Wake up.

Open your eyes. Where are you? You’re not sure, but it’s not where you went to sleep last night.

Your head spins as you stumble to your feet. You blink to clear the spots from your vision, but your eyes refuse to focus. The air presses on your skin. It’s hard to move.

You feel the ground shift beneath your feet and hear something from behind. You turn to look.

And you run.

Wake up.

Please.

---

[/HR]
Welcome to the Valley of Dreams, the beginning and end of all things. It takes on many forms and it goes by many names: the Web of Lies, the Cliffs of Conquest, the Field of Memories, just to name a few. But today, it is the Valley of Dreams.

You have all been cordially invited--all that’s left is to accept.


Entry Requirements
Entry for this wRHG tournament is now OPEN! Entries for the first round will be accepted for two weeks until midnight CST, July 2nd (7/2). Get your entry in early to make sure you don’t get bopped by the due date and shafted to the next round. PM me BEFORE the deadline if you have extenuating circumstances and we’ll talk it through.

To enter, you must write a short story that meets the following criteria:
1) Your character is having a nightmare
2) Your dream-version character is unconscious inside the dream at the end of the story (by any means)
3) The story is 750 words or less (anything longer will not be accepted)
You must also post a link to your wRHG page and write a one-line blurb (ten words or less) summarizing your character’s most important abilities. This is the only information that will be posted alongside your story and by extension the only information you may assume the reader will know when reading your work. (I will truncate or reword it if it is greater than ten words.)
You must use this character for all of your stories.

Everyone who does the above will be entered into the tournament.

This tournament is focused on your ability to write self-contained short stories (read: no overarching plot going over multiple stories or continuity) and write with and around restrictions. You’ll need to show your initiative and write stories with elements you may never have used before about things you likely wouldn’t happen upon in your normal story. Not all prompts involve combat.

Full tournament details will be posted on the twenty-sixth of June (6/26), or one week from today. Be warned; this tournament is not going to be bracket style. There will be four rounds, and new entry is allowed at the beginning of the first, second, and third rounds (But you may only join the tournament once; you may not reenter after being eliminated). Latecomers will be penalized in the rankings, but if you want to get in on the action after the first entry deadline, then by all means enter.

Post any general questions here (If you PM me a question, I will post it in this thread if it applies to other people) and I’ll answer them as soon as I’m able. Any miscellaneous discussion about the tournament goes here as well.

Check back here if you’re ever confused about deadlines, round links, or anything else tourney-related. More likely than not you’ll find it or a link to it at the bottom of this post.


General Tournament FAQ:
Q: My character can't sleep/dream/fall unconscious/be killed. What do I do?
A: Okay, I admit that might make filling those requirements up there a bit hard. If you have one of these things, here's what you can do. If you want, you can go ahead and just ignore that your character can't dream/sleep or whatever. I don't care. But if the inability to dream is an integral part of your character and you can't stand to get rid of it, you are allowed to put them into a dream by other methods like some elaborate illusion or physically "transporting" them into a dream of some sort or having them involved in someone else's dream. If you go for that last one, remember that it has to be your character that ends up falling unconscious at the end of the story. If your character can't fall unconscious in any way, then invoke your "defeated" condition, whether that's being unsummoned or becoming incorporeal or whatever else.

These alternatives are only for characters who cannot fill the requirements because of their character traits. If your character is able to dream and lose consciousness in whatever way, then you have to fill the entry requirements.

Q: Does my tournament entry piece have any effect on the stories I write for the actual tournament?
A: Short answer, no. Long answer, no, because the point of the entry piece is threefold: first to prove some sort of commitment to the tournament, second to show you can follow directions, and third so you can demonstrate your writing skill for the benefit of myself and other contestants. There will be no continuity followed from your entry piece into the tournament stories, so feel free to write whatever you want.

Q: If this tournament is not bracket style, then what is it?
A: This tournament is not bracket style because brackets scale badly and have a lot of inherent flaws with them (not that this system is guaranteed to be better, but I still prefer it over brackets for a number of reasons). Anyways, you can read all this information in more detail on the rules and guidelines page.

