraft world, focusing on the UK and US, but with some others from elsewhere around the world.
• Country Affinities: Drucrafters can have affinities for countries as well as for branches. This hasn’t come up much for Stephen in the books so far, but it matters for others. This article goes into what that means for drucrafters who like to travel.
• Branch Affinities: A brief look at how drucraft affinities work; what it means to be strong in Light vs. weak in Light, and vice versa. Basically an expansion of the discussion that Maria has with Stephen in Chapter 10 of An Inheritance of Magic, when she gives him his essentia reading.
• Essentia Capacity: Again, this is an expansion of the subject mentioned briefly by Maria in Chapter 10 of An Inheritance of Magic. A discussion of what essentia capacity is, why it matters, and the consequences of having a low essentia capacity versus a high one.
• Sigl Fashion: Once you’ve made a sigl, you have to figure out where on the body you’re going to wear it. Unsurprisingly, drucrafters have come up with lots of answers to this question.
• Attunement: The Blood Limit says that you can’t use someone else’s sigl . . . but it’s a little more complicated than that. The more in-depth answer involves attunement, personal essentia, and the difference between making your own sigl and having someone else make one for you.
• The Board: A look at the government body that covers drucraft in the United Kingdom – what it is, how it works, and how secret it is (or isn’t). This is unlikely to feature in the books any time soon since it’s way over Stephen’s head, but may be interesting to those of you who like this kind of world-building.
• Sigl Recycling: While the Limit of Creation says that you can’t change a sigl after it’s made, you can turn the sigl into essentia and use that essentia to make a new one. This isn’t as easy as it sounds, though, and it’s become its own mini-industry in the corporate world.
How to Vote
Just leave a comment below listing the articles you’d most like to see, in order. Like this:
- [First Choice]
- [Second Choice]
- etc
. . . and so on. You don’t have to list all 8, just put down the ones you like the sound of.
Write-ins are allowed if the one you’d most like to see isn’t on the list. Note that all the articles above are all definitely going to get covered – this is just about what order I do them in.
Post your votes below!
Wow! The poll is a surprise and there are topics on there that I hadn’t even known existed – this is going to take some thought!
Walks away into the distance thinking…
1. Corporations
2. Board
3. Sigh Recycling
1. Country affinities
2. Corporations
1. Sigl Recycling
2. Sigl Fashion
3. Essentia Capacity
1. Attunement
2. Sigl use on animals – effects, trends, complications…
3. Essentia capacity
4. Corporations
5. Sigl fashions (Just want to see you write about body piercing, lol!)
1. Branch Affinities
2. The Board
3. Essentia Capacity
4. Corporations
5. Sigl Recycling
6. Country Affinities
7. Attunement
8. Sigl Fashion
Looking forward to all the extra world building, regardless of order! My preference :
1. Branch Affinities
2. The Board
3. Essentia Capacity
4. Corporations
5. Sigl Recycling
6. Country Affinities
7. Attunement
8. Sigl Fashion
1. The Board
2. Corporations
3. Sigl Fashion
4. Attunement
5. Sigl Recycling
6. Essentia Capacity
7. Country Affinities
8. Branch Affinities
1. Attunement
2. Essentia capacity
3. Sigl recycling
1. Country Affinities
2. Branch Affinities
3. Corporations
All those articles sound interesting! My ranking:
1. Branch Affinities
2. Country Affinities
3. The Board
4. Corporations
5. Essentalia Capacity
6. Attunement
7. Sigl Fashion
8. Sigl Recycling
1. Sigl recycling
2. Sigl Fashion
3. Essentia capacity
4. Branch Affinities
5. Attunement
6. The Board
7. Country Affiinities
8. Corporations
Write-in topics:
1. spiritual entities & the types of “gifts” they give
2. the cults who worship or align with those entities
3. creating sigls for other species (like beloved cats, guard dogs, etc.) (or would this fall under attunement/sigl creation article?)
# 3 is what I meant by my write in too. But she said it better. 🙂 Also would love articles on her other write-ins as well, but thought you might regard those topics as spoilerific.
1. Country Affinities.
2. Branch Affinities.
3. Corporations.
4. The Board.
5. Essentia Capacity.
Not sure if these would count as spoilers but if not then.
1. Spiritual Entities that grant’s Steven’s Essentia Sight and other “gifts.”
2. The big Cults from the Winged, the Order of the Dragon and the other big Cult.
3. The minor Cults such as Ogun and Perun that the gang and strike teams follows as well as other similar groups.
1) Sigl Recycling & Essentia Storage (Aurum)
2) [Write-In] Spiritual Entities/factions & their special ‘Gifts’
3) [Write-In] Cults (like The Winged) who align to Spirits
4) [Write-In] Creating Sigl for other species (As above)
1. Essentia Capacity
2. Sigl fashion
1. The board
2. Corporations
3. Sigl recycling
4. Country affinities
5. Sigl fashion
Sigl Recycling
The Board
1.Sigl Fashion
2.Sigl Recycling
3.Country Affinities
4.The Board
5.Corporations
6.Branch Affinities
7.Essentia Capacity
8.Attunement
I am most interested first in closing out knowledge of essentia and sigils.
After that, the structure of the drucrafting world more broadly.
So my order would be:
1 – Essentia Capacity
2 – Attunement
3 – Branch Affinities
4 – Sigl Recycling
5 – Country Affinities
6 – The Board
7 – Corporations
Sigle Recycling
Attunement
Sigle Fashion
Sigl fashion
Attunement
Essentia Capacity
Truly looking forward to the third book. In the meantime, the three below are my favored topics of coverage.
1.) Branch Affinities
2.) Sigl Recycling
3.) The Board
While there are others I want to include mentioned by others in the comments, I feel those may be plot points meant to be explored as the books reveal them.
1. Branch Affinities
2. Essentia Capacity
3. The Board
4. Sigi Recycling
1. Sigl fashion (as a silversmith, I find this interesting and important)
2. Sigl recycling
3. Branch affinities
1. Corporations
2. Branch affinities
3. Essentia capacity
1. Essentia Capacity
2. The Board
3. Sigil Recycling
4. Attunement