I didn’t realize it but the first time I heard about the Serpent Streak Contest was two weeks ago. My good friend Gustav, mentioned that he and some people in Eternal Glades (an Amtgard holding in Blackspire) were trying to do a little bit of arts and sciences work every day for the next few months. At the time I didn’t realize this was a challenge being issued by the holding’s regent, Burbarry.
It wasn’t until she posted the challenge’s first week’s results in my kingdom’s Facebook page that I saw exactly the scope of what Gustav was participating in. Burbarry posted two links, the first was a blog post full of pictures of people’s work from the first week. The second was the Google Sheets link to the contest’s streak record.
This was no little challenge between members of a holding. It expanded outside the holding quickly and as of the time of this blog, there are 52 percipients from 13 holdings across 4 different kingdoms. I was very impressed with the pictures of people’s projects and the reach this challenge had gained.
I was inspired to know more so I took a look at their discord find out exactly what the Serpent Streak Challenge was all about and to see if I could join in on the fun (spoiler, I could and did, so can you!).
What Is Serpent Streak?
“This is a consistency-based Arts & Sciences challenge focused on daily practice and skill development. Build creative habits, practice your skills, and celebrate everyone’s progress with the community.”
-Burbarry
I couldn’t explain the purpose of this challenge any better than Burbarry. It is a great community building activity that is centered around A&S. Still, you might be asking, how does the challenge work?
The rules are very simple, work on some arts and science related activity everyday, aim for at least 20 minutes of work and post a picture and a short description of what you worked on in the Eternal Glades discord (in the #streak-dailies channel). The goal is to have the biggest streak by March 1st, when the challenge ends.
While people working on A&S activities is an important part of this challenge, I think the key to the challenge and its genius, is the requirement to post in the holding’s discord. There could be any of several ways that Burbarry could have chosen to keep track of this challenge but she chose to make it a public forum.
When people go to the discord to post, they are not only showing off what they are working on but they are seeing everyone else’s work too. This has led to a plethora of conversations about each other’s progress. The interaction is as simple as emojis or more engaging such as talking about processes, giving advice as well as positive supportive comments. This is community building at it’s finest.
You Can Join!
When I was talking with Burbarry, I asked if she wanted me to share the holding’s discord and invite everyone to join in on the challenge and her response was and I quote “That would be fantastic! The more the merrier!” So I am happy to include exactly how, you too, can participate in the challenge.
Signing up is very simple, just join the Eternal Glades Discord and head over the to the #serpent-streak-channel to read the detailed rules. Once you’ve committed to joining the challenge you are asked to post your persona name, holding and kingdom in the #2026-roster channel. After that you will post each day you do at least 20 minutes of work in the #streak-dalies channel.
However, if you are new to the server, I would suggest you take a moment to go to the #introduce-yourself channel and introduce yourself. After that I encourage you to view other people’s work and even join in on the challenge’s chat channel, #streak-chat
Baelnorn Takes Up The Challenge
If I wasn’t convinced to do the contest after Burbarry’s post, I certainly was after reading about the challenge on the discord server. It was a perfect chance for me to help get back to creating daily and to have some low stress accountability to help me keep at it. I was so excited to participate I messaged my squire, Dangus, and “demanded” he participate too. I thought it would be fun for us to have our own little competition between each other.
Right now we are neck and neck. Since we started, I missed one day. It would normally break a streak, but for the challenge you get two grace days that you can use to keep your streak alive, which I did. I felt a little bad about that, but I was exhausted that day and I just couldn’t get to it before I passed out.
Despite missing that one day I’m pretty happy with my first week in the contest. This is the first time in a long time that I’ve done so much creating, consistently, day after day. Even though each day I’m not doing much, it’s a start.
This challenge was perfectly timed too. If you read my most recent blog, you’ll know I have been having issues with working on anything for months now. Hopefully over the while I will have built up a strong habit of doing at least some work every day.
Serpent Streak Challenge Updates
If you thought this would be a one and done blog, you’d be wrong. I plan on posting content centered around this challenge throughout the next few months. The one type of post I know I will be posting is a Serpent Streak Spotlight. The other piece of content, which I’m less certain I’ll be posting, are updates about my journey in this challenge.
The Spotlight Treatment
Burbarry is a very busy person; how much she manages to do and do well, is amazing. I asked her if there was anything I could do to help ease her workload and she said it would help if I could do a weekly spotlight of people’s work for the challenge.
I was hesitant at first, as I said I’ve been having trouble being consistent when it comes to working, but the more I thought about it, the more excited I got, so I said yes. However, I did so with the caveat that I might not be able to do it weekly.
I’m still working on exactly how I’d like to write these spotlights. I could do something very simple, a paragraph or two and a few pictures but I would like to do a bit more than that. Not only do I want to shine a spotlight on a person’s work, but also the person themselves.
My most current idea is to ask a few questions about them, their work and their time working on this challenge. Nothing too long or extreme. I’m in the process of working on a set of questions that I will ask each person and then for each person I’ll tailor some questions to what they have been working. I hope to have the first of these spotlights out in the next week or two.
Baelnorn’s Challenge Experience
I was thinking I might write a few blogs about my experiences doing the challenge. This content could take a few different forms. It could be basic updates on what I’ve been working on or maybe I could blather on about how the contest has affected my work habits. I might even give updates on the Baelnorn vs Dangus challenge I mentioned earlier.
As I said, I’m not even sure if I will write anything other than the spotlights, but as I’ve been doing the challenge and especially as I’m writing this blog, I feel inspired to create content around this challenge. I am fairly certain I will, at least, do a challenge wrap up post, but I would like to do more.
If there is anything specific about the challenge or my experiences with the challenge that you’d like to write about, please comment below.
Wrap Up
If you couldn’t tell I’m a fan of this challenge and I’m excited to be able to share it with all of you! I would urge everyone to, at the very least, join the server and see what this challenge is all about and take a look at the conversations going on around this challenge. I think you’ll agree it’s rather inspiring to see the community come together like this.
Discover more from Baelnorn
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.