Announcements

[Airan]

The Prologue is officially up, which means that applications are officially open for Mossflower Odyssey V. There is also enough preliminary interest where I have decided to open a 9th category- The Assassin. Prophecies are fickle things, and the prologue has been edited to reflect this change.

I wish everyone the best of luck with their writing, and I look forward to reading what everyone comes up with.

[Airan]

I have begun to receive the first sets of applications. If you are a newcomer and have the handicap, please be patient with me in receiving your feedback for your applications. I will try to get them to you as soon as I am able.

[Airan]

There is only one week left to get in your applications if you want them to be elligible for the newcomer handicap. Remember the deadline for handicap elligible apps- if you wish for them to get feedback and resubmission rights- is on February 7th at 11:59 pm EST.

If you have already gotten in your handicap elligible apps and have not received your feedback yet, don't fret, I'm working hard on getting all of that finished and out to you before the weekend's end. Happy writing everyone.

[Airan]

Only three days left to get in your applications, newcomers, if you want them to be eligible for the handicap! Remember the deadline for handicap eligible submissions is February 7th, at 11:59 pm.

[Airan]

Today is the final day to get in your applications if you want them to be eligible for the newcomer handicap. After today, I will no longer be doing preliminary critiques, so if you want the handicap, be sure to send me at least one completed app before 11:59 PM EST tonight. According to my list, I have about 4 newcomers who have not submitted yet, so be sure to send in your apps if you want the handicap.

[Airan]

The Newcomer Handicap is officially closed. I got one final newcomer application in before it closed, so I will get your feedback as soon as I possibly can. However, any newcomer app that comes in from this point on will not receive preliminary feedback or resubmission rights. Thank you to all the newbies who took part in this little experiment. I had a lot of fun reading your apps and seeing the changes you've made.

[Airan]

Seven days left to get in your applications. I have something close to 20 unique writers who have all submitted applications, but only three have submitted their third applications. The contest is heating up in the home stretch, so best of luck to everyone.

[Airan]

It is February 17th. Tonight at 11:59 PM Eastern Standard Time, the application submission box will officially close. Please make sure to get in all of your applications before then as I will not be accepting anything after the posted time. I am currently also missing two newcomer resubmissions for the ID numbers 928 and 122. Please be sure you get those into me before the deadline, otherwise I will judge your submitted application as is. Thanks so much, and happy writing to everyone.

[Airan]

Applications are now closed. Within the next few days the other judges and I will finish up our scores and get the Top 30 posted up as soon as possible. Please have patience with us while we finish this up because well- story time.

The very first contest I ever ran was Mossflower Odyssey 3. MO3 was pretty successful for what it was, and most people who took part in it seemed to enjoy it. But it wouldn't have been successful without those people, and in the end, we barely scraped enough- only doing so because of word of mouth from friends to friends and passing along that the news that these things even existed. We received 37 applications, and most of the categories only filled to 3 perfectly- so a lot of characters got in by default. The competition for MO3 was loose, but it was a great story, and started to reforge this community that I'd been a part of for so long.

Mossflower Odyssey 4 was the next contest, and with renewed interest in the genre, the competition grew and it gathered up a solid 48 applications. However, behind the scenes, drama hurt a lot of MO4's development and it threatened to split up the community once again. It hurt me for a while and I never really found the motivation to want to do another contest, and what little I started was being done for the wrong reasons. I didn't like what I was making, and so I didn't think people would come.

Anyways, someone gave me a talking to while we were playing video games, and a group of young people just suddenly joined our discord, and it gave me the push I needed to focus on what I wanted to do with these things again. Write stories with people and have fun. So with that said-

Mossflower Odyssey 5 has 28 unique writers and 65 applications.

So, not to get too sappy, but- Thank you. To everyone who participated and supported my work. To everyone who tried my weird experiments. And to everyone who got us to this crazy number we have for the weird, niche community we are. I appreciate all of you.

The final role call and the category spread is below-

Antonia St. Myra
Arist
Ashtad
Ayla Bramble
Bane Redflank
Barumtum
Bihto Snowridge
Bise
Bronn
Brother Hawthorn
Candace Kane
Cecil Farrah
Chitterfang the Wrigglekin
Coralbell
Dawl Dredgemast
Declan Stahlrender
Dinogad
Elias Heatherpaw
Elliot
Elrad
Elsabeth van Riften
Falwyn
Fiyero
Flauros
Galena Rosepaw
(Gilings) Plankshifter
Hana
Ilka
Jargur Strongfist
Jennabelle
Jericho (Grim)
Kasenia
Kenway
Kew-Kew
Kiri
Lucan
Maut
Merrill
Mully Stonbrek
Noi
Novak
"Old One"
Priideep
Reinmar
Rickard Greymane
Rita
Robin Merriweather
Rolf
Rynn
Samia
Seamus Blackquill
Shahin
Shatter
Sheercrest
Sheeva
Siler
Siobhan, Codename: The Mantis
Smooths
Tanne Grymklifer
Therion
Trajan
Unga Underbite
Vanya Sandtalon
Yahn
Zandir Firesage

Duelist- 7
Berserker- 8
Schemer- 7
Hunter- 8
Seafarer- 8
Marksman- 7
Guardian- 9
Brigand- 5
Assassin- 6

One of these apps is the winner of Mossflower Odyssey 5. Which one do you think it'll be?

Stay tuned. I'll have more information on the Top 30 soon. Best of luck.

[Airan]

Top 30 is going up very soon. Stay tuned.

[Airan]

The Top 30 are officially live. It's also about 3am, so I'll be headed to sleep now. Once I've properly woken up, I'll be posting information on the voting process as well as general rules for reviewing. Until then. Goodnight

[Airan]

Voting has officially opened . Due to some smaller complications in my life at the moment, I've decided that the voting period will last a bit longer than I initially said it would. Voting will now last until Friday, the 28th at 11:59 PM EST. Please go here for voting information and the voting form-

http://redwallsurvivor.com/forums/index.php?topic=1870.0

[Airan]

Please read this as it is very important,

I shouldn't have to explain this, because I feel this is fairly obvious, but you are only allowed to vote one time. It does not matter if you have multiple accounts, personalities, souls, whatever. You are one voter. To explain, I had a voter send me two separate votes because they had multiple accounts on the forum. To put this into perspective- I have five separate accounts on this forum, from different character accounts from past contests, to admin backup accounts. If I were to vote with my five different accounts, would this be fair to the competition, especially if I was in the running? I could vote for myself five different times and just get in by default, basically- or get in the characters I particularly want. This is something that should be obvious, and if a rule is not obvious or not explained well, then you should never make assumptions and always ask the admin to clarify.

Tonight, someone voted using multiple accounts, and that is very against the rules. For that reason, the character of Maut has been removed from the competition, and their votes have not been counted. To keep the Top 30 as 30, Bihto Snowridge has been added in their place in the Duelist category.

As Bihto was in the cut apps thread before this moment, then it's possible you may know their identity. Please remember to respect that person's identity and not to talk about it in public or privately with others. Thanks.

As I also no longer trust the integrity of the Google Form to deliver a safe voting experience, I have decided to take it down. Please instead PM me your votes for each category.

[Airan]

Today is the last day to get your votes in if you haven't already. Tonight at 11:59 PM EST, voting will close and the Top 10 will be officially decided. Thanks so much and best of luck to everyone :)

[Airan]

Voting is closed. Top 10 will be revealed very soon