This week, the New Worlds Patreon takes a look at the foundational elements of our gender systems, i.e. the ideas of male and female. Comment over there!

Continuing on from last week’s look at biological sex and the ways in which even that is affected by culture, the New Worlds Patreon turns to one that’s cultural turtles all the way down: gender! Comment over there.

For November the lovely supporters of the New Worlds Patreon have voted for a discussion of sex and gender. The starting point for that is sex (in the biological sense, not the activity) — comment over there!

Back in July, the New Worlds Patreon talked about language and how we represent its variations on the page. But that’s only the tip of the iceberg, so for this month’s theory post (brought to you by their being five Fridays in the month), we’re looking at foreign and invented languages in the text! Comment over there.

This week in the New Worlds Patreon, we basically can’t do politics without organizing ourselves into groups — but how factionalism plays out is a little different depending on your form of government. Comment over there!

Continuing its survey of democratic government, the New Worlds Patreon turns its attention to who’s being elected — a president? A prime minister? A legislature? What kind? Turns out the answers to that are often very messy. Comment over there!

This week, the New Worlds Patreon looks at something that is still far too much of a hot-button issue today: the right to vote, and who does and does not get to have it. Comment over there!

The patrons of New Worlds have cast their votes! Which makes this month’s topic especially apropos, as we’re turning our attention to democracy as a form of government, beginning with the different forms that takes. Comment over there!

For the last essay of the month, the New Worlds Patreon turns its eye upon higher education. Comment over there!

Most of you are probably like me, and got the bulk of your formal education through a school. This week the New Worlds Patreon takes a look at those — comment over there!

For many types of work, the best way to learn the job is by doing it under the supervision of an experienced professional. This week the New Worlds Patreon looks at apprentices, journeymen, and masters — comment over there!

The lovely Topic Builders of the New Worlds Patreon having voted, this month’s theme is education! Beginning very young — basically from the moment we’re born, long before anybody thinks about formally teaching us stuff like math or how to forge a horseshoe. Comment over there!

For our final essay this month, the New Worlds Patreon looks at a specific subset of people involved in war: namely, women. Comment over there!

After you raise an army, you may have to teach it what to do. This week the New Worlds Patreon looks at the training of soldiers — comment over there!

Before you can send your forces anywhere, you have to get them together first. This week, the New Worlds Patreon looks at standing armies, levies, and more! Comment over there.

The New Worlds Patreon has already looked at violence on a small, interpersonal scale, but now the time has come to turn our attention to conflict on a military scale. We begin with the types of military forces that get fielded — comment over there!

It’s traditional with the New Worlds Patreon that when there are five Fridays in the month, the fifth essay is a “theory post,” looking at either some anthropological concept that’s of use in worldbuilding, or a craft question of how to get this stuff on the page. This time you’re getting the latter, with a survey of how to represent things like dialects in a story. Comment over there!

Okay, I admit it. For this week’s New Worlds Patreon essay, I really let my linguistic nerd flag fly, talking about the way you can use the grammatical features of the language your characters are speaking — features not present in English — as part of worldbuilding. Comment over there!

Not all communication uses the voice or the page! This week, the New Worlds Patreon turns to the world of sign languages. Comment over there!

Last week’s New Worlds Patreon post talked about multilingualism in a way that made it sound like languages exist in separate, clearly-demarcated blocks. Since that isn’t true, now we’re turning our attention to the messy boundaries of dialects, pidgins, and creoles! Comment over there.