What You Want To See

[Tooley Bostay]

With applications open, we're off to another contest! I know that I'm already thick in the process of thinking up characters and imagining just how the story may play out. I'm sure plenty of others are as well, so I thought it was time for the annual "what d' yew lot wanna see outta dis tale, eh?"

Whether or not you plan to apply, or just follow along as a reader, are there any elements you'd really like to see present in this contest? Opportunities with the location and themes that would be a shame to pass up on? Ways that it can stand out from its Survivor brethren? Anything and all is welcome here.

For me personally, having been a cast member of MOIII, I'd really like to see some stronger character-bonds forming between the contestants. The setting is absolutely primed for this--beasts forced to rely on others for support, trust in strangers, and work together to survive this entire ordeal. I want beasts who will weep, cheer, boil with rage, be struck dumb when a fellow cast member dies, not just shrug their shoulders and move on, because they weren't really connected to them in the first place.

Also, I'd really like the inner-workings of the Crater to be explored. Who's in charge of what? What's it all look like? What intrigue and mysteries and dealings go on when the games aren't being performed? Or, heck, what goes on behind-the-scenes when the games are on? It would be such a missed opportunity to make it nothing more than a glorified death ring. With the two prologues we've gotten, there are already hints of something more going on, so I definitely want to see the authors make use of the setting and build upon it.

[Vera Silvertooth]

Tooley, you beat me to it. I was thinking this afternoon about making a thread like this.  ;D

Anywho, what I would like to see, above all, is a great, entertaining story. I want to know what sort of mysteries reside in the Crater and around the beasts who run and reside (willing or no) in it. I want characters I can care about and ones that I will cry over when they are voted out.

Oh, and I'm looking forward to seeing some of the talented artwork from those of you with that skill set.

[Vin]

What about rivalries, arch-nemeses, die-hard enemies?

Character bonds are nice and all, but personally I want to see characters clash & conflict.

[Tooley Bostay]

Oh, totally. Beasts who hate each others guts is great too. Conflict is the cream cheese of a storytelling bagel, after all. Let's just have some solid cast interactions, future writers, nothin' lukewarm!

[Matra Hammer]

What I want to see? Usually this is the point where I ramble on about food and poems and songs. Still a bit of the same in my tastes, but let me make this clear with one line apart:

I will vote for any app which shows the beast in their natural habitat.

I don't care how they're captured and put into the arena. That's what the story is for.
I don't care about power levels, training, and the intricacies of their weaponry. That's what the arena is for.
I don't care about their species or what part of Mossflower (or beyond) they originally came from. That's what inter-cast development is for.

What I will care about?

How much sugar they take in their morning tea, or if they drink tea at all, or if they don't drink/eat in the morning because the extra weight makes their morning vigil - in keeping with their family's tradition of guarding Slake Rock - all the more tiresome.

How many children they think is too many, because their mate keeps asking for a larger family to keep in stride with their sister's throng, but your hero is caught between the call of the sea and the warmth of a shorelock family.

And so on.

Again, to make myself clearerererer:

Dottering app where a beast engages in a character-defining ritual > look how cool my warrior is.

[Istvan]

Personally I'm looking forward to an entire cast of otters named Spartacus

[Airan]

Personally I'm looking forward to an entire cast of otters named Spartacus.

Or crows named Russell.

Good to see you guys made it, Vin and Istvan. Here's hoping some more people show up soon :)

I'm of course hoping for what I always hope for- a diverse and well connected cast of characters, each with their own respective personalities and archetypes. Not everyone has to be some do-gooder who wants to escape the coliseum, just as not everyone needs to be a bloodthirsty warrior- or a warrior at all.

I'm also personally hoping for some lesser represented species to be used this time around. Otters and foxes and the like are cool and all, but I'd really like to see someone step out of their comfort zone and try something like a mouse or a mole. There was a mole in MO2- but it's such an underrepresented species that I'd love to see someone write another.

Other than that, blood. I want to see contestants actually kill one another instead of dying to NPCs or random dangers. Not all deaths have to be done through two contestants being paired against one another in the arena, but it's a good way to breed drama and conflict among the characters and if everyone is killed off by NPCs or something, then it'd be a waste of the great concept this contest has going for it.

Lastly I want to see everyone try their hardest and write characters and ideas that are interesting and they can be proud of. Just because it's a gladiator contest doesn't mean you have to write the burliest warrior in the land. You could try to write something that has no place in this environment, like a younger and weaker character. At the end of the day though, what matters is who the character is and not what they are, and the best will be the one who succeeds in the arena- regardless of if they're a warrior or not.

[Tooley Bostay]

One that occurred to me: I think there are some fantastic opportunities to play around with the structure of the death posts. No one knows who's going to live or die in a coliseum, so why should it be any different for the readers? How cool would it be to have some of the death posts be set in the Crater between two of the player characters?

It may need some fancy footwork with the POV (swap between the two? Write from an onlookers perspective so as to not give it away?), but I think that sort of tension would be glorious. Not for every death, of course, but I'd really like to see a tense post where I have no idea which player character is going to make it out alive.

