Training Day Word Crawl - An Introduction to Game of Tomes
The following word crawl is designed to introduce people to the GoTverse. Begin by choosing the level of challenge you want to do. Four levels will be provided: Easy, Medium, Hard, and Extreme. These will establish the word count goals you will be going for in each sprint. You may upgrade or downgrade your challenge level at any time.
If you haven't already, pick a House (listed on our front page) to write for. You can always change it later, so don't overthink it. This is an introduction and it's just for fun, but you're also welcome to make it part of your GoTsona's backstory later on.
You will need at least one other person to participate in this word crawl with you, since a couple of the exercises require partners.
Sprint for 5 minutes as you chatter and get to know your fellow trainees. This might be a good gauge for what level of difficulty you should aim for during the rest of the “training session.”
Spring 2026
You’ve heard about Literomancers before, but never thought you’d count yourself among the Wizards of Words! You know this means you will be fighting The Undead Horde, and that scares you a little, but your sense of duty drives you to sign up for the recruitment and training program anyway. You are gathered with several other would-be Tome Knights to meet the House Leaders and do some basic training so you are ready for the Word Wars.A short, middle aged woman with long, brown hair and bunny ears comes wandering over, accompanied by an anthropomorphic tiger person in armor. You know this can only be Queen Sable Aradia leader of House Lapin, and the tiger is James Woodwright, Captain of the Owsla, the Lapin Bodyguards. She is dressed not in fancy gowns or hats, but military fatigues and a beret with the Lapin House crest on it. Many bow awkwardly at her approach.
In a voice much bigger than her body, she commands everyone’s attention. “Hello and welcome!” she says. “Thank you all for joining the battle against the Undead Horde, and a personal welcome to all of you who have joined the Fluffle of House Lapin. We’re going to be running you through your paces today, testing your Literomantic capacity and seeing where you may best train to use your gifts. Don’t worry if you’re not as fast a writer as some others; believe me, all Werds count when facing the Horde. Sometimes, a single Tome Knight's output is the difference between life and death.
“For this first exercise, we just want you to generate as many Werds as you can. In Literomancy, Werds are the units of energy that power literomantic effects. So grab your laptops, your keyboards, your tablets, phones, or notebooks, and show me what you’ve got! You have 5 minutes! Ready... set... begin!”
Sprint for 5 minutes and see how many words you get. Along with the previous sprint, you can use this to determine your difficulty level:
- 75 words or less: Skirmisher (Easy)
- 75 to 150 words: Regular (Medium)
- 150 to 250 words: Master Sergeant (Hard)
- 250+ words: Power Writer (Extreme)
“Good job! Well done!” says Queen Sable. “Okay, I’ll pass you along to House Ailurus, now... Thank you all for your service!”
You are directed to a red-haired woman, wearing a suit and a theatrical comedy mask, and a thin, graceful, honest-to-Frith elf with the most startling green eyes you have ever seen. You have no doubt that this person is some kind of fae-folk — and the woman with him might be as well, especially since she has four reddish, fluffy tails.
“Hi!” says the one with the tails. “I’m HappyHappySad, and this is Archon The Bard with Many Names. Welcome to our new Pandas! We’ll be teaching you how to harness your literomancy for magical effects. So for now, think of a superpower you’ve always wanted. Maybe you want to learn to fly, or throw fireballs, or shapeshift! Then, write some Werds and see if you can make it happen! Literomancy is only limited by your imagination. And ready?... Set... Begin!”
Sprint for 10 minutes. If you succeed at the goal for the sprint, you manifest literomantic magic!
- Skirmisher: 100 words
- Regular: 250 words
- Master Sergeant: 350 words
- Power Writer: 500 words
"Ooh, nicely done!" The Bard with Many Names says with unmistakable enthusiasm as he observes your magic.
“Great job, everyone!” Happy chimes in. “And don’t worry if you didn’t get it right away. Remember that every Werd is a Werd you didn’t have before. Now you’ll be going to see our friends in House Meles."
