Trail of Cthulhu Scenario Competition

Heroes in the Dark have asked us if Trail of Cthulhu entries can be considered as well as entries forCthulhu Dark, and I was happy to agree.

Submit the scenario with the subject line “Horrors in the Dark Scenario Submission” by email to heroesinthedark@gmail.com, with a return receipt to ensure delivery. If the file is too big to be emailed, send the email, but submit instead a link to the file using a file hosting service like dropbox, rapidshare, or a similar service.

There will be prizes:

1st*place: $100, plus copy of the deluxe hardcover version of the book.

2nd*place: $50, plus copy of trade paperback version of the book.

3rd*place: $25, plus copy of trade paperback version of the book.

4th*and 5th*place: honorable mentions in the book.

Payment will be issued via paypal. If paypal is not an option, we will work out an alternative payment method.

The winners will be chosen one month from the end of the kickstarter, and the results will be emailed to those who submitted as well as posted on the heroesinthedark.org website. The kickstarter should be well underway by the deadline for submissions.

The five top scenarios, as well as any deemed of high enough quality, will be put into our Lovecraftian Art and Gaming book that is being produced to fund the building of a small recording studio for our registered nonprofit, Heroes in the Dark, llc. Heroes in the Dark is a registered nonprofit in the state of South Carolina. Heroes in the Dark has a simple mission: to produce audio interpretations of classic comic books for the enjoyment of blind and sight-impaired persons. Submitting a scenario grants us permission to reprint the scenarios for fundraising purposes, but grants us no ownership of the works submitted for the contest. Reprint rights expire 2 years after the end of the contest. Reprint rights extend past that date for publications created in that time period, but no new publications may be created using the scenarios past that time, unless permission is granted by the individual authors.

If you are a game designer with products for sale, this would be an excellent way to publicize them. All persons submitting material will have their name, contact information, and links to their products clearly noted in the book. It is our wish to extend the exposure we gain in the fundraising campaign back to you.

Theme:*The theme is broad…Lovecraftian. There is a lot of wiggle room here.

Submission:*Submit your game by midnight June 15th, 2012. You may resubmit a replacement for your submission if you decide to revise. You may enter more than once, but no more than three times. If you miss the deadline, don’t worry. We will be running this contest again in the fall. We hope to do it quarterly until the studio is funded, and afterwards if the exercise proves to be enjoyable! Games should be submitted in PDF format if possible. If not, contact me, and we will sort out a workaround.

Rule on Length:
The main text of your game should be 10,000 words or less, but you may also include additional materials in the form of maps, diagrams, play sheets, pertinent public domain or writer-owned photographs, etc. This is to allow you time to improve on your initial idea, and distill it down to a tightly written concept. There will be no formal word count. Just make sure you don’t exceed the word limit by more than 10% because space in the book is at a premium.

Rule on Intellectual Property
It is the designer’s responsibility to deal with all rights-related issues. Including excerpts from public domain or open source content is fine, as long as it’s cited. We will reserve the right to remove content whose ownership is in question, but this removal will be discussed with the writer beforehand. If there is a glaring issue that needs to be addressed, I will ask for a revision before the rounds of polling are conducted.

Who Picks the Winners?
I will do an initial review to make sure that are no issues with legality, copyright, or obscenity. From there, I will submit the choices to the reviewers. The reviewers will consist of people who purchased the reward that allowed them to be involved in the picking of the winners. A poll will be conducted to pick the top 5 entries, and a second poll will select the top 3 for the final prize award. Please include a short paragraph pleading your case. Tell us why YOUR submission should be the winner. Extoll its virtues. Gush. Make sure we don’t miss the clever intricacies of your though process.

What Happens to the Scenarios that are not Picked?
Non-winning and winning scenarios alike are considered property of the individual writer. The submission of these scenarios is considered permission, present and future, for Heroes in the dark to publish for fundraising purposes. Funding our studio build is ultimately the point of this exercise.

But you missed something!
If I missed something, please let me know so that I can revise the guidelines.