Things have been a bit slow on the custom content boards lately so I thought I'd try a little something that hopefully will spark a little action and get our creative juices flowing, this may or may not work but there's no harm in trying now is there?

I'm going to attempt to issue a challenge to the custom creators out there, I'm going to name a name (I'm sure you can already guess who) and the challenge is to see who can make the best Herald based on the name given. The rules are as follows, one week to submit your Herald after the time is up we vote on our favorites. If for some reason this takes off we can refine the rules as we go.

So now the challenge is issued, who can make the best Herald from the name Charles Dexter Ward (link goes to the full text of the story, interpret as you may).

Veet said:

I'm not going to participate since A)I'm busy with the fan creation league B) I'm going on vacation for a week (starting Wednesday) and, well, that's mostly it. But you should probably make the deadline two weeks since people may not have time to read the story so soon. Besides ;') this way I'll be able to make more comments.

Well I'm on vacation for a week starting today . OK 2 weeks, like I said we can make up the rules as we go.

You just had to pick his most lengthy story. I'm in!

I love this story, I like heralds, I like many of yours guys, I enjoy creating some but I don't like to compete . So, I am out.

amikezor said:

Don't think of it as a competition, think of it as a collaboration. Like the time Admiral and I both worked on Werewolf heralds simultaneously, and I liked where he was going with his, so I gave him my ideas and helped him tweak his a bit, and the combined product was far better than either of what we had on our own.

Alright. See how you corrupt the minds. I love the story anyway. And maybe there is room for non-competing heralds (the story is rich enough I guess :-). Currently I am really into scenarios (I shall translate them in english one day :-). So I will think about a heraldio ( semi herald semi scenario :-).

amikezor said:

"dio" means "god" in italian, so a heraldio suggested me something terribly nasty :-) anyway, Veet's idea is great. If I have time to read HPL story again (the only time I read it, I was 12, which means *a lot* of time ago) I'll try to write something (even with *no* experience, hoping you veteran could have a little patience with me)

This story is included in the Ex Libris plug-in if anyone needs a refresher or would like to access the story with powerful search and cross-reference capabilities.

Cheers,
Chris

Julia said:

Everyone made their first herald once. Experience or not, the trick to making something interesting (if not necessarily balanced) in my opinion, is just sitting down and thinking about what the game features don't have, or what sort of thing you'd like to see, and then try to figure out how to make it work (which can sometimes take a while).

Avi_dreader said:

Yep, I know the trick. Not that knowing would male it easier, anyway ::laughing:: If I have time to read again the tale, I'll gladly try.
As far as ideas are concerned... I've something in my mind since quite a lot of time (not related do the CDW case, anyway), but don't know exactly if this could be interesting or not. Basically, the idea of a hybryd Herald that makes certain "benevolent" events a lot more frequent but activating that events triggers something very nasty. In example: every time you kill a moon monster, roll a die: on a 4-6 you're Blessed. Upkeep : all blessed investigators decrease their maximum Sanity or Stamina by 1. I know this example is not good at all. It's just to give an example of it

Julia said:

Actually, that's kind of an interesting idea :') it's never been done before (except with The Lurker I guess).

Avi_dreader said:

Yep. Basically I noticed that there is almost always a way for removing the nasty things happening throughout the game. A curse can be cancelled by a Blessing, a Doom token can be removed in tons of ways, and so on. But it's terribly difficult losing something good. And if the good brings something by far nastier... well, this can be difficult to handle. Blessings in particular can be a real curse, since there is almost no way to remove them, apart from rolling a 1 during the upkeep. Now I have to think better about how to develop this ::laughing::

@Julia: it sounds nice. go ahead. Having created some before or not won't matter so much as far as idea are concerned, I guess. Plus there is an editor in chief around here that can help with wording .

amikezor said:

Thank you for encouraging me, Amikezor I'm going to work on this ::nodding::