A tall woman with purple hair, and an anthropomorphic nine-tailed fox, both in green armor, greet you. “Hello!” says the woman in a Dutch accent. “I am Queen Badger Purpleheart and this is my sister, Princess Badger ShyRedFox Welcome, new Badgers! A Word War is a marathon, not a sprint, so we are going to teach you how to pace yourselves.”
“Tome Knights have some... clandestine organizations,” says the soft-spoken fox-woman. “The Chaos Cartel is all about encouragement. And the Self Care Mafia makes sure you take care of yourselves... so don’t make us pay you a visit.” She grins, which can’t help but be a bit menacing, since she has a mouthful of sharp teeth.
“Please don’t make us pay you a visit,” Queen Purpleheart groans. “We will never clean up all the glitter from the glitter guns.”
“What we’d like you to do,” Princess Shy continues, “is to write at a sustainable pace for the next 15 minutes. Don’t overstress yourselves. And when you’re done, we’d like you to move around and stretch. Stretch out your wrists. Take a little break. Okay? Whenever you’re ready, begin.”
Sprint for 15 minutes at a relaxed pace. The key here is to try for steadiness and persistence, not speed. There are no word count goals for the sprint, but if any of you stops writing entirely for a full minute, an extra minute is added on to the time that everyone has to keep writing for!
"Did you stretch remember to stretch or move around after the sprint was done?" Princess Shy asks with a raised eyebrow.
"For those who did not," Queen Purpleheart adds, "You will be doing an extra sprint so that you remember to stretch in the future."
Anyone who didn't remember to stretch should now do a 5 minute punishment sprint. Those who did remember are also welcome to sprint if you want to get more words.
“Good job, everybody!” says Princess Shy, her tails twitching.
“Yes, and I hope we have all learned the importance of self care,” Queen Purpleheart adds. “Now, we are going to take you to see our friend, Queen TaraFaeBelle of House Chiroptera."
A half-bat woman with a red crystal crown awaits you. She is humanoid, but has claws on her bare feet, bat wings, large ears, a cute little fruit-bat nose, and is covered in short, black fur. Her eyes shine red. Despite this fearsome appearance, her Australian-accented voice is soft, gentle, and friendly, and her smile lights up her whole face. There is an intimidatingly large man, with bat wings, and an oversized baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire, hulking over her shoulder. For some odd reason, she is surrounded by penguins.
“Hello. I’m Queen Tara,” she says. “Welcome to any new Bats out there! But no matter what our House, at heart, all Tome Knights are a team. We all fight together against the Undead Horde. So encouraging others is really important. For this exercise, I want you to pick a partner. You’re going to be encouragement buddies through the next sprint. If you succeed at the goal, it’ll be because you succeed together. Are you ready? And... GO!”
Pair up! Together, each partnership will decide whether you’re writing at a Skirmisher, Regular, Master Sergeant, or Power Writer level.
Sprint for 10 minutes. Tally the results from both writers to see if you meet the sprint goal:
- Skirmisher: 250 words
- Regular: 500 words
- Master Sergeant: 750 words
- Power Writer: 1000 words
"Nice Werds, everyone!” says the Bat Queen.
“They’ll do,” grunts the hulking man at her shoulder.
“But now you need to meet with Dazzlinkat so I’ll let you go. Thank you.”
You are taken to a lizard-woman in snazzy shades. Green scales cover her body, her hands and feet are clawed, and she has an orange crest running down her head and spine. Like Queen Sable, she is wearing military fatigues, but the Sauropoda crest is pinned to her beret.
“I’m Dazzlikat,” she begins without preamble, “Seneschal of House Sauropoda..." She almost seems to wince at this statement. “Welcome, recruits, especially to all new Dinos! I'm also the Raptor Captain, leader of the Sauropoda bodyguards. You have to be able to react quickly in a combat situation, and not let anything distract you. Beside me, you will notice an obstacle course. You have 15 minutes to complete it! You can use yourLiteromancy to help you by flying over obstacles, changing into animal forms... it’s up to you. Ready? Set? Begin!”
