Many months ago—two years and some
change, sweet lord where does the time ago—it popped into (one of
many) discussions about domain play that one of the greatest
pleasures of that arena back in the hoary day was the pimping out of
ever-wilder paper designs of your dream stronghold.
Bombasticus wrote at the time: “For
our gang, the tween years--10 to 12--were the developmental 'sweet
spot' for this kind of domain creation. There was something hugely
appealing about the construction rules at that age and we all spent
many hours outfitting hidden valleys, cloud castles, secret undersea
lairs.”
Rereading the comment resonated hard
with me as it jivved with both my own past attempts at personalized
utopias (sideviews, top-down graph papers, free-hand sketches, etc.)
and more recently with teaching fantasy worldbuilding to kids of that
very age group.
So when the ever-tangential explosions
of conversation that makes up Google Plus ran straight back into
discussion of that old joy--strangely around discussion of this real
life medieval fortress-city of suburban paranoia, the Citadel
Project, and its oddly similar 'cool features' elements like a
Firearm Museum with a matching Reflecting Pool (seen here)--my brain
immediately went to “it's time for another stupid-ass Hill Cantons
contest.”
So here are the particulars:
1. Contest participants will design
their dream “fantasy stronghold”. The medium used can vary
according to the whim of the participant but should include a visual
medium (side-views, floor plans, etc) with some written content of
the what the hell is going on.
2. Bonus points for filtering the
designs through the twisted lens of one of your player-characters.
3. Bonus brownie (again not required)
points for attaching some bonafide, vaguely plausible game
justifications consistent with the rules of your choice (crap like
budgets for construction, labor force, or whatever).
4. The contest deadline is February 27
(that's a week from today). All entries should be emailed to me at
kutalik at the gmail dot the com.
What you can win (besides the sweet
accolades of me and your fellow gamers):
First place: $10 gift certificate from
Amazon.
Second and Third: a book of your choice
from my obsessively-growing “book rescue” collection of pulp
fantasy.
Winning entries may make their
appearance in a corner of my campaign world even.
