Welcome one and all to the 18th monthly officially unofficial Original Character Contest!
As you may or may not know, every month we here in the off-topic forum host a little contest, mostly just for fun.
The TL;DR of the thing is that you write up and submit an original character for the RWBY setting, the judge scores it based on their own, well, judgement; and whoever has the best score at the end gets bragging rights and is first in line to host the next month’s contest.
Before i get into the rules, i should probably announce the theme; and that is protagonists of classic literature (specifically books written between 1800-1950).
Now, to clarify, I don’t mean the hero or the good guy; i mean the protagonist, the absolute main character of the story, regardless of their morality.
I will NOT be accepting characters based on the protagonists of plays which were adapted into novels during this time frame, so fair warning; as they were not written as literary characters.
This article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_years_in_literature
Should be helpful in finding something if you draw a blank.
Now, for the rules:
1) The judge (that would be moi), must pick one and only one theme, which can be anything that crosses your great wonderful mind; from animal to period, from mythology to a concept, or even just a simple rule. (Welp, we’ve pretty much covered this already, so let’s move on.)
2) Using the template that will be provided below, you, the contestants, must create an OC that fits the chosen theme.
3) This character MUST conform to all established laws of canon in order to be considered eligible for the competition. These inescapable laws ARE:
-CNR (Color Naming Rule, meaning that the character must distinctly remind us of, outright mean, or sound like a color or set of colors in some way. So basically, don’t name your character John Smith or Maverick Ultra or something.)
-1 Semblance only (One - read it, one - Semblance means one special ability/power. Now, it is possible for one Semblance to be able to do multiple things, but they must be very closely-related to each other in order to pass the radar (meaning don’t make one Semblance that turns a person into Superman or gives them multiple unrelated powers, basically). Above all else, don’t give a character multiple Semblances unless you want them to get shot down faster than Santa’s sleigh in military-controlled airspace.)
-No Grimm hybrids, of any sort, fraction, or type (Kind of already stated above; this is a huge no-no, due to it’s sheer logical impossibility given current info, no matter how cool or edgy you might think them to be.)
-No Aura-possessing robots/androids (Penny has been directly stated as the only one of her kind for the time being…)
4) Characters may not and must not be affiliated with members of the main cast, save for simultaneous attendance at Beacon Academy or membership in other institutions (such as the White Fang, the Atlas military, etc.)
5) No reality-shifted characters. (This is for you uncreative wise guys out there who want to bring in Goku, Naruto, Sasuke, Natsu, Zoro, Batman, Iron Man, or whoever as a Hunter. Don’t do that crap.)
6) Characters, weapons, and Semblances can be re-tooled, but must not have been submitted to the OC, Weapon, or Semblance threads in the last two months, or in any of the previous contests. Semblances and/or weapons posted to the Semblance or Weapons threads during the time of the contest will be disqualified (meaning you will receive 0 points for that semblance/weapon).
7) Weapon and Semblance must be your own creations. This means don’t go using someone else’s idea as your own. You can, of course, receive advice and tips from anyone via message wall or private chat, but the base idea must be your own.
8) The first full character you post is the one which will be judged. However, you have until the end of the contest’s submission time frame to make any alterations or upgrades you see fit. Once time is up, any further changes will be ignored.
9) The esteemed judge must post the grading system within three days of the contest starting, to make it fair on everyone, especially newcomers. (This is a me issue, not a you issue, so don’t worry about it. The grading system will go up with the template in the next post)
10) First time entrants will be given a 10-point bonus to their score, so long as their score before the bonus is 70 points or under. This is to at least give any newbies a fighting chance against the veterans.
The submission deadline for this competition is on Monday, October 10th, at 23:59:59 by the wikia’s clock. That’s one week, start to finish.
As per the rules the character template (and my scoring outline) will follow shortly.