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In light of the somewhat tragic events of their recent Hatching (and perhaps to distract the Weyr from the scandalous nature of an Igen queen laying her eggs at Fort Weyr), the organizers of the Wher Tournament have announced an opening date for the big event!

The tournament will take place on some open grounds just outside the Weyr and a short distance from the Hold. The current atmosphere is somewhat like a carnival being set up, as vendors that usually sell their wares at gathers begin arriving and setting up their tents and stalls. Betting being a popular activity during wher tournaments, there are several shadier 'game' tents here and there where people that specialize in tricking festival-goers out of pocket money have set up for business.

Crews employed by the tournament organizers are busily clearing out spaces and setting up stands for the wher competitions themselves -- the racetrack, and the fighting and conformation rings. For those less interested in whers, stands are being set up to watch the aerial acrobatics of the dragonriders. Rumor has it the Beastcrafters may have some livestock on display as well.

The wher fights are usually the bloodiest sport in the tournament (unless a couple of whers in the beauty pageant get into a spat, which has been known to happen). Fights pit one wher against another in a sandy ring lined with spectators. Bets on the outcome of the fights are exchanged freely.



Fights take place in a sandy ring about twice as large as a Terran boxing ring. The ring is lined with stands for spectators. The two handlers stand at the perimeter of the ring, either shouting instructions to their bonds or attempting to urge them on mentally.

Whers are usually matched against one another by the luck of the draw, although the most popular whers are matched up together on purpose to draw crowds. While winning is obviously the most important part of the fight, more seasoned and popular fighters have a bit of crowd-pleasing flair in their matches. Crafty handlers may urge their whers to roar and stamp and even fight on the wing for short periods of time if they are capable of it. Exciting matches, after all, draw the biggest bets.

While whers may bite, claw, and otherwise attempt to injure each other until their foe submits, the point of the match is NOT to critically injure or kill one's opponent. Whers are valuable working animals in their ordinary, day-to-day lives, after all. Accidents do happen, but these tend to reflect poorly on the handler of the wher that caused the severe injury.

Traditionally, the victor of a match will mark his or her fallen opponent with a shallow slash across the side of the neck or shoulder, drawing some more blood to please the crowd and further humiliating the beaten wher. This maneuver is usually not advised for fresh fighters as it is somewhat dangerous and no one wants a dead wher on the sands.



If you're going to randomize the outcome of your fight, each person should make an opening post in which they roll 5 4-sided dice. Whoever rolls higher wins the match. A draw results in, well, a draw. From that point you can proceed as you would in a typical duel/fight RP, until the person who rolled lower is soundly beaten.

Even if you lose, your match will still count towards fulfilling the champion requirements, so don't worry! smile

If you've pre-planned the outcome of your fight with your RP partner, you don't need to roll.

Fights can also be SRPed, but SRPed fights won't count as your one required battle RP if you're interested in becoming a champion.



All adult whers from all walks of life can enter the fights! While there are stat requirements to become a champion, there are no stat requirements for fighting.



To become a Champion and be transferred to the Fighting Wher lineart, a wher must complete the following tasks!

• Raise STR and CON to 20 by tournament's end!
  
• Complete 1 battle RP with another wher by the end of the current tournament! It does not matter if you win or lose, only that the RP is complete (5 posts per person).
  
• Complete 1 additional tournament-related RP by the end of the current tournament. This can be another battle, a general RP with someone else, or an SRP. The only strict rules on this one are that it should be complete, it should begin and end within the tournament timeframe, and that it should involve this tournament competition and your wher in some way. You can RP/SRP fighting, training for a fight, betting on the fights, discussing the fights with someone else, or even pondering entering. We just don't want you using an RP about the beauty pageant or something unrelated for this.
  
• Complete 2 further RPs involving your wher. At least one should be with another person. These can be old RPs, they don't have to be related to the tournament in any way and they don't have to be recent. All we ask is that they are completed by the end of the tournament.
  
• Participate in the Awards Ceremony ORP at the end of the tournament. You only have to post once.