[Vera Silvertooth]

On the topic of death posts, I kind of liked what we ended up doing in the later half of MO3, where the death post didn't come at the very beginning and wasn't posted by Airan, but were rather more surprises for the audience. One death really caught my friend off guard because she wasn't expecting it. That may be something for the moderator and cast to consider this contest.

[Rascal]

I'm not sure what I really want to see, at least nothing that stands out right away. I grew up with Terry Pratchett novels, he had a way of making fantasy characters appear...human. No matter how monsterous or heroic his characters were they were still people and they did people like things in-between going on adventures. They had the simpleest of quircks used in a way that made each and everyone complex.

I guess I want to see characters react to the world around them as regular people would...not as a holiwood character would...if that makes sense.

[Istvan]

One thing I am curious about is where this story fits in the larger MO timeline (III -> I -> II, based on the general level of technological and cultural sophistication); does this coliseum exist within a larger context of wealthy market towns like Yew and Carrigul, or is it just a sedentary extension of the large, nomadic land-based vermin hordes of the novels that have already declined by the time of III and see their last gasp in Zevka's backstory in I? Or possibly, does this take place after even II, and ruthless industrial exploitation has turned Mossflower in a Mad Max-esque wasteland?

[Tooley Bostay]

I've been assuming it's just a traditional Redwall framework (psuedo-medieval, pre-gunpowder tech), but that's a really good question. Would be good to get a solid answer from Zevka, just so everyone is on the same track.

As far as "cultural sophistication" goes, however, we do see in both prologues that vermin and woodlanders cooexist (as audience members of the fights, and as craftsbeast for the scaffolding). If it's in the same timeline, then that seems to fit with the aftermath of MOIII, blurring the lines between vermin and goodbeasts. On the other hand, it could be unrelated, and just an aspect of wherever the Crater is--that we're far enough from Mossflower that the racial biases of the books aren't as strong there. Which, if that is the case, then we're still holding true to the tradition of these contests getting further and further away from Mossflower. =P

[Zevka]

@Istvan
So, this takes place a few years before Atlas and Captain Blade really come into the picture. It takes place after MO1, but you do not need to have read that story to understand this one. The Northlands' distance from Redwall mean that hordes are still a thing, but they've gotten more sedentary -- think Kotir, not the Rapscallions. The Northlands are a little backwards compared to Mossflower proper or Carrigul, but not so much as to feel like a totally different culture.

In response to questions that someone PMed me:
- Nire (rhymes with "Wire") would accept lynxes and/or wildcats as gladiators. However, he might first check to see if they are from his original homelands, which is not in Mossflower. Pretty female kitties might get the whole "Hey girl, looking for a way to not be a gladiator?" thing.
- Gladiators can earn their freedom. Generally, this happens just whenever Nire feels like it. However, on occasion fans have actually bought and freed favorite gladiators.
- Nire doesn't teach gladiators to ride boars, but that doesn't mean they don't know. He did not originally introduce the boars -- somebeast else did, but now they are fairly widespread. They are a valuable trade good, but feral populations also exist. The intelligence level of a boar is comparable to that of a smart, trainable dog. Think a military or police dog, for example.

[Airan]

So, this takes place about 3 years after the events of MO3 -- the events involving Captain Blade are still fairly fresh on beasts' minds, but things have settled down and gone back to normal.

Just so everyone's aware, I'm in the process of planning an actual sequel for MO3 that will continue the storyline of the Waverunners and Captain Blade, so if this is going to be taking place in the same continuity then I would appreciate it if none of the writers touch too much on that area of the world. That being said as a slight a spoiler to what I have planned-

if years = seasons, then Zevka's right that things will have settled down and started to go back to normal, though the Waverunners would be policing the seas a bit more heavily now. If years = years, then various islands and villages along the western coast would be in chaos at the moment.

Personally, for simplicity's sake I'd prefer we not really make the contest take place in the same universe as MO3 just because of confusion and inconsistencies that could erupt from newer applicants who haven't read the contest and aren't aware of the differences in MO3's Mossflower to the Canon's, as well as the potential for a writer to unknowingly interfere with things I have planned for the sequel next year. I'm completely fine with references that imply it's in the same universe- such as someone mentioning Atlas or how pirate activity has slowed down recently- but it might be best to not have it explicitly be in the same universe.

If we do have it take place in the same universe as MO3 though, here's a quick cheat sheet for everyone-

Vermin and Woodlanders are on slightly okay terms with one another at the moment after some social changes that have swept through Mossflower after the deaths of Badgerlord Atlas and the pirate king Captain Blade. It's a shaky relationship, but there's progress being made.

Gold is used as currency, and villages and towns are springing up along the coast as the world begins to have a boom of progress. Piracy is on the decline, though there are threats that it could come surging back at any moment.

The Long Patrol is no more, and has been redubbed to the Waverunners, which are a navy and army consisting of any Woodlander species- not just hares- that patrol the western coast and keep it safe for travelers, traders, etc from pirates.

[Zevka]

@airan
Actually, on second thought, you're right. How about having this take place a few years *before* Captain Blade and Atlas really emerged? MO1 has happened, but doesn't need to play a major role in this story -- maybe just an Easter egg or two. If that works, I'll edit my previous post.