Happy Halloween to students and faculty, both dead and undead!
The Halloween season is upon us! To prepare you for this time of mystery and fright, the SDRP has you covered to get you into the spooky spirit. From art contests to tektek contests to writing contests and raffles, we have a lot to keep you busy, and many prizes that will bring a smile to your face!
Unlike our previous events, it doesn't seem like anything particularly terrifying is amiss... Or is there?
Spooky Scoops Writing Contest feat. Bagard “The Dean” Woodsworth
What is the SDRP Dean doing this Halloween? He's always winds up in some place or another at this time of the year, but for one reason or another, he'll never let us know where he's going. This is why we're on the hunt for top stories from people like you to help us catch our beloved head of the Academy. Can you help us with the scoop?
Further Details This is a writing contest where you need to write a short story involving the guild's mule and SDRP Dean, the School of Dedicated RPers. Keeping in line with the Halloween season, the story must be Halloween themed. The winners of this contest will be the stories that fit the theme well and are creative and well-written. Are you ready?
Here are prompts to help you get started:
The Dean takes a trip to a haunted house The Dean takes a trip to a grave yard The Dean awakens in the middle of a graveyard Please feel free to suggest more prompts, or to use one of your own for your story!
Rules/Guidelines: 1. Stay within the guild's rules and Gaia's Terms of Service. In particular, even though you are writing halloween-themed stories, please keep in mind to not include material that is too gorey/violent or sexually explicit. 2. Try to keep within the mule's personality. You can read more about his character in this post, which as been conveniently located in the spoiler button below:
Credit: Roy T Inane
Quote:
Bagard “The Dean” Woodsworth: Esteemed mathematician; respected historian; paragon of the arts; undisputed keeper of all knowledge; chronic liar. The Dean spent most of his life suffering the ridicule of his peers, his laughable ideas and ridiculous attempts at posturing met with mockery at every turn. “Dragons, pah,” he would scoff. “I’ve never seen them drag anything onto anything else. They should really be named dragoffs, if you ask me. It’s basic etymology.” “It is a common misconception that our world is powered by electricity. What people fail to realize is that all of our technology is powered by smoke. When something breaks, what is released? Smoke! And once all that smoke is gone, the device stops working! It’s elementary, really.” Much of his pre-academy days were spent at various libraries and universities, although it was never to learn in the traditional sense. The Dean is far too busy to waste his time doing things like reading. Instead, he is of the firm belief that one can learn almost anything via osmosis. It is immediately apparent that this technique does not elucidate principles such as “personal space” or “anything at all.” This has, unfortunately, done nothing to discourage him. When an otherworldly phenomenon appeared one day out of the blue, almost no one was surprised when The Dean decided to learn everything that he could about it by jumping straight into it. The eulogy was really rather touching. Unbeknownst to everyone that had been guilted into attending the funeral, however, The Dean managed to not only survive his ordeal, but to thrive in his new world. When many different worlds and cultures begin to collide, many different explanations begin to crop up. Who’s to say that fish aren’t simply reptiles in disguise? The man who comes from a planet with no water? He probably doesn’t even know that water is actually cooled lava! The cause of his great success in his new world is as ubiquitous as the fact that he has not yet been discovered is extraordinary: A pair of glasses, completely ornamental, but strangely inseparable from his person. After exiting his strange portal into another world, The Dean discovered the spectacles balanced precariously on the bridge of his nose. Upon removing them, he found that he could not set them down no matter how hard he tried. He held them in one hand; nothing special happened. He held them in the other; nothing special happened. He threw them with all the strength he could muster; something special happened. The glasses stuck to his hand as though with glue! But other than their unusual proclivity for refusing to leave his body, they were irksomely ordinary. Perhaps the glasses were a gift from a higher being with a peculiar sense of humor. Maybe they were just a freakishly random side-effect of traveling through an inter-dimensional portal with the reckless abandon of the pursuit of knowledge. Either way, The Dean couldn’t help but notice that after their appearance, people began to listen to his ideas with more sincerity. He has since posited that eyeglasses actually focus the waves of the brain, concentrating them into sharper clarity, which, after bouncing off of a receiving brain, are reflected back into the eyeballs in the form of a clearer image. That last theory aside, they do make him look pretty smart. In any case, The Dean has enjoyed his accidental fame for several years, mainly through having no idea of what the responsibilities of a dean are. His desk is a mountain of paperwork that he constantly shuffles under the pretense of finding older paperwork, which then covers the new paperwork, which eventually becomes old paperwork that he again needs to find, which keeps him from doing the new paperwork. “Being a dean is hard work,” he explains to the rare visitors that manage to find his office. “Do you know what a per credit form is?” he asks, exasperated, secretly hoping that they will, in fact, know what a per credit form is and, perhaps, explain it to him. “No time for idle chatter!” he exclaims when the inevitable questions arise (“Do you know what a per credit form is?”). “I have hopeful young minds to teach!” He is a good man, in his own way. Conceited, but not brash; impatient, but not inconsiderate; whimsical, but not flighty. He shows a genuine concern for his pupils and for his staff, even though he is often exasperated at their lack of knowledge. If one thing can be said about him, it is that he is sincerely interested in the education of his students. He thankfully does not find much time to edify the students himself, nor does he typically interfere with the instructors’ lesson plans. He mainly enjoys shadowing the professors of the academy. They have asked him several times to stop standing quite so close, but the complaint paperwork always seems to get lost.
3. Write in 3rd person, and in the form of a narrative. (Write a story, not a news report.) 4. Maximum 1200 words per story. 5. Maximum 3 entries per person. No one can place more than once. 6. While it is possible, there are no guarantees that what you write will become canon. 7. Please submit entries to Watervoir via PM with the subject title "SDRP Halloween Writing Contest Entry". 8. The last day to submit entries is on October 31, 2014, at 11:59 pm PST.
Prizes: There will be three place winners, with honourable mentions if necessary. The prizes are as follows. 1st: 2 Dragon Hoards 2nd: 1 Dragon Hoard + 2 mil gold 3rd: 1 Dragon Hoard + 1 mil gold Honourable Mention: 1 mil gold
Judges Judges may not also participate in the contest. 1. Watervoir 2. TBA 3. TBA
