WELCOME

Welcome, Family.

It starts as a game on a screen, and it grows into something else: real life. Anyone can do this, at any age. To rebuild culture, we sharpen our skills and reconnect with nature, ourselves, and each other.

0. A Roll Making Game — Not a Digital Game

Most games ask you to play a role: a fictional character in a fictional world. The Creative Village is a Roll Making Game (RMG). It asks you to build your real self in the real world. The "roll" begins as a word on a character sheet and becomes the real attributes, skills, and practiced knowledge you actually develop. Your avatar doesn't level up because you clicked a button. It evolves because you did. You'll put the screen down and go outside, into the kitchen, the garden, the workshop, and the marketplace.

New in this version: the Money Lab — a family financial literacy track in the Library, the Gold Nugget — a special economic badge earned by working through the Commerce guild — and 🌱 GAMCOD Mode — Paul Wheaton's real-world challenge to grow a million calories on dirt, played as a full Village season with its own ledger, crop tracker, and per-acre projection. No real money needed: you'll learn how dollars, euros, and francs actually move, and how a family can trade and grow value on its own terms.

1. Competence, Not Just Points

In most games, you click a button and your character levels up. In The Creative Village, you are the character. To earn badges and upgrade your avatar, you must build real-world skills. The real-world reward is competence. The digital reward is watching your avatar evolve.

2. The Team Roster

Every quest is a team effort. When you complete a task, you record who showed up and how. Multiple people can hold the same role, and one person can hold several roles. If three kids are scrubbing dishes, they are all Trackers. If the same child later takes photos and asks good questions, they are also a Witness. Nobody has to pick. The roster is just honest recognition of who did what.

• Tracker(s): The people doing the physical labor.
• Witness(es): The people catching the story (photos, asking "What did you notice?").
• Hearth Tender(s): The people holding the space (making tea, prepping tools, keeping everyone fed).
• Mentor(s): Elders, parents, guides, or skilled friends who practice coyote mentoring — a rich tradition of nature-connection mentoring that goes far beyond asking questions (see below).

3. Coyote Mentoring — A Living Tradition

Coyote mentoring is not one technique. It is a complete approach to raising connected, capable, curious people — refined over thousands of years by hunter-gatherer cultures worldwide, and brought into modern practice by Jon Young, who was mentored as a boy by tracker Tom Brown Jr. (himself mentored by Apache elder Stalking Wolf) and by his own grandmothers. Saying coyote mentoring is "just asking questions instead of giving answers" is like saying driving is "just the gas pedal." Questioning is one part of a much larger system.

What coyote mentoring actually includes:

• Questioning at the right time. Not random questions: the right question at the moment a learner is ripe for it. The kind of question that lingers and ripples rather than resolves.
• Storytelling as pedagogy. Stories are not entertainment; they are the teaching. Field anecdotes, "Story of the Day" around the fire or dinner table, and personal narratives show how connection unfolds unpredictably and relationally.
• The Errand Principle. You send learners on real challenges and errands that require them to use their senses, navigate, observe, and come back with a story. Not chores: missions.
• Stealth Learning. Learners often don't realize they're learning. The mentor sets up conditions for discovery, then steps back.
• Sit Spots. Return to the same place in nature day after day, season after season. This is the core routine that builds deep place-based knowledge. It turns a location into a relationship.
• Bird Language. Learn to read the alarm calls and behaviors of birds to know what's moving through the landscape. Birds are the news network of the natural world.
• Tracking & Mapping. Read tracks, sign, and the landscape itself. Draw maps from memory. These practices build visualization, spatial awareness, and ecological literacy.
• Modeling & Mirroring. The mentor doesn't lecture; they demonstrate curiosity, presence, and wonder. The learner mirrors what they see.
• Meeting Learners Where They Are. You don't push a curriculum; you follow the learner's passion. Edge mentoring means supporting curiosity at the edge of their comfort zone.
• Children's Universal Passions. Use what kids naturally love (mud, forts, critters, fire, hiding, climbing) as doorways into deeper learning.
• The 50/50 Principle. Balance challenge with support, independence with connection.
• Thanksgiving & Gratitude. Begin gatherings with gratitude. Not ritual for its own sake: a practice that rewires the nervous system toward connection and aliveness.

The 8 Shields Model. Jon Young and elder Ingwe (M. Norman Powell, raised by San Bushman mentors in South Africa) co-founded the Wilderness Awareness School in 1983. Together they developed the 8 Shields model, a nature-based framework organized around the eight compass directions, each representing a set of principles, practices, and archetypes tied to natural cycles (dawn, midday, dusk, midnight; spring, summer, autumn, winter; earth and sky). The model is intentionally universal. It draws from observation of nature and the human nervous system, not from any single cultural tradition. It is a living, evolving framework, crowd-sourced from hundreds of practitioners across decades.

The 512 Project. Jon Young's life's work is consolidated in the 512 Map: a comprehensive catalog of 64 cultural elements (one-eighth of 512) that support deep nature connection and regenerative community. The 512 Project is a series of 64 live-audience video recordings exploring each element. His current work, the Natural Mind Journey, is the digital platform bringing these practices to families worldwide.

