ThePudding

Discord Server and Plans

As of now I have a Discord server, if you want to chat about the story.

The invite link is here: Discord

I haven’t added special perks for Patreon members yet, but I’ll probably get around to that sooner rather than later.

FUTURE PLANS

I have at least three books worth of stuff planned for Neophyte World Builder, but the pace will slow. Current plans are...

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  2025-11-10 18:40:37 +0000 UTC View Post

Neophyte World Builder: Chapter 56

Chapter 56: Outsiders

TASTKA POV

“Who could have built a bridge like this?”

Eyssa’s question hung in the air, despite the hissing drum of the rain around us all. It was an echo of what we were all thinking, I was sure. I definitely was. I pulled my hood tighter, even as the rain let up slightly to a heavy drizzle instead of the downpour we’d been dealing with.

We’d all seen bridges before. Usually shaped lengths of wood across short ...

Neophyte World Builder: Chapter 55

Chapter 55: A Bridge Too Far

TASTKA POV

The rain started shortly after dawn.

This wasn’t a surprise. Our travel gear had hoods and wide cloths to cover our packs and bodies, as we’d already heard from some of the Sylen that passed through the region that it rained a lot more here. We’d been lucky to have gone several days without more than a light drizzle, so an actual downpour was overdue.

The mud was cool under my toes, but not all that mucky. ...

Neophyte World Builder: Chapter 54

Chapter 54: Isolation

ADMINISTRATOR POV

I felt a little bad for Tastka as I sat up and ran my fingers through my hair. It hadn’t really occurred to me that she’d had these visions since childhood, and normal dreams weren’t a thing to her. In tightening the connection so that the bleed through was more controlled, I’d cut her off from what must have felt like constant companionship.

She couldn’t know that the unusual silence wasn’t permanent. We�...

Neophyte Progress Poll: Tastka

We've been flipping between Tastka and the Admin for quite a while now. Starting at about Chapter 60, I have more leeway with my story plans and can absolutely start to adjust how frequently this comes up.

Neophyte World Builder: Chapter 53

Chapter 53: A Foggy Mind

TASTKA POV

When I opened my eyes, I heard faint noise around me. It sounded like talking, but… distant and garbled. My vision was blurry, and I had to blink several times to clear it up, slowly focusing on the scene before me.

Vedas was resting with his back against his pack, his injured leg stretched out in front of him. Fisk was next to him, carefully wrapping fresh bandages around the bright purple welts that coiled around Vedas...

Neophyte World Builder: Chapter 52

Chapter 52: A Thousand Deaths

ADMINISTRATOR POV

I sat up abruptly, hand going to my chest. It wasn’t normal for me to feel disoriented when awakening in the Sanctuary, but the way Tastka had fallen unconscious must have disrupted the smooth transition some. I spent a tiny moment confused and panicked at my lack of a heartbeat, and the lack of warmth or pain.

That passed swiftly, without any instinctive panic from the lack of breath or the like. I glanced a...

Patreon Changes, Plans, Serials

So as the paying members have noticed, I’ve increased your chapters to 7 ahead of public release. I’d hoped to squeeze it up to 8, but this past week has been a bit brutal for writing. Probably sometime this weekend it’ll go to 8. Still plan on it being 10 by end of the month. I’d just like to hit that target sooner rather than later.

Patreon Membership Tier Cost

I’ve been told I’m undercharging for Patreon. I’m not sold on this idea, but I might add...

Neophyte World Builder: Chapter 51

Chapter 51: Wild Lands

TASTKA POV

I never learned precisely how to tell direction in any way other than the sun and sometimes, the stars. By the river, the tree canopy didn’t have full coverage, but it still obscured the stars enough that I had trouble finding the right direction, and in the early barely-there light of dawn, the sun wasn’t visible. A little while later and I could have found my way with the shading of the sky as the sun burned away the inky bl...

Neophyte World Builder: Chapter 50

Chapter 50: Uncaring God

ADMINISTRATOR POV

I sat up, the recliner folding into a simple but plush chair once more. This time I had none of the confusion of the previous awakening. That had been a strange and singular event, and now that I was clear-headed I realized the problem had been my own confusion more than anything.

“Did you learn anything?” I asked Diamon this while readjusting the time differential for my ‘sleeping’ sessions. At his request,...

Neophyte World Builder: Chapter 49

Chapter 49: Why Do We Roam?

