ArantChronicles

As the fights draw close, we figured we'd explain the ground rules of how the fights work in-universe. We'll be moving this chapter up to be in front of the Character Chapters when we're done publishing all of those, which should be in about three days. Remember, first to fifteen is the winner, this technically isn't a tournament.

Win Conditions

The fights are either to the kill, knockout, or surrender. A character named Leonard Strauss exists (we'll put out a chapter about him soon) who's a really skilled practitioner of healing spells. He's there to patch people up after the fights, but he doesn't show until after the fighting is done. He's a neutral character who isn't allied with either team, but was contracted by both to serve as the doctor for the matches. That's how fighters are able to kill their opponent and yet their opponent can still hypothetically return if their author wants to bring them back. Characters can forfeit a match for whatever reason, though consider the ramifications they might face from the rest of their team.

Locations

The fights are happening in various randomly-selected locales across Ibinia. We'll be PM-ing each pair of writers with a description of what the surrounding area is like for their specific match, however they can feel free to just treat it as a suggestion and make up something on their own. Still, writers should keep in mind the previously established descriptions of Ibinia - mostly desert with some grassy plains, many small towns and abandoned areas with larger cities founded around oases, a heavily forested mountainous region near the border under the control of the dragons, and a coastline with white sand beaches and rocky cliffs - when creating new landscapes for their battles.

Moderation

The matches are being hosted by small-time local warlords who dont understand the extent of what's going on, outside of the general situation of "two outside groups are hosting fights on our soil for some kind of weird business deal." They have sent officers to watch the fights and report on the outcomes. These officers have been instructed not to interfere or even get too close to the fighting at all. They will only make their presence known after the battle is over and one side has been rendered incapable of fighting further or has officially forfeited.

It can be assumed that these officer characters are watching the match from the shadows as it happens, and following the fighters around as the fight drags on. Don't feel the need to actually write them running around, though. If you want to have your fight end up in a lake where the characters are duking it out underwater, you don't need to write the officer running off, buying a snorkel and goggles, and hopping in to watch. They can just come in at the end, see that one fighter's standing and the other's on the ground, and figure out what happened. They're just a necessary element to make the story work, don't get too worried about these guys.

Feel free to have other characters tag along to watch too, along with the officers. But unless those other characters are just animals under a character's control (like Hiram's horse and dog and Rén Lei's controlled wildlife) they cannot get involved with the fight. That's cheating, and the officer will stop the fight right there and award victory to the person who got teamed up on. The rules of the matches are pretty loose and "everything goes," but you can't have multiple people tag-teaming the other fighter. Want to have other characters hang around and watch for color commentary? Knock your socks off. Want to have them get involved in the battle, even if they don't make much of a difference? Yeah, don't do that.

Remember, the Sage Coalition doesn't officially exist. They're operating through a shell company called Arc Trading. Normal people like the warlords and their staff wouldn't know about the Sages or just figure it's some crazy conspiracy theory. They think it's Arc Trading VS Nova Ordo, not Sage Coalition VS Nova Ordo. Clarifying since that's been a point of confusion for some people

The dragon aristocrats who run Ibinia have no clue that the matches are happening. They're not the ones officiating. Even if they did know the matches were happening, they simply wouldn't care. Again, that's just clarification for a detail many have been confused over.

What the fighters know

For this first round, the fighters aren't given any information about their opponent. They're told to show up to a location at a given time and defeat the person they meet there. In universe, this is meant to eliminate the possibility of people preparing special weapons or traps to target their opponent's weaknesses. The fights are also randomly chosen in universe.

The fighters are also aware of the general rules and situation above that we just covered (they know they can kill, knock out, or forfeit, they know there's an official watching, they know they can't team up on someone, they know it's the first team to fifteen wins, etcetera). They also possibly know some details about their own teammates, but this is on a case by case basis.

Going forward into future rounds, it can be assumed characters can pick up knowledge on their opponents through talking to teammates who have fought them before. If any rematches happen, the characters obviously know about one another cause they've met before.

ArantChronicles

If you have any additional questions, fire away in the comments, in PMs with this account, or in the Discord server.