No, the New Worlds Patreon isn’t talking about human or animal sacrifice — not yet. (That’ll be next week.) Instead we’re looking at some of the places where sacrifices are made and the reasons for them, and the use of inanimate objects for the purpose. Comment over there!

Having talked about sanctification last week, now the New Worlds Patreon turns to the holiest people of all: saints! Comment over there.

New month, new theme! The New Worlds Patreon is pivoting back toward religion, with a look at what gets sanctified and how. Comment over there!

As many of you know, when there are five Fridays in a month, the New Worlds Patreon devotes the fifth one to a theory post! This month we’re looking at the unfortunate messages your worldbuilding may send, whether you intend it to or not — comment over there.

For the end of a mental health month, the New Worlds Patreon asks whether more of our fictional characters should have PTSD from the plot . . . comment over there!

Having looked at the broad topics of mental illness and intellectual disability, now the New Worlds Patreon turns its attention to the question of how societies have generally responded to those afflictions. Warning: the answer is often “not well.” Comment over there . . .

With the theme of the New Worlds Patreon for September being the mind and its ailments, this week we take a look at some of the causes and effects of intellectual disability, especially in history. Comment over there!

It’s hardly the cheeriest subject for me to be posting about on my birthday, but since my New Worlds patrons kindly allowed me to sub in posts about labor issues for August, the topic they’d voted for got pushed to September . . . and that means we’re talking about mental illness today! Comment over there.

The New Worlds Patreon is closing out a labor-focused month with a different angle on the topic: forced labor, of the sort generally grouped under the term “corvée.” Comment over there!

Having looked at the basic ideas of guilds and unions, the New Worlds Patreon now turns its attention to the question of how such groups (and others) can achieve their goals. Short answer: collective action! Longer answer: comment over there . . .

This week the New Worlds Patreon arrives at the reason I asked my patrons if they’d be all right with me delaying our August poll results until September: labor unions, i.e. the groups that are very much in the news right now, striving to protect their members against rapacious corporate interests. We’ll get to strikes and other such actions next week, but for now, comment over there!

Thanks to the flexibility of my patrons — who allowed me to swap in a timely replacement for the winner of the topic poll for August — this month the New Worlds Patreon is looking at some labor-related economic topics. We’re starting off with guilds — comment over there!

A month that started off with foreign diplomacy winds up spying on citizens at home, as the New Worlds Patreon takes a look at internal security. As usual, comment over there!

Diplomacy and espionage: they go together like peanut butter and the knife you use to spread it over bread. The New Worlds Patreon is taking a look at intelligence work — your comments over here will hopefully not self-destruct any time soon.

For diplomacy to have a chance, you need the right person to be conducting it. The New Worlds Patreon takes a look at the diplomats themselves — comment over there!

For July, the New Worlds Patreon turns its attention to international affairs with the first of several posts on diplomacy! Comment over there . . .

I’m betting that quite a few of you have examples you could trot out for this week’s New Worlds Patreon essay, which concerns what happens when storytellers fail to think through the consequences of their worldbuilding. Share yours over at Book View Cafe!

Today’s New Worlds Patreon post comes with a trigger warning for discussion of many unpleasant critters, as we talk about vermin . . . comment over there!

This week on the New Worlds Patreon, some of the ways in which societies have tried to make themselves better by doing worse things. Comment over there . . .

This week, the New Worlds Patreon looks at what kinds of odd jobs the desperately poor might take in order to make ends meet. Comment over there!