What is an O.C.T.?
OCTs, or ‘Original Character Tournaments’ are year-long, collaborative art events held on Deviantart, Twitter, or Discord, in which you write and portray your own original characters against other people’s characters in a collaborative story. To put it simply, it is a cross between an art competition and a storytelling contest. The best story and art will determine the winner. For this OCT, there will be a total of four rounds in a bracket elimination system. 16 Contestants will be selected for competition.
Usually these contests are combat-oriented, but not so for BANQUET OCT. Soft skills will be valued over combat skills, though this does not entirely exclude physical or magical prowess. This OCT will be for mostly experienced creators, but newbies are still welcome.
How to Enter
Overview
Once you have designed an original character (no fan characters, please!) with artwork and a brief backstory, you must first audition for the tournament. If you pass audition, you are then considered a Contestant. For BANQUET OCT, contestants will, diegetically, be called Guests.
As a Contestant, your character will then be matched up against another Contestant, and you both will be expected to compete by adhering to the round’s prompt. The first round prompt will be posted ahead of time so that potential auditioners will know what to expect of this OCT.
Contestants will then be allowed up to 3 months to write, draft, and complete their comic entries. Literature submissions will not be considered. Grace periods may be offered upon request if contestants need an extra day or two to submit their entries. Entries that are not submitted by deadline are disqualified.
In the event that a Contestant finds themselves unable to finish their entry in time for the deadline despite grace period, they may forfeit ahead of time, or by the deadline due date.
After deadline, up to two weeks will be required for judges to carefully examine entries and make judgments and critiques using @vashley’s OCT Judging Rubric, which can be viewed on click.
The winner’s entry will then be determined the canon version of the overall narrative, and will be able to move on to the next round against a new opponent. This process continues until one contestant emerges victorious.
Victory, however, may not always be the best option…
Entry Rules
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Content rating is 18+. No minors, no teenagers. You must honestly verify your age before submitting an audition. If we discover that you are lying, we will remove you from the tournament server. No arguments, just action.
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This also means that characters must also be age 18+. All characters must be adults. No child characters will be considered. Characters who look 14 but are actually 14000 years old will be also be barred from entering.
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Because this is an OCT centered on themes of food and eating, only characters who must eat to survive will be considered during the audition phase. Entering characters that are robots or GodPCs who do not need to consume food, will be automatically disqualified. Consuming other forms of fuel is not considered eating food.
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This is an OCT with mature ratings. This means content warnings will be required for entries containing or mentioning common triggers, such as [sexual situations, drug abuse, rape, murder, physical-emotional-sexual abuse, animal abuse, suicide, body horror, etc]. R-rated content will be allowed. However, content that deploys excessively explicit R-rated material without narrative reason will be considered shock value for its own sake, and will be penalized if not thrown out. ie. if you’re just drawing torturegore that does not progress the plot in any useful way, you’re gonna get punted. No arguments, just action.
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A maximum of two characters per entrant are allowed. This includes pets as second characters. Of the duo, one character must be able to eat food, as per rule #3, though ideally both characters must eat. Two creators for a single character or duos will be allowed, ie. a writer and an artist or an artist/artist.
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BIG NOTE: Characters of losing rounds WILL be killed by the setting. If you don’t like the idea of your OC being murdered as a consequence, then I do not recommend joining this OCT. (Questions may be directed to banquetoct@gmail.com)
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Permission must be consulted from Opponents and OC owners if you intend to ship, harm, or mutilate their creations. Do not portray other people’s characters in exploitative or humiliating situations without express permission and approval of the character’s owner. However, everyone is allowed to KILL their opponents in their rounds.
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Comic sequentials only. Literature or animation will not be accepted.
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No fan characters. No GodPCs.
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Using dollmakers or base art for character artwork will be allowed for character sheet references, but the comics must be your own art.
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We ask that you please commit to one OCT at a time. It is a disrespect to other competitors, and the judges, to pass auditions only to drop out later in order to join another OCT. If you truly must quit Banquet OCT in order to pursue another OCT, then please show some consideration and let the judges know ahead of time by forfeiting during the second wind timeframe (1 week) so that we can select another auditioner for a second wind round.
Please file any questions or concerns via email, Discord, or through Twitter DMs.
Reference Sheet Guidelines
ARTWORK: You will be required to submit a colour image of the front and back view of your character. a brief paragraph of their backstory including their motivations for competing. Please include detail of any items or personal effects, or special markings such as scars or tattoos. Please see this template for full details.
WRITING: A brief written portion will be required unless you manage to fit it into the artwork ref sheet itself. The written portion should include: Name, Age, Pronouns, a brief backstory, description of personality, height and build considerations, strengths and weaknesses, and any special skills your character might have, such as magical ability, special senses, or special training.
SUBMISSION: Contestants will be required to submit their reference sheets via Imgur, DeviantArt, Cubari, Tapas, Google Drive, Google Photos, webtoons, or any other comic-oriented client or platform. Ref Sheets submitted via Twitter link/Twitter post will not qualify.
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NO GodPCs. If your Original Character is a god or demigod or godling with super powers that would allow them to overstep the narrative, they do not belong here in Banquet OCT.
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The size/height cap on characters is 7 feet tall. Giants will literally not fit into the setting, which takes place in the mansion.
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Characters must be 18 years old or older. No children, please.
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We will give special attention to characters who best fit the premise, style, and genre of this OCT. The style is Victorian-Edwardian-20’s period ‘murder mystery dinner party’ style, without the whodunit rigamarole. The genre is dark drama/horror. Contemporary characters will be allowed, but nothing too scif-fi or futuristic, please. Non-humans are fine.
5. Please state on your ref whether you prefer:
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A) character death off-screen or fade to black, implied rather than explicit
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B) mild maiming — cuts and bruises, broken bones
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C) moderate maiming — losing limbs, eyes, etc.
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D) full gore, get nasty
Please keep in mind, you STILL need to TALK to your opponent to negotiate their character’s manner of death.
This is to set expectations when going into the conversation.
Audition Guidelines
All entries must be sequentials/comics. We will not accept animation or literature. The narrative must be made clear on interpretation; subtlety will be recognized.
The audition must depict your character receiving the invitation and arriving at the House on Sage Hill for the dinner party. Characters who appear for the audition dinner who did not receive the invitation letter may participate, but they must have a motivation to continue with the story. Even if they did not intend on arriving, their name will appear on the Guest List, maintained by the Butler. All characters will have a seat at the table reserved for them by a place card, even if they did not receive an invitation.
The audition itself has an objective prompt that cannot be ignored:
Meet Lady Caris and talk with her about your character’s motives,
ie.their interest in winning the challenges to gain the House.
Why is your character interested in acquiring the cursed House?
For the rest of the planned prompts, please see the Prompts section.
Contestants will be required to submit their entries via Imgur, DeviantArt, Cubari, Tapas, Google Drive, Google Photos, webtoons, or any other comic-oriented client or platform.
Entries posted on Twitter will NOT be accepted. LINKS to your entry can be posted on Twitter, however. That said, you can share your entry on Twitter for your own sake, but do not submit the Twitter post as your official submission link.
There are no restrictions on the length of your entry, but please keep your work load to a reasonable level. Please do not sacrifice life, school, health, or work priorities!
Also, please fill out this Google Form to verify that you will be submitting an audition by the given deadline, [ March 31, 2024. ]
These are the rules for Banquet OCT, which is not striving to be like other OCTs.
Thank you for reading.