While officially termed as the Conformation Competition, almost everyone involved in the tournament has come to know this simply as the Beauty Pageant. While some use the term Beauty Pageant derisively, others are proud to call their whers Beauty whers and spend hours carefully grooming every toenail and brushing the hide of their lumpy friends until they gleam with wherly perfection from their flared nostrils to the tips of their short, fat tails.



Handlers enter whers in one-on-one talent competitions, but the biggest draw of the pageant has always been the main show itself. After handing in an application to the tournament judges, handlers take their whers up onto a stage and parade them to and fro before a (possibly) admiring audience while an announcer extolls the virtues of their wher to oohs and aahs. Once they have finished their solo strut, the pageant whers move to the back of the stage to stand in a row with the other whers on display, posing as prettily as possible to hopefully keep the judges' eyes on them.

Once all of the whers have had a chance to show off, the judges confer and attempt to decide which wher is the prettiest of all!

Of course, it never seems to turn out quite that neatly, as the judges get rather opinionated. Usually several titles are given out to the assembled whers, ranging from "Most Attractive Toenails" to "Wher Most Likely To Take Pern By Storm".



In order for this RP to count for your Championship (and in order for you to get 1 stat point), you need to post at least 500 words. This can be split into as many, or as few, posts as you would like! Even one post would be fine. smile

The process is pretty simple. There will be an application to fill in before you enter the pageant, which will be used to help our announcers introduce your wher and help the judges decide what title your wher should receive. We will probably allow late entries at least a day or two into the ORP, but specifics will be posted when the form and ORP go up.

Once the ORP has opened, you are free to post your handler leading your wher up onto the stage and parading it to and fro before the audience. The NPC announcer will post after you, describing the action and telling the audience more about your beautiful beast. After the NPC has introduced your wher, you may retire to the back of the stage with the rest of the beauty pageant whers to wait until the end of the pageant. More specifics will be posted when the ORP is opened, but you are free to chat with other handlers, as long as you don't get too loud and interrupt the show. People fighting or causing a hullabaloo backstage will get tossed out of the pageant! For shame!



Talent shows are more private competitions between two or more whers. In these talent competitions, wher handlers pit their charges against one another to see whose is more, well, talented. Whers in talent shows take turns demonstrating their own skill (or lack therof) while their handlers give direction. This skill may be flying, strutting around striking poses, balancing treats on their noses, doing tricks, or perhaps lying there like a lump depending on the wher in question. The wher which demonstrates the most talent and wins the affection of the audience is deemed the winner.



TWO WHERS ENTER. ONE WHER LEAVES. NO SURVIVORS. NO MERCY.

*ahem*

For this competition, each RPer should post their CHA stat in their first post, and roll 5 4-sided dice. If your CHA stat is 4 or more points higher than your opponent's, you get a +2 bonus to the sum total of your dice roll. This should give whers with high CHA a slight boost without being gamebreaking for folk with lower stats. After the stat bonus has been added (or not added, depending on how similar your CHA stats are), the person with the highest total is the winner. A draw results in a draw.

Here's how your basic talent show goes:

A space or stage is cleared for the whers and their handlers to compete. Usually, an audience of bored, curious, or wher-loving people will be there to observe (this audience can be NPCed by you). The handlers then direct their whers to perform and attempt to outdo each other to impress the folk in the crowd!

Of course, all may not go as planned and the whers may make mistakes, forget how to do tricks, refuse to perform, or get in a scuffle ... or the handlers may lose their cool and get in a scuffle with each other. It's up to you!

At the end, the NPC audience can be said to cheer the hardest for the wher with the winning roll.



Your wher should be an adult! That's about it.

If you want to participate in the Beauty Pageant ORP as a competitor, you will need to fill out the application and turn it in to the judges before the show starts. If you will be there as a spectator, you can hop in whenever you like.

You don't need to sign up to do one-on-one talent competitions, you can start them whenever you like.



To become a Champion and be transferred to the Beauty Wher lineart, a wher must complete the following tasks!

• Raise WIS and CHA to 20 by tournament's end!
  