Sprint for 10 minutes and write as many words as you can! Now is the time to turn the pressure on! Goals for the sprint:
- Skirmisher: 250 words
- Regular: 500 words
- Master Sergeant: 750 words
- Power Writer: 1000 words
As you pant and struggle through the obstacle course, Regent Dazzlikat harangues you and urges you on. When you collapse on the ground at the end of it, she nods approvingly. “Good job,” she says. “We just might make Tome Knights of you yet. That’s all from me for today, but I’ll turn you over to JaySea, now. Good luck.”
The woman awaiting you is clearly a creature of the sea, but other than that, it’s hard to tell what manner of being she might be. Most of her looks human, but she has silvery-purple skin with a wet sheen to it, long, blue hair, and while she is walking around on legs, octopus or squid tentacles are also poking out from under her seaweed skirt. She seems to have a barnacle on her bare shoulder, but is taking no notice of it. She is accompanied by another sea-woman, only this one has winglike... fins? on her back, and an energetic toddler with short, curly hair, dark brown skin, and a heart-melting smile.
“Hi all,” she says. “I’m JaySeaBoom, Anassa of House Mollusca, and I’d like to welcome in any new sea-folk. As a Tome Knight, you’ll often end up fighting in strange environments. We have accommodations for land-dwellers now in Zafforza City, but we didn’t always, and it can be very difficult for us to fight on land as well. For this exercise, I’d like you to try something you haven’t tried before. If you’re a land-dweller, we’re going to have you take a swim with us. You’ll be challenged by other literomancers and you’ll have to defend yourself against them. If they beat you, they will steal some of the Werds you generate, just like the Undead Horde does in a real Word War. Don’t worry, there will be no real injuries, I promise.
“Okay, let’s all get in the water.”
It’s a Word Battle! Sprint for 5 minutes. Instead of picking a partner, pick someone to sprint against. Ideally, try to pick someone who has been consistently writing at a similar pace to your own.
- The one who wins the battle gets to submit their full word total.
- The one who loses the battle only gets to submit two thirds of their word total, to represent the words stolen by the Undead Horde.
Sputtering, wet, and exhausted, you are helped back to the shore. You are standing before an immensely tall anthropomorphic griffon, wielding a sparkling blue-and-orange banner with her lion-like tail.
"I am Dreoilin Sir EGryph," she says, "Defender of the Realm. I am the leader of House Avis. I write... a lot of Werds." She chuckles. "But the lesson I want you to take from this is that every Tome Knight is equally important, whether you write a lot of Werds... or a few. Above all, what your House Leaders will ask of you is that you do your best. Literomancy comes from the power of your Werds. I'm going to give you some paper and set a 5 minute timer. What I want you to do is... your best." It's hard to see it on her raptor's beak, but you can hear the smile in her voice and see it in her eyes.
Write as much as you can in the next 5 minutes!
When you finish, you look up, and realize you are among all of the House Leaders you’ve met previously. They are standing around a black, featureless banner. The tone is solemn.
A man you didn’t see before steps forward. He’s fairly ordinary in appearance — also in military fatigues, middle aged and slightly overweight, with a thick, gold and grey beard, and thin, gold and grey hair covered in a baseball cap. It takes you a moment to realize that his left arm is entirely formed of shiny metal.
“Welcome, recruits,” he says. “I’m Erin Righ. The last thing you need to know as Tome Knights is that this job has its risks. There was once another Great House, but they have completely disappeared. We don't remember anything about them, so we use this banner to represent them. We’re going to take a few moments now to honour the missing and the fallen. 5 minutes of silence, please.”
Sprint for 5 minutes to honor the missing and the fallen. This is a wind-down sprint, and there are no specific word count goals.
The woman with the bunny ears nods as the silence draws to a close. “Thank you all for joining the fight against the Undead Horde,” she says. “I commend you for your courage. Feel free to join your House Leaders as we introduce you to the rest of your House. Otherwise, we’ll see you on the field.”
Congratulations! You're finished! We hope you had a great time, and we hope you'll come write with us at Game of Tomes events!
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