Adventures in Valerick
1576/4/7
What happens when the lights of a world, a reality almost get shut out? What happens when reality does not break entirely, but strains against itself, even whilst trying to heal. Valerick is a world where magick is not to be fully trusted, yet it is necessary. Where gods of mortals Ascended to forge their own domains, to try and protect their flocks. And where dark things, the things beyond the end, nightmares indescribable, push against the limitations of reality upon them to consume creation, energy itself. It is a injured world, writhing but not yet dying, healing but not yet out of danger. Adventure here is not for the faint of heart, and those whom take up such a mantle either die in obscurity or live to prove words, legends and stories have real tangible power, becoming Exemplari. Which will you be, explorer?
A strange way to open a worldbuilding project, however as a Gamemaster first and foremost, who has run some long standing games with some in depth plots and time tracking, I understand the potential frustrations that can cause. So I made the executive decision that I wanted the setting's calendar to be a front and center part of the homepage for those first coming in, so its easy to find, easy to access, should anyone ever need it. Both for players and game-masters.
Where to begin?
I have pondered this query extensively as the creator of Valerick and honestly the answer is very much that depends. It depends on what exactly you are looking for, and because of that, I have a hard time recommending an exact starting point or 'order' of exploration. I can with confidence suggest The World of Valerick as a first stop, it more or less outlines the umbrella if you will, the storm of ideas and themes that birthed this project. Beyond that however it very much id dependent upon your particular curiosity and what aspects of 'imagination tourism' as I like to call what we do here on World Anvil, are your particular flight of fancy.
With that in mind, the approach I'm choosing to take with coming up with a layout for my homepage is going to be less 'Start here' and more 'Should your interest be X, here is a suggested place to begin poking around.' I will be rebuilding, overhauling and otherwise reorganizing plenty over the coming year or more, as I bring things up to a certain 'vibe' that I've finally locked in on wanting. However very broadly I would say there are three main avenues I would imagine might be what someone is interested in exploring. These being the avenues of 'Setting', of 'Stories' and of course of 'Story-Telling'. Obviously these three broad ideals have a lot of overlap, and thus many categories and plentiful individual articles might fit two or even all three of these in some broad way. However depending if you wish to Tell or be part of Telling your own stories in the setting, or perhaps engage with stories of others before you, or just explore the setting writ large, its people, places, events, ecology, history, you will likely wish to start in different places. So using that approach I shall be offering a suggestion or two as to where to begin for each of those below.
Setting
For those whom's deepest interest is to explore the setting, its locales and ecology, its nations and peoples, there are a great many options, however I would humbly recommend starting with the works of Mar'elin Du'ristic, Valerick's most esteemed cartographer, and familiarize yourself with the world in a very physical sense through his works, perhaps by first deciding which continent interests you the most, that of Durol, Gavis-Lune, or Wyriel and work from there in his most comprehensive works.
Alternatively if ecology and the naturalistic world is more your fancy, I would highly recommend beginning with Sir Montague Williamson Esq and their studies of the natural world. Once again, picking a locale or biome to study might be a good place to begin, myself personally I recommend the Glacial Sea however you shall find plenty of options within the Wilds and Whims of the Natural World.
Adventures in Valerick has 75 Exemplari
Stories
So what this will be eventually, since I wasn't quite pleased with just making prose stories though it wasn't the worst thing I've realized that isn't what I want to be doing with this section. Instead it shall be eventually, both introducing the Iconics of the setting, and doing so with both prose and entire campaign outline documents tied to those prose and stories to give GMs module the tools they can use to run a game in setting, including custom data sheets for creatures, new items, and all those other trimmings. Though it can be ruleset agnostic since I utilize PF2e as my base, anything I present will be from that angle and made off that framework, so some translation for other rule sets will be required. All of this material will eventually live in Tales from Adventures in Valerick
Story-Telling
Should you wish to be a player or run a game in Valerick, first off, for those whom might wish to GM, you have my blessing. I made this setting out of love of the hobby space. I myself reference mostly Pathfinder 2e in the documents and articles you'll see here as that is the system that has felt the best for me and allowed me the most flexibility to manipulate the way I want to and get the 'vibe' I desire.
However Valerick is meant to be divorced from a rule-set. Its premise, lore, and story-telling potential are meant to be rules agnostic. So do not treat my preference of rule-set as a limitation. With that said, if you are thinking to run a game here, then you will similarly need to establish premise, plot, and locales, and so the suggestions in Setting as well as the world introduction itself will likely be of the most help to you to begin with.
For players however, for future want to be Exemplari, like any TTRPG character design your starting point would ancestry and class (or whatever words the game system you are a player in would use) however Valerick has a unique importance also placed on cultural heritages and norms. That being the idea that where you were raised influences what sort of skills and life lessons you might have been taught, as well as having potential effects on your physical person. Someone born and raised in the arctic for example, is likely going to be more cold weather resilient than someone born and raised in the tropics.
For all these reasons I would suggest future players begin their explorations in the works under The Peoples and Cultures of the Ascended Children to figure out both their ancestry and cultural heritage combination that they find most appealing as an option to roleplay.