Ravenloft Reanimated Domain Contest - Round 1

[Igor the Henchman]

Okay I feel the need to register a serious complaint here! I am really not pleased here NOBODY TOLD ME I'D ONLY HAVE A WEEK TO GET BACK TO YOU ON THIS!!! SOME OF US HAVE JOBS!!!! Also nobody said that this thread was the only place where we could find out which DarLord goes with which domain! Some less impressive domains are made by their DarkLords and vice versa. I only just found this thread and am not pleased that I'm too late to submit my vote. I have done so anyway and may post my comments here. but still...

All the past and upcoming deadlines for this contest have been laid out here when the competition started. Since the competition takes place entirely on this forum, it isn't unreasonable to expect all participants, contestants and judges alike, to be aware of WolfKook's public announcements. If you feel there is need for further clarification or better communication among judges (and perhaps there might be), settle the matter privately with WolfKook, who, in my experience, answers e-mail and PM regularly and does his best to correct potential mistakes. If a common ground for communication is the problem, maybe he can get the Frat to give you an invisible forum for private discussion.

As for "having jobs"... Consider that we contestants have had only one week to come up with original, intriguing domains. Innovative Darklords. If you tried it, you know it's not as easy it looks. Now we have one week to take each surviving domain and expand it into 300 words that will knock the judges' socks off. Judges have one week to go over our submissions and state what they think. I'd say it's fair all around. This is, of course, just me.

[Manofevil]

Okay yes I missed that. I was only approached for this through Wolfkook's private messages. He asked me to judge. I said yes. None of these PMs mentioned any of these threads or that they were called 'Ravenloft Reanimated'. They were refered to as the RLR New Domains Contest in the pms. I seem to recall a thread called 'Ultimate Ravenloft'. A thread that attempted to rewrite RavenLoft along the lines of 'Ultimate Marvel'. I took these 'Ravenloft Reanimated' threads for something similar so I never looked at them. I will post my comments on the ones that made it and didn't later as well as the ones I feel should be given another look. right now, I am otherwise occupied.

[Manofevil]

Sorry this is taking so long. I've tried to post my responses twice and have already lost two hours work.

[Manofevil]

okay. First I'll post my comments on the entries that won, then on those eliminated, then on those I think that didn't even make it to this round but deserve another look.

Annaes
This is great. The idea of not just a non-humanoid, but a mechanoid DarkLord is brilliant.

Archiginnasio di Felsinea
This one threw me for a loop. The comment field on the ballot contains 'WTF???????' Go with it though.

Black Showroom
Don't care about this one. Sounds too much like Stezan d'Palarno

Casteldebole
Definitely sounds like it could go somewhere.

Cirundi-Velle
Doesn't sound quite like DarkLord material but definitely sounds like he belongs in RavenLoft

Cratia
Great

Crewsaw Island
Good but needs some kind of torment. Dls aren't allowed to revel in their damnation

Devil's Fork
Great RL Character but no DarkLord. There are already a few realms which are completely unpopulated. They tend not to work.

Endemia
THe Realm is better than the DarkLord but it works.

Este
Don't really care about this one. Not bad but too Toben the Manyish

Felsinea
Could go someplace

Forest of Hunger, the
What is this guy exactly?

Forest of Memory, the
Still not sure what to make of this one.

The Free League
A man's physical frailty is his curse. Long overdue.

Isles of Saint Helena
Keep this. Definitely Keep this.

Labyrinth, the
Might be an interesting PART of a domain but I wouldn't make it a whole domain. Again the whole unpopulated domain thing.

Nosos
No comment. This guys already in the book. And I've already seen it built on. Then again if this is the writer who built upon it in the first place. Why not win a contest with it.

Oriebo
This works.

Pharazia
I believe MSD put it best.

Phragma
No domain lord. But a great character to base a quest around. I'm seeing another Grand Conjunction series here.

Principato delle Grazie
EWWWWWWW! I half like this and half hate it. But I half hate it for all the right reasons. Do it!

Roeschap
There is no DL based on lust and there really should be. Even as we run the gamut of races and undead creatures, we should also run the

Sassomonte
Sounds nasty. Could work.

Scarabraech
Can't say I hated this but couldn't get too hyped. I agree with MSD about the wandering NPC

Vespa
Could work but I'd have to see a lot more. As is, I can't really care.

Vinara
I like the idea of him trying to control himself. So few Darklords do.

Woods of the floating coffin, the
Again we have unpopulated domain. and again I think it would work better as a part of another domain than a stand-alone.

Zumbera
Points for Weird. Real twilight zoneish but what makes him a DarkLord.