The attributes of connection that emerge through this practice go beyond "learning things." They are: happiness and childlike wonder, vitality, focus and deep listening, empathy for all living beings, a visionary ethic of service and regeneration, aliveness and gratitude, love and compassion, and presence, a quiet, creative mind.

📖 Essential Reading. If you are stepping into the Mentor role, get the book: Coyote's Guide to Connecting with Nature by Jon Young, Ellen Haas, and Evan McGown (2nd edition, 548 pages). Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods, called it "good medicine for nature-deficit disorder." It reads like a lesson plan at first glance. Look closer, and it's a compass that orients you toward a different kind of education, one where mystery matters, relationships precede knowledge, and the more-than-human world becomes a co-teacher. Learn more at 8shields.org (archived) and jonyoung.org.

Coyote mentoring works for the young, the middle-aged, and the elders. Curiosity has no age limit. In The Creative Village, the Mentor role is not a label. It is a practice. Every quest is an opportunity to set up conditions for discovery, ask the right question at the right time, and let the learner arrive at their own knowing.

4. The Otis Verification Protocol & the Permies Community

Otis is a fictional character on Permies.com, a large, active community of homesteaders, permaculturalists, and makers who have been doing this for years. Otis represents the photo verification protocol that proves you actually did the work. It's not a test; it's a way of showing your work and holding yourself to a standard of excellence.

To get officially certified on Permies.com, follow the Otis Protocol for photos:

• Before: Raw materials / site.
• During: You in the act of working.
• After: Finished product WITH a physical sign showing your name and date.

We strongly encourage families to join the PEP Forum. There are real people there who have completed these badges, who can answer questions, and who will cheer you on. You don't have to do this alone.

And if your family is ever ready to go all the way, the founder behind all of this — Paul Wheaton — runs a hands-on Permaculture Bootcamp on 220 acres near Missoula, Montana. More on that below.

5. Badge Progression — How It Really Works

Quests are organized into four tiers of increasing skill: Sand (beginner) → Straw → Wood → Iron (master).

Two things are happening at once:

• Unlocking the next tier: In Adventure Mode, complete 50% of the quests in a tier within one skill guild (like Gardening) to unlock the next tier for that guild. This lets you keep progressing without getting stuck.
• Earning the official badge: To actually earn a Permies badge for a tier, you must complete every single Badge Bit in that tier. All of them, not just half. The 50% rule is about progression; the badge is about mastery.

In Free Roam Mode, every quest is open from the start. You still need 100% completion to earn the badge.

6. The Colorado Schoolhouse Tracker

Parents, use the Schoolhouse tab to track attendance and hours toward Colorado's homeschool requirements (172 days, 688 hours across 11 subjects). Every quest you complete can also count toward real learning.

7. Your Village — A Tour of the Game

The Creative Village has six main areas. Here's what each one is for:

• 🏘️ The Village Hub — Your family guild screen. See everyone's avatars, check progress, and jump into questing. Click any character to open the Avatar Studio.
• 🎨 The Avatar Studio — Customize each family member's character: class, face, hair, outfit, gear, and background. As you complete quests, new items appear in the Wardrobe tab. Your avatar grows with your skills.
• 📜 The Quest Board — Browse quests organized by skill guild (Gardening, Woodworking, Food Prep, etc.) and tier (Sand → Straw → Wood → Iron). Each quest card shows what to do, what subjects it covers, and who participated. Tap "Learn More" for guided learning resources tied to that quest.
• 📚 The Library — A living, evolving collection of learning resources: educational philosophy, Colorado homeschooling info, Permies & PEP badge guides, curriculum by subject (Marble OS taxonomy), the 💰 Money Lab (family financial literacy & foreign exchange), PE & movement, AI tutors, and offline archives. This grows over time — check back for new resources.
• 🏫 The Schoolhouse — Track your homeschool attendance and hours. Log school days, see progress toward Colorado's 172-day / 688-hour requirement, and view which subjects you've covered through questing.
• 🔮 The Mentor's Circle. The 64 cultural elements of deep nature connection from Jon Young's 512 Project. Eight rings of life development × eight shields of natural archetypes. This is the connection layer — the invisible fabric of community that makes permaculture skills sustainable across generations.
• 🏛️ The Commons — Family achievements, the bridge to Permies.com for official certification, and the offline archive guide for families who want a complete backup of human knowledge on a local drive.

8. Saving & Resetting Your Progress

Your village is saved in your browser automatically. But browsers can be cleared, phones can be lost, and localStorage doesn't transfer between devices. Use the 💾 Save Village button on the Village Hub screen to download a village_save.json file. Keep it somewhere safe. Load it on any device using the 📂 Load Saved Village button.

If you need to start over — maybe you tested quests during setup and need to clear them, or you're passing the device to a new family — use the 🔄 Reset Village button. This wipes all progress, attendance, and player data from this browser. It cannot be undone, so save first if you want to keep anything.