The Daunting Affray! (Round 1: Temple in the Sky!)

A sprawling high-rise juts into the multiversal skyline. Few of the lights were on, and they all seemed to be concentrated near the top. Inside, a lone figure was busily setting furniture up (with his own arms, too!). He was sweating and wondering why hosting a Grand Battle had to take so much effort. Then he realized something vital.

"Wait a minute! I'm a Grandmaster!"

And so, the self-proclaimed Artisan simply snapped his fingers. Everything was set in place... kind of. The couch was uneven, and the chairs lay astray. It painted a picture of sloppiness, even with the opulence of the modern architecture. The glass-lined fireplace calmly roared on, barely even having an effect on the room. The ugly yellow walls were lit up by bright white lights. He shrugged. It was good enough. After all, he was excited to get this thing started already! It may not have been long since he acquired his fake Grandmaster Card from the multinternet, but soon, he was about to achieve his true dream at long last - host a Grand Battle!

He concentrated, and sent his mystic eye across the multiple universes, and with great care and intelligent decision, selected 6 of the very best contestants he could glean. (In other words, he went on Google and searched the multiverse for some people he thought would be cool.) Then he checked the thesaurus and determined the battle's name to be...

"THE DAUNTING AFFRAY!"

~~~~~~~~~~

So, what is this anyways? Well, this is a Grand Battle! Essentially, a Grand Battle is a writing competition to the death. You, the people reading this right now, yes you, get to enter a character, and write series of posts about it killing other characters! But it's not going to be as simple as that. This battle will be split up in several rounds, and, at the end of each round, a character dies. The character that dies is decided by who wrote the weakest, or who contributed the least. Each round will take place in a setting of my choosing. The last post of the round will always be a post featuring their death, then the battle moves on into a different round, less one character. This continues until there is only one character left, who is then declared the winner! Go ahead and check out some of the other battles in this subforum to get an idea of just what I'm talking about. Or, join the #grandbattle IRC channel on EsperNet and ask around! We would love to give you answers for any questions you may have!

Generally, your characters can be anything. No really, anything at all. They don't even have to be called "people". After all, this is a multiversal battle, and anything's possible out there. But, for the sake of good writing, try not to have your character be too overpowered. If you can't write anything other than your competitors being instantly mutilated by your awesome invincible bearded swordsman, that's bad. Similarly, try to keep your characters interesting. If they're a perfectly ordinary guy with no remarkable features whatsoever, it'll get hard writing for them real quick. Think about why they are being entered in this. The goal of a Grand Battle is to tell a good story, and the one who tells the best story will end up winning. Also, don't kill other characters until it's time for the round to end. On the other hand, interaction is very healthy to writing. These battles are different from a standard roleplay in that you can control other characters, as long as you don't make them act against what their writer would have them do. This way, you can write entire conversations and scenes at a time. Also, yes, this is technically the fourth S? battle, but my advice to you is not to worry about canonicity.

The reserve system is in place here as well. What does that mean? Well, when you are working on a post, it is a very good idea to put up a reserve, so that others know you are working on a post and will not write a post that will contradict your post and render it void. These reserves can be held for as long you need to write the post, and as the other players feel is acceptable. I'd say maybe up to two weeks is an acceptable maximum to begin with, but that will of course depend entirely on the flow of the battle and also the other players' preferences.

Signups close exactly 10 days from now, with extensions available for those who have reserves but need more time.

I should also note that newcomers are given bias in this battle. If you enter a character that's writeable, and you've never entered one of these before, you're in! Conversely, veterans are also welcome, if you're not in too many battles at the moment.

The profile template can be found here (shamelessly stolen from Schazer):

Code:

[u]Name:[/u] A useful substitute for "Oi, you!"
[u]Gender:[/u] Whatever you and they prefer.
[u]Colour:[/u] A [color=#hexcod]text colour[/color] to distinguish between players. Keep it readable, #AAAA44 is reserved for the GM.
[u]Race:[/u] AKA species. Give a brief description if it's especially weird.
[u]Equipment/Abilities:[/u]Tools of the trade, where the trade is survival in their harsh world.
[u]Description:[/u] A brief overview of their appearance and personality, to give other people a feel for how to write for them.
[u]Errata:[/u] any additional information you'd like to include. A writing sample is not necessary.

Contestants:
- Reginald Lithe - AgentBlue (#908070)
- Samantha Craig - cerebralconfinement (#571B7E)
- Luis Port - Truegreen (#006400)
- Scout - SupahKiven (#800000)
- Clark - Gnauga (#CA0000)
- Mademoiselle la Musette - Vancho1 (#C71585)