2021 Tournament Rules

If you are confused about any rules, please contact us on Discord and we will attempt to clarify any discrepancies. We have a dedicated channel for asking questions!

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General Rules

Always respect your fellow peers and contestants! If any issues arise that cannot be solved privately, please get in touch with an Organizer.
Keep contents in the OCT PG13-- if necessary, use the appropriate dA filters (when submitting on dA) or a spoiler tag in Discord.
Follow conduct rules posted in the Discord server's #server-rules channel.
Please direct questions to the #questions-and-answers channel in the Discord after reading through FAQs.
It is highly recommended you join the Discord group, if not for the community, at least for notifications.

Disregarding conduct rules & content guidelines will result in a warning; repeated violation will end in at least disqualification, if not a ban.

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Content Guidelines

Chief's Crossroads isn't exactly the most appropriate of places; it gets a PG13 rating.

We are allowing for:

- Strong language
- Sexual themes*
- Blood & violence
- Substance abuse

(*Not acceptable in relation to depictions of minors or characters that "just look young".)

We will not accept:

- Nudity
- Pornographic material
- Excessive amounts of gore
- Putting opponents’ characters in sexual situations without artist permission (do not push them on it if they say no)
- Killing opponents' characters without explicit permission to do so

Please put content warnings where necessary.

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Entry Rules

You do not have to have a dA account to submit entries/references/art, but we would like to gather submissions in our dA gallery! Here's our offsite submission form: Submissions will be uploaded as soon as an organizer sees the response & can get to it.
You may join as a Competitor OR Judge; please follow the respective role rules. (For Judge, go to the end of this page.)

Competitor Rules

Accepting written, comic, and animation entries for the OCT. Once you enter with a particular medium, you must continue to use it throughout the competition. Please note that the Tournament will run no longer than 3 rounds (regardless of the number of people that join). Pick what you are comfortable for working in for an audition & potentially 3 rounds.
You must work alone, but you are free to have others review your work.
You may have 2 characters; please follow the guidelines below in Competitor Character Guidelines.
Killing or maiming opponent's characters is allowed, but you must get permission from your opponent to do so. We allow violence and sensitive themes in the OCT, but you must respect your opponent's wishes if they do not want their character depicted a certain way.
Rounds can be won by either of two methods: rendering the opponent's fighter unconscious/incapacitated, or stealing their tag and keeping it from them for 30 seconds (the MC X will count down and call it). There are no ring outs by leaving the main fighting area, you don't lose unless you're knocked out or give up the tag.

We are judging mostly based on good foundations of storytelling & execution. For more details, you can see the rubric we are using here. There are notes for each medium (where needed) due to differences in execution techniques.

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Audition Guidelines

It is required for your audition to include your character accepting the invite to compete & show up in Crossroads to "check-in" with an NPC (they just need to see that your character has a tail). Anything else you'd like to show regarding story or characters is up to you!
Check-in NPCs include: Chifu, Saki, X, and any Crossguard (you can make a custom one if you wish!)

Tags & Tails: After defeating a competitor in the tournament, their collected tails will be added to yours (an evolved accessory appearance is up to you). A round 1 winner will have 2 tails, round 2 will have 4, and round 3 will have all 8. There is no benefit or detriment to the competitor's abilities, regardless of number-- it is meant for NPCs to have a visual cue to your OC's status. Whether or not there is a plot point to the purpose of the tails is up to you! If one exists, Chifu won't easily reveal it~

Submitting: Send us a link to the first page/cover of your finished audition and reference sheet(s) via this google form. Please only submit once-- you can edit a submission later, up until the deadline. A submission response will be sent to the email you used, and this contains an "Edit" button to modify your response. This will also be used to check in for Grace Period submissions-- just change the last question from "Applying for grace" to "Submitting a completed audition", and you will submit your completed audition on the next page.

Note: Grace Period is 12 hours after the Audition deadline. Use the form to submit completed reference(s) and progress on your audition to qualify.

Please link the finished audition works to one another if there are multiple pages/parts.
Please also include a link to the reference sheet(s) in the description of the audition, and vice versa.

If you're uploading to DA, feel free to submit your first page/cover and reference(s) to the group, but note that submission to the group does not count as a submitted entry-- must use google form to be counted (thanks!).

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Competitor Character Guidelines

If submitting 2 characters, you can have them both on the same reference sheet or create 2 references. If using multiple refs, please link them together.