TASTKA POV

At dawn, we continued. The marsh cover was still too thick to know the exact time of day, but between the seven of us, we had a pretty good idea of when the sky should start to brighten. We all agreed to get out of this place as soon as possible.

That creature had looked dangerous, but nothing we couldn’t handle. What worried us was how careful it had been not to disturb any other growths or let its feeding be noticed...

Neophyte World Builder: Chapter 48

Chapter 48: The Orpheus Gambit

ADMINISTRATOR POV

Something felt different when I opened my eyes this time. It wasn’t a headache, exactly, but some kind of distant throbbing at the back of my mind. This body didn’t feel pain – not in the same way at least – so it was more like a tickling notification that something had changed.

I also staggered, because I wasn’t on the floor. That confused me as well, because I knew that time had passed here. I had ...

Neophyte World Builder: Chapter 47

Chapter 47: Twilight Feeders

TASTKA POV

I awoke to the sharp jab of a spear butt against my side. I dug in my claws reflexively so I wouldn’t fall from the branch. My eyes snapped open, blinking a few times. Clearly, the faint glow from the trees had faded somewhat, but since I didn’t know what that meant, I had no way of knowing how long I had been asleep.

Was it my turn to take a watch?

I scowled and looked toward the holder of the spear that had...

Neophyte World Builder: Chapter 46

Chapter 46: Diamon

ADMINISTRATOR POV

I snapped awake and blinked at the barren ceiling.

Tastka’s watch would happen shortly, but that’s all relative. With the time dilation in place, that still gave me at least a dozen hours, likely more. A much shorter time than I usually had when Tastka slept, but I rarely used the entire time anyway.

This time I didn’t just go back to sleep though. Tastka had felt confused that she hadn’t gotten an impressio...

Neophyte World Builder Extra: Current Cultures (Paid only)

Since the Administrator is focusing on a single group of Calen Elves, the actual cultural progression of other communities isn’t in the narrative. So let’s talk about the status of the rest of civilization! This is far from complete but should give a decent idea of where the cultures are as of Chapter 50, which is around where the current narrative is, chronologically.

Elves

The ‘elves’ aren’t all that elflike, as you’ve probably noticed. They are scat...

Neophyte World Builder: Chapter 45

Chapter 45: The Pale Marsh

TASTKA POV

This place brought back a lot of memories.

We weren’t as high up as back then, but this was where the three of us – me, Fisk, and Eyssa – had snuck off to find that bush to help with my sleeping mat. We hadn’t known at the time that while the leaves were normally harmless, crushing them would irritate the skin and set me itching. A lot of miserable baths later, and it still gave me nightmares.

Back when I h...

Neophyte World Builder: Chapter 44

Chapter 44: Conditionals

ADMINISTRATOR POV

Seated at my desk, I contemplated the world spread before me on my monitors. I wasn’t staring with the same intensity as before… distracted as I was by a mixture of excitement and worry.

The excitement was undeniable. My test had worked. It had shown that, given the proper incentive, the elves I’d created were perfectly willing to explore and seek out the unknown. I didn’t want them to do it too muc...

Neophyte World Builder: Chapter 43

Chapter 43: The Day the World Changed

TASTKA POV

There was another me.

I’d felt this for a while now. Ever since the first night I went to sleep with my [Essence Host] class. The strange class that claimed I wouldn’t dream, and instead gave me something… else. A something that let me glimpse a confusing, jumbled series of feelings and impressions, of visions and snatches of thought that made no sense, but still forced me to wake up screaming from that ...

Neophyte World Builder: Chapter 42

Chapter 42: Numbers

ADMINISTRATOR POV

This could be a problem.

I rolled out of bed with a nervous flick of my tail and took a deep breath. I’d been so proud of my emergent system that tried to work out how best to use whatever traits manifested in a creature. Now it had done just that – somehow picking up on my back door into the avatar and providing a link that I wasn’t sure was a good idea.

It would be different if I controlled Tastka, but I di...

Neophyte World Builder: Chapter 41

Chapter 41: Provisional

On the third try, I managed to tie my hair back. The wild tumble of my mane was usually just fine the way it was, but I often tied it back to keep it out of the way when trying to do something more delicate. In this case, that wasn’t what I was doing… I just liked the way it looked.

I was usually much better about wrapping the hair tie in, but my excitement was getting the better of me. I finally forced myself to relax enough to get my mane up in someth...

