After reading that description, you’re probably wondering how this ambitious little experiment will actually work.

The basic idea is that a bunch of characters created by the individual authors joining in on the project will be part of two teams sorted into 1-on-1 matches. Both authors will write their own version of a fight scene involving those two characters, ending with their character winning. The audience will get to vote on which version of the fight ends up becoming canon. The first team to reach 15 overall victories will win the competition.

We’ve already got a lot of work done and a few authors signed on. However, we’re looking for a few more writers to join in. The submission period will begin on January 1st, and last until January 14th. We already have a lot of members who’ve promised to join in, so we’re going to cap things at 16 writers. If we hit that benchmark before that date, then we’ll close things early. Keep in mind that by joining in, you’re expected to be writing multiple chapters. It’s a commitment.

Each writer will be required to create a character for the project, following this form. If you want to join, submit all of the following on this forum thread, or PM it to this group account. You can only submit a single character.

Name: What's their name?

Allegiance: Sage Coalition or Nova Ordo?

Age: How old are they?

Race: Human? Or something else?

Bio: Cover their personality and backstory.

Abilities: Cover their powers/fighting style.

Appearance: What they look like physically. This is necessary so that authors can be consistent on how the characters appear.

How they got recruited: The Sage Coalition and Nova Ordo are both searching out fighters. How did either side contact your fighter and get them to agree to join? What are their goals in joining?

The submission also needs to include a short (300 words minimum, no maximum) chapter about your character. It should show them being recruited by either side. Try to show off their personality and how they fight, and most of all be creative. Keep in mind that this will be made public to the readers and other authors of the project, published as part of the story (we’ll be referring to these as “character chapters.”)

Write from a third person POV, past tense. This is just to keep a consistent style across all chapters - sorry if you’re a writer who prefers first person, but we just generally decided third would work best for this project.

There will need to be 8 characters/writers total for each faction. Currently, we have 8 Sage Coalition members and 8 Nova Ordo members submitted, and 16 authors on-board total out of 16.

Update: We are currently not accepting any more submissions for this season's base roster, but feel free to still message us if you're interested in being a backup writer.

I'll keep these numbers updated as more join. We're doing first come, first served on who gets slots. If one team gets filled up first, that's too bad. But I think both sides provide ample opportunities to make interesting characters.

For rules regarding what kind of characters you can submit, please just stick to a general fantasy theme. Arant is designed to be a world where you can kind of make anything work well, but there are limits. We’ve included some existing worldbuilding in the next two chapters of the story: II. The World of Arant and III. The "Peaceful" Solution.

These two chapters cover the world of Arant, the level of technology, how we’ll be treating magical abilities, and the current scenario going into the “tournament.” All of this is pertinent to crafting an appropriate character for the collab. Feel free to check out the existing character chapters for inspiration.

As for limiting character’s abilities, just try to keep them at a reasonable power level. If you’re going to give them lots of powers and abilities, give them weaknesses too. This isn’t the kind of setting where people will be able to blow up cities with magic blasts or anything like that. The mods running this project reserve the right to veto characters for any reason - if they can blow up planets with a magic Kamehameha, they're out. If they have a power that causes instant death on the opponent, they're out. We'll try and help you tweak your characters so they fit before discarding them, but there are some things that just wont fly.

After we’ve processed all the submissions and published all the character chapters, the proper competition will begin. The team running this project (Carpio, Anon_Y_Mousse, and me, DoctorVirus) will choose matchups for all the authors involved, as well as create random terrain where the fight will take place. There will be a deadline of 2 weeks for these first 8 fights and for each round afterward, until one of the sides hits 15 wins. If an author drops out, we’ll have to either sub in a backup character with another author taking up the reins, or just remove their character from the ongoing narrative.

These fights will be released in a staggered way that allows time for voting from the audience. An exact schedule has yet to be hammered out, though, so stay tuned on that.

Speaking of voting: Which version of each fight ends up being the canon one will be decided by an audience vote. If a character is killed off in a canon fight, but their author wants to bring them back, they can be magically revived, so there’s not really much of a worry there. Still, fights don’t have to end in a death, and it’s preferred if your character doesn’t kill their enemy off, just knock them out.

That’s about everything… but it’s still a lot. We’ve surely missed something, so if you're curious about anything come talk to us on the forum thread or on our Discord channel (if that link doesn't work, hit me (DoctorVirus) up for another one). Of course, you can also comment here if you have any questions.