The 10 domains that dind't make it:

Ast
I really liked the idea of non-humanoid DarkLords and am really sorry to see this go.

Callista
Okay this is me making sense of the ballots. Knowing this guy was the ruler of the flooded vistani realm was enough to make me change this from don't care to like it. Would've liked to have seen where this went.

Coral Sea, the
I was actually hoping this would go through too. Thw DarkLord needs to have done something terrible to have earned a curse, however. He has to be a bad guy gone good gone bad.

Demise
Not sorry to see this one go. It's been done. Twice I think.

Grand Central
Am sorry to see this one go. It's still a good idea no matter how many times I see it.

I'Cath
REAALLY sorry to see this one go. She's fine as is. She just needs a Domain with actual people in it. Remember the whole unpopulated domain thing?

Richmont
Going to miss this one. There aren't NEAR enough DarkLords based on Racism, prejudice, or supremacism

Sunset Wastes, the
Not surprised to see this one here. I really didn't see where it could go.

Vallorca
Didn't scream 'DarkLord' but could have gotten there.

Veaer
What exactly IS Veaer? This was my original question. Finding out from the thread that the DarkLord IS the domain sells it to me. Sorry it's gone.

Lastly I would raise only one realm from First round ballot: Borda. This would be perfect for a Halfling/hobbit domain and we don't have near enough demihuman DarkLords (I actually can't think of one.)

Hokay. I'm Done. I'll actually be able to participate properly in the next round now that I know where all the information is located. And by the way. Good work everybody.

[WolfKook]

Okay I feel the need to register a serious complaint here! I am really not pleased here NOBODY TOLD ME I'D ONLY HAVE A WEEK TO GET BACK TO YOU ON THIS!!! SOME OF US HAVE JOBS!!!! Also nobody said that this thread was the only place where we could find out which DarLord goes with which domain! Some less impressive domains are made by their DarkLords and vice versa. I only just found this thread and am not pleased that I'm too late to submit my vote. I have done so anyway and may post my comments here. but still...

Well, then I have to say "I'm sorry" here. However, as Igor said, I did publish the contest schedules in the first forum, and sent you and the other judges the evaluation forms for the different domains through PMs (I know Tec-Goblin used that forms to get back to me). In the final round, those forms included the name of the domain, the original 30-word submission, and the darklord description, so I presumed it would be easy to find out the relationship between domain and darklords... However, it would seem the change between "Ultimate Ravenloft" and "Ravenloft Reanimated" caused the confusion, that the schedules are too tight, and that my requests to the judges were not clear enough. For that, I'm sorry, again.

How to settle this?

First, this is not the first time that the tightness of the schedule comes up, so I'll make changes to the schedule as follows:

Round 0 (Closed): Open Call (2/1/2009-2/21/2009) Domain Proposals
Results (Initial Filter) - 2/28/2009

Round 1 (Closed): Remaining Domains (3/3/2009-3/13/2009) Darklord's Description
Results (Second Filter) - 3/19/2009

Round 2: Remaining Domains (3/20/2009-4/5/2009) Domain's Statblock and Summary
Results (Third Filter) - 4/19/2009

Round 3: Final 24 (4/20/2009-5/3/2009) Darklord's Write-Up
Open Poll (5/4/2009-5/10/2009)
Results (RLR New Domains) - 5/11/2009

Round 4: Semifinals (5/11/2009-5/24/2009) Domain's Write-Up
Open Poll (5/25/2009-5/31/2009)
Results (Final 5) - 6/1/2009

Round 5: Finals (6/1/2009-6/21/2009) Domain's Secrets
Results (5th Place) - 7/1/2009
Results (4th Place) - 7/2/2009
Results (3rd Place) - 7/3/2009
Results (Winner) - 7/4/2009

(This was already reflected in the original contest thread)

OTOH, the results for the open call will remain unchanged, but I'll recalculate the results of the first round using Man-of-Evil scores (Because it was my mistake, and the results thus far had been based on the opinions of just two judges, which make them slightly biased). I beg the contestants a little patience with this, cause some of the already published results may change a little, and I know that could bring some problems.

[WolfKook]

...and that's good news for the following domains, which are still in the competition:

Grand Central, Richmont, Veaer and Zumbera, for a total of 32 domains!

Domains that had already been stated as passing to the following round won't be eliminated now, but they'll be "threatened", which means they'd have to do better than other domains in the second round, or they'll be eliminated. Those domains are:

the Black Showroom, Cirundi-Velle, the Forest of Hunger, Nosos, Pharazia

Again, thank you very much to the contestants, an apology to ManOfEvil, and good luck to everyone!