Neophyte World Builder: Chapter 40

Chapter 40: A Problem of Numbers

I settled in at my new work desk. Of late, I had been trying to track so many things in the interface that my vision had become cluttered. I’d managed to find in the Sanctuary purchase list a way to set up a multi-monitor desk where I could place and organize the elements of my interface.

Given how bureaucratic this universe-building had proved to be, it made me feel more like an office worker than ever. Maybe this wasn’t the best idea for my m...

Neophyte World Builder: Chapter 39

Chapter 39: To Push Beyond

My mat was getting uncomfortable again. Lifting it up and shaking it, I saw a number of the tiny tree hairs tumble away from it – clumps of pale, curling fibers that were now dry and brittle. It was definitely not staying together for much longer, and I didn’t have the magical talent to even strengthen what magic was in there.

For some reason, I had a terribly low amount of Cruxis talent. It normally wasn’t a problem, but my sleeping mat needed to ...

Neophyte World Builder: Chapter 38

Chapter 38: A Dangerous Question

Orpheus paused, then looked at me carefully. After what seemed like several seconds of thought – but was probably only an instant – she nodded to my chair.

“Why don’t you have a seat?” she suggested. “This visit may last a little longer than I expected.”

I felt a minor sense of alarm when she said that… not because it would last longer, but because she told me to take a seat. I didn’t really get tired. The chair was just the...

Upcoming Changes and a Poll (Paid only)

Well, things have been going pretty well lately, so here’s the status on what’s going down.

To avoid burnout, I’ll probably scale back the chapter releases on Neophyte World Builder. That said, I will be INCREASING the chapter readahead here. Not sure how much yet... depends on my buffer size. I could go to about ten right now but that’d leave me zero room for illness, but my goal is 10 for Proto-Tinkerer and Tinkerer by end of next month.

My hand is healing nicely and I w...

Neophyte World Builder: Chapter 37

Chapter 37: Visitation

I opened my eyes to see the featureless ceiling of my tiny bedroom in the Sanctuary. I lay there for a few moments, just processing the day’s events from the viewpoint of a small child. Seeing things from that perspective was limiting, but it still gave some incredible insights into how the culture was developing.

I briefly contemplated just turning the dilation back up to return to Tastka’s life, but I’d done that several times in the past few days an...

Neophyte World Builder: World Shape Reference

This is basically pulled right from my notes, with a little cleanup for ease of reading. If any of it is confusing I can clarify it with edits, and hopefully make it easier to understand the structure.

The universe and the world are basically the same in this case, because the Administrator filled up the entire ‘universe’ with a single world. The actual side effects of this do not currently come into play, and are very complex.

The world can be thought of as a large donut, cir...

Neophyte World Builder: Chapter 36

Chapter 36: Tastka

The gentle but relentless jabs at my shoulder finally dragged me awake.

The long, relaxing yawn couldn’t be stopped, but while I drew that deep inhale, I rolled off the cushion in the corner that I called my own. I twisted my ears upward as I blinked my eyes, trying to clear the sleep from them.

“I’m up, I’m up. I’m not that late, am I?” I mumbled.

The grinning snout of my house-brother came into view as my vision cleared, and he poked my...

Neophyte World Builder: Chapter 35

Chapter 35: Min/Max

For a long while, I just considered the notification and what it might mean. I rubbed the bridge of my nose again and then sighed, realizing that I still knew nothing about that system.

The words conveyed meaning… probably because everything here was translated. I hadn’t thought about that in a while, but it was unlikely that Orpheus spoke English. In fact, I wasn’t even sure I was speaking English. I knew that was the language my former self had...

Neophyte World Builder: Chapter 34

Chapter 34: Level Up

I let time continue at an accelerated pace for a while. It wasn’t as fast as before – only weeks going by per hour of my time – but compared to how quickly I’d been running things earlier, that was practically a crawl. I didn’t want to slow things down too much in case something interesting popped up and fixed the problem on its own.

In the meantime, I shrank the interface down to a quarter of my vision and collapsed back into my faithful, comfortabl...

Neophyte World Builder: Chapter 33

Chapter 33: Elf Lore

I’d hoped for more generation than what I was getting, but I wasn’t really sure what was normal. Maybe what I was seeing was considered a lot, and it would just take eons to pay off my debt. My quick mental math told me it would take over eighty thousand years of local time to clear it… and that was assuming it maintained the current pace.

Geologically, that wasn’t long, but for a civilization, that was quite some time. Then again, hadn’t humans been...