A Call to Arms

For the past half year, I have now run this blog with a lot of success. The articles are appreciated by most and I keep on updating the articles whenever a new combo is found, a new player card would tech well against a quest or if somebody spots a mistake in the quest. And I have been loving this “job” a lot lately. It feels good to clear your head from all other noise and just focus on how to best beat a certain scenario. However, I am just one man, and there is a lot of content to cover.

This is where I want to make a call to arms towards the community. If you are an active member but want to contribute more to the community, I have the perfect opportunity for you. Write your own articles for this blog! I have noticed that a lot of players have recently started to blog about various aspects of the game, including deckbuilding, saga campaigns, and article that hype on the Rhovanion box. But to all those of you that are not yet so deeply involved in the community, but want to be, I could help you out.

What I offer

The ability to write your own articles for Vision of the Palantir. The content of these articles can follow the examples mentioned later in this article or we can discuss new topics if you want.
A platform for you to express your ideas about the game, discovering new combo’s and gaining a bit more knowledge of the card pool.
Work alongside the team here to which you can always ask questions or receive feedback on your articles.
No time pressure on your work, you will have all the time in the world to finish the articles. You will also be able to pause writing for a while if you grow tired of it, and can always return to writing when you feel like it.
A grammar check on all the articles before they are launched.
A template for most articles that you can follow if you are lacking inspiration. You will be allowed to use your own style if you want to.
A chance to help other members of the community by describing how to tackle difficult scenarios.
Perhaps some author-only exclusive swag in the future, to thank you for your input and to recognise you as a member of this part of the community. If the Patreon page kicks off, this might become a reality much sooner.

What I ask of you

Decent knowledge of the card pool, both player cards and encounter cards. It doesn’t have to be perfect, Hall of Beorn can always help out. But if you know a lot of cards, it makes it easier to write the articles.
Experiance with the game so that you know when cards are revealed and when certain triggers happen. It helps if you own the quest or cards you are talking about.
A decent understanding of English (written). This doesn’t mean that I am only looking for native speakers, as I myself am not a native speaker. But it saves a lot of time for me if you can construct decent sentences and have a wide vocabulary. But given how the communication in the community is mostly English, I don’t feel like that is going to be a problem.
Ability to think outside of the box and the capability to do some problem-solving. You will need to be able to come up with solutions against certain encounter cards. Since this game is all about problem-solving, I think most of you will have a decent understanding of this as well.
Willingness to commit to these articles, I would really like them to be in depth, handling each aspect of the quest individually.

Nice extra’s to have

Deckbuilding skills. If you can come up with a deck that can beat a certain scenario you analysed, that would be great. It will also allow you to feature your deck and boost your status as a deck builder.
Playtesting skills. Not only to see what encounter cards there are, but also how they affect your board state. You might also be able to post victories at the end of your articles.
Strange Eons skills. Mostly for the trait articles, it would be great if you know how to make your own custom cards in case you want to start the conversation on what a specific trait or archetype could use. Again, this is nice to have, but not required.

If all of this sounds appealing to you, feel free to send me a message across any of the known social media’s. Alternatively, you can also send me a message by using the form at the bottom of this article. Please state your (gaming) name, email address, and what you would like to write on. You can also claim multiple articles if you would like to. I will be in touch as soon as I receive your mail and will make you an author. Here is the usual procedure for what happens next:

You contact me with what articles you would like to write on.
I agree (usually) and make you an author on the blog with the authority to make your own articles.
You are now free to write the articles using a template or using your own style.
You keep on writing until you feel like the article is finished. You can either write in a document outside of WordPress or you can use the site itself.
You add pictures and links to any cards or articles you have mentioned. I can also do this for you, but it might be better if you do it yourself.
You message me to say that the article is done. I now read it and make adjustments if needed. I also do spellings check and maybe add my own ideas as well.
I message you that the article is ready, you can now reread it and approve it for publication. You are then free to spread the article or I can do it for you.
You can now claim a new article and repeat the process. You can also take a break and come back to it later.
You can update and adjust your articles at any time if an error has been pointed out or you discover a new trick to the quest.

If you have further questions on this, feel free to ask them anytime.

The Articles

There are a number of different articles you can start to write on. Most of them already have examples on the site where you can see how I have structured the article. You can then either adopt the style or use your own.

Scenario analyses: 4000-7000 words on any regular scenario from the game.
Nightmare analyses: 3000-5000 words on how the Nightmare version of the quest changes the quest for the better/worse. Large degree in freedom here, since I haven’t touched that yet.
Archetype/trait analysis: 1000-2000 words on any archetype in the game. What mechanics do they use and what cards are best in line with that archetype.
Staple articles: 1500-3000 words on what cards are the best in terms of a certain mechanic of the game. Feel free to chose your own mechanic for this one.
Saga analyses: If you want to do these, let me know, I might have to see what scenarios are available for you to pick.
Articles on the community and the game in general. Pitch your idea to me and I can give the go-ahead if I would approve.
Something you would want to write about. Let me know in the message what this article would look like and I can give the go-ahead.

Contact Form

If you do not want to write your own articles, but still want to support our efforts in improving this resource for the community, feel free to support us via Patreon. There you can also claim a title and give me some homework on a quest you would like to see analysed earlier than I normally would: https://www.patreon.com/vision_of_the_palantir/. If you do not want to do that either, that is perfectly fine. It will be good to have plenty of people in the community to still enjoy the articles from other people. Thank you for taking time out of your day for reading this and I hope to have inspired some of you to sign up and just try to write about a quest. It may seem scary at first, but over time, you keep on adding things to your article to make it well-rounded and it might help newer players to the game.