Basically, this tournament is wager-based. You are given two tokens when you enter the tournament and must bet them in order to get to eleven and win. Bets are determined by the first person in a matchup to declare one and must be at least half the lower player's pool; the higher you go, the higher the stakes get. Matchups are between people who have the closest number of tokens and random within that, so people who win will tend to be matched up with other people who win.

I'm using this system instead of a brackets system because it's much more active on the part of the competitors. It requires that people have initiative and take their fate into their own hands--the amount you wager and whether or not you win determines your next matchup, not just whoever is next on a list. Effectively, this tournament style rewards guts and forwardness, not just luck and skill.

I'm also using this system because it doesn't kick over half the people out after the first round. I want to give everyone the option to write multiple stories and the ability to recover from a loss because a tournament is all about facilitating stories that you wouldn't or couldn't write otherwise as well as allowing you to get feedback and improve. I'm doing everything I can to make sure that this event runs smoothly, and this tournament style is the best fit for what I want.


Tournament Entrants:
Just follow those directions up there and I’ll slap you and your relevant information onto this list.



Tournament Calendar:
I try to post things at midnight, but if I’m not able, then I usually have to post in the afternoon if it’s a weekday. Deadlines are midnight CST (that’s 10 PM for you West Coast people). Aim for a day or two early if you’re bad at time zones.

Entry is OPEN! - 6/19/14
Rules and Guidelines posted - 6/26/14
First round entries close/Second round entries open - 7/2/14
First round betting phase begins - 7/5/14
First round writing phase begins - 7/11/14
First round stories due - 7/31/14
Second round entries close/Third round entries open - 8/5/14
Second round betting phase begins - 8/10/14
Second round writing phase begins - 8/15/14
Second round stories due - 9/4/14
Third round betting phase begins - 9/30/14
Third round writing phase begins - 10/4/14
Third round stories due - 10/24/14
Final round betting phase begins - 11/5/14
Final round writing phase begins - 11/9/14
Final round stories due - 12/1/14


Helpful Links:
Rules and Guidelines
The First Dream: Past Projection
The Second Dream: Reviled Reflection
The Third Dream: Corrupt Connection
The Final Dream: Timed Transgression
The Valley of Dreams Concluded

Basically, the entire entrance occurs in a dream or can it begin in a nightmare then wake up then dream later on?

The story ends with your character falling unconscious inside the dream. Everything else is fair game.

Will have it soon, thanks. :)

so could the dream happen because the person was knocked out

You can if you like, but it does not fill the "story ends with your character falling unconscious inside the dream" requirement.

thanks for telling me

The Handyman.

Description: Height (9ft), arm/hand/finger summoning, dream-entering/manipulating/eating.

Sirius Nightshade

Sociopathic, shadow manipulation, magically enhanced knife, half-demon.

This is EXACTLY 750 words.

Also, I hope the fact that he's near-death doesn't affect him in later entries, since it is only a nightmare.

Whatever happens to your character in the nightmare doesn't hold over to the tournament, so don't worry.

In other news, I updated the FAQ a bit and added the new entrants. If anyone has any questions or concerns, feel free to post them and I'll answer as soon as I can. The more people who join this, the more fun it'll be.

L.L Bust= A cyborg with a morphing gun loaded with a myriad of different ammunition and a select few of dangerous liquids in bottles.

http://forums.stickpage.com/showthread.php?85608-L-L-Bust-the-Bounty-Hunter

wRHG Entrant: Bl.An.C.
Description:
-Human bonded to an android suit
-Capable of manifesting weapons and utility items onto parts of his body
Entry:

Error, none of your story (relevantly, the second half) appears to be taking place inside a dream. The unconsciousness clause requires that your dream-version character loses consciousness, not just your character falling unconscious to start dreaming. You don't need to explicitly state that your character is in a dream, but your story seems to explicitly put you outside of one.

Also, I'd appreciate it if people made their blurbs as succinct as possible. I have no qualms about shortening them myself, so avoid the risk of me misinterpreting your blurb by making it pithy from the get-go. Bullet points are probably the way to go.

Alrighty. Will change it. Expect it later in the day. I seemed to have misunderstood haha.

I have edited the entry. It was a fairly minute edit on the second half but it turns the entire entry into a troubled dream then into nightmare. I hope its what it needs to be.