• Complete 1 talent show RP with another wher by the end of the current tournament! It does not matter if you win or lose, only that the RP is complete (5 posts per person).
  
• Complete 1 additional tournament-related RP by the end of the current tournament. This can be another show, a general RP with someone else, or an SRP. The only strict rules on this one are that it should be complete, it should begin and end within the tournament timeframe, and that it should involve this tournament competition and your wher in some way. You can RP/SRP a show, training for a show, betting on the shows, discussing the shows with someone else, or even pondering entering. We just don't want you using an RP about the fighting or something unrelated for this.
  
• Complete 2 further RPs involving your wher. At least one should be with another person. These can be old RPs, they don't have to be related to the tournament in any way and they don't have to be recent. All we ask is that they are completed by the end of the tournament.
  
• Fill out an application and participate in the Beauty Pageant ORP. You need 500 words in as many (or as few) posts as you would like.

With these competitions, we've set up some situations where people and whers may get into fisticuffs. Particularly the organized fights. We want to clarify the amount of violence and mayhem that is expected from all of the competitions.



Fighting whers can expect to be involved in fights that contain the following:

• Minor cuts
  
• Scrapes
  
• Bruises
  
• Shallow gashes, slashes, and bitemarks
  
• Minor loss of blood as from minor injuries
  
• Sprains
  
• Injuries that might cause temporary disfigurement or impairment like a lump on the noggin or limping
  
• Wounds that might leave minor, skin-deep scars
  
• Being dazed or knocked silly for a few moments
  
• Slight injury to the eye area (eye swollen shut, blurred or obscured vision from a cut above the eye, etc)

THESE things we consider an unexpected level of violence and/or mayhem:

• Major blood loss
  
• Fainting
  
• Losing consciousness
  
• Broken bones, dislocation or severe, crippling sprains
  
• Torn wings
  
• Any crippling injury that would leave permanent impairment
  
• Deep, serious cuts, bites, or gashes
  
• Maiming to leave severe disfigurement
  
• Any ghastly injury like disembowelment, throat-ripping, hamstringing, etc
  
• Any injury severe enough to require immediate attention from the healers
  
• Blinding
  
• Death

Please. PLEASE DO NOT include any type of injury from the 'unexpected' category unless it is agreed upon by both RP partners before the RP begins. We don't want anyone upset that their not-very-serious wher brawlin' RP turned into a gorefest. We don't want anyone upset that their human character is now seen as being unable to properly train or control their wher, or has to feel guilty for maiming or killing another wher.

We also know that gorefests and tragedies can be fun, so you're certainly allowed to have disasters occur. But your RP partner has to know beforehand. If you are planning to RP something unusually violent, disaster-tastic, etc, BOTH RP PARTNERS must include the following disclaimer in your first post.





If things get heated, the following things sometimes happen to whers and/or handlers:

• Minor scrapes, cuts, and bruises
  
• Nips
  
• Lumps and bumps as from tripping or shoving

Any level of violence above that should be agreed upon by BOTH RP PARTNERS, and the following disclaimer posted in BOTH OF THEIR FIRST POSTS.





Some whers and/or handlers get notoriously snippy during the pageant and talent shows. These things may happen, so be prepared!

• Shoving
  
• Tripping
  
• Minor fisticuffs and/or slapfights
  
• Minor bumps, bruises and scrapes

It's generally understood that any fighting should not touch the hair or face or leave any marks!

Any level of violence above the items on this list should be agreed upon by BOTH RP PARTNERS, and the following disclaimer posted in BOTH OF THEIR FIRST POSTS.





Dragons are taking their turns putting on displays, and there should be NO FIGHTING IN THE AIR. Fighting in the air will result in a no-score or disqualification.

Riders on the ground may have less common sense, and the following have been known to occur in the past:

• Shoving
  
• Tripping
  
• Minor fisticuffs and/or slapfights
  
• Minor bumps, bruises and scrapes

Since this is an ORP, no violence above this level is going to be allowed. If you want to RP something more violent than this related to the trick-riding, you should take it off-stage and away from the main trick-riding competition, into a PRP.