We are accepting teams of 1 FIGHTER character and 1 SUPPORTER character, although you only need to have a fighter in order to compete!

Fighters will be actively competing in the tournament and the sole fighter in rounds. The fighter has priority in claiming the wish if they win the tournament.
Supporters can have helpful passive abilities like buffs/debuffs/heals, but these must be used outside of the fight-- you cannot support your fighter once the match begins. (If a supporter helps a fighter during a match, they are disqualified. They can make verbal comments, but full-on coaching from the sidelines will grab the ire of Chifu and disqualify the fighter.) Supporters can also have no utility outside of being used to push character development and plots! Feel free to have more fun in exploring the role of the supporter.

*For 2-in-1 characters, the current active personality is considered the fighter. They may not switch during a fight or risk being disqualified. Supporter rules apply to the current passive personality in using abilities and coaching actions through telepathy. (Chifu will give a telepathic warning to tell the passive personality to take a backseat and shut up if she feels they're crossing the line on comments to full-on coaching.) 2-in-1 characters count as 2 separate characters due to dealing with separate personalities.

Limitations on OCs:

Age Floor: Fighter character must be at least 16 years old (human years) to participate-- we don't allow kids to fight in potential death tournaments! (Must be old enough to sign a waiver.)
No fancharacters-- this means characters that are currently made to fit into the universe of a published work you do not own. If they used to be in this state, but were altered, that is permissible.
No God Mods or Gary/Mary Sues. Characters can be strong, but not overpowered-- there needs to be challenges during the rounds. Gary/Mary Sues with their universe-bending abilities are just poorly-written power fantasies, and we do not wish to see those.
Tagalongs & Self-made NPCs: Feel free to have these, but please recognize the additional strain having many characters can put on writing. Try to limit yourself to creating only what is necessary to tell your story or elaborate on the world. Tagalongs & Self-made NPCs are not expected to be utilized by an opponent during rounds, they exist for you to help yourself if needed.
If you are unsure an OC would be acceptable and/or want to check power balance, feel free to DM one of the Organizers on Discord.

Competitor Reference Sheet Guidelines:

Please note that writers are not required to have a visual reference sheet! You must include vivid descriptions of characters and items, however. (Feel free to commission visual references to submit if you so desire.)

Please include the following details:

Front & back art, colored. (If not flat colors, have a palette handy!)
Name, Gender/Sex/Pronouns (whatever you wish), Race, Age, Height & Weight.
Strengths, Weaknesses, Personality, Backstory, Abilities, Items-- please include the Tag accessory that will be used in the audition.
If using 2 OCs, include a description of their relationship with one another.

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Judge Rules

We're accepting helper judges in running this OCT and its leagues-- if you apply, you won't be expected to judge more than 1 league (8 competitors at the start), starting with round 1. We ask that judges be communicative and allocate some free time around the round ends of their league to judge entries. There will be a google form to apply with, and the deadline will be approximately 3 weeks before the end of the auditioning period.

Judges will pick a preferred medium to preside over. Please choose a medium you are comfortable with analyzing critically.

Conduct:

Judges shouldn't outwardly show favoritism (ie. "Character Z is my favorite!"), but feel free to compliment people's work! Try to act appropriately in the Discord, we do hold responsibility in acting at a level that shows we have a good sense of judgement. :)

Judge NPCs:

You're permitted to have 1 judge NPC if you are accepted as a candidate for judging. These NPCs are for flavor, and considered to be "minor" in the sense that they must have no mechanical influence over the tournament. Your NPC will be more prominent in your league's reality, but they can show up in other realities.

Examples of admissible NPCs:

A worker at the Fox Den, a traveler from afar who hangs around to tell tales, a librarian, a shop owner, a landlord in town, etc.

Examples of inadmissible NPCs:

A character who changes the rules of how matches are won.
A traveler who offers powerful magic items that alter/add to competitor abilities during combat-- this creates power imbalances. (Selling minor buffing/debuffing potions is okay, just nothing absolutely game-changing or heavily tilting in favor of 1 competitor. Chifu wants to see the competitors show their abilities, not a fancy staff they picked up along the way.)
A character that alters the plot of the official prompt (ie. someone who gets into a power struggle with Chifu, either from within the town or as an outside threat).

Judge NPC Reference Guidelines:

Note that judges for writing do not need visual refs. Please include vivid descriptions instead.