At long last I have the second flavor text contest winners for you. Oh boy did it take me way too long to get this out! So, one last apology to everyone who participated for the long lull between submissions and these results. Anyway, let’s just hop into things. I’m going to go through each prompt and list the winner as well as any close runners up. As with the last one of these contests, my wife assisted in judgement. We each assigned a favorite and runners-up for each category, and I generally selected the ultimate winners based on overlap. I’m posting this article with the winners initially uncredited because I didn’t think to add a question about how people want to be cited to the questionnaire. If one of your entries is listed here and you want your name or an alias attached to it. Please get in touch via the email address you entered with, and I’ll update the article with the requested info. The site’s email address is available here.
Note: Some entries have been altered slightly for formatting/grammar purposes, as I don’t generally hold typos against people. Additionally, when a contestant has won multiple prizes, I’ve attempted to award them their actual prize in the category where they were a clear winner and pass the prize down in a category where there was a second consensus pick to inherit it.
Along with this post, I’ve sent out emails to all prize winners soliciting mailing addresses for prizes. If your submission is listed here as a winner and you don’t get an email from me in the next 24 hours, please contact me to sort it out. So, without further ado, let’s get going!
The Winners!
1.) I love me some character development, so let’s give Light It Up a Lexi quote. You can get an idea of what she sounds like in this piece of lore
Runners-up
– “I hope this brightens your day a little. Or maybe a lot.” – Lexi *(prize recipient)*
– “Conduct yourselves accordingly.” -Lexi
Winner
– “I’ll get the lights!” –Lexi *(entry opted out of prizes)*
Thoughts: Most of the shortlisted entries in this category honed in on what I think are some of Lexi’s more salient characteristics: She’s an upbeat, generally positive character and also a little bit of a smartass. All of the above selections also lean into puns, which was how virtually all of the entries attacked this category. Our eventual winner was the best intersection of tone and brevity, giving us a snappy quip that feels on brand for Lexi.
2.) This is a spectacularly messed up piece of art, and we absolutely need to give it some flavor text. In the spirit of the last competition, let’s make this one a pun related to horses.
Runners-up
– “The latest gallop poll is in and says that this gift horse is better given than received.”
– “It was just a dream, you’re making a total foal of yourself.”
Winner
– There goes the neigh-borhood.
Thoughts: Even though the previous category was equally pun-packed, this is the one I actually solicited puns for. There were a lot of “end is neigh” jokes in here, which made it hard for any one of them to stand out. The same goes for “pasture” as “past your” jokes. I liked the “gallop poll” one because it’s one of those outside the box puns I hadn’t anticipated. Still, the consensus pick was once again a compact hard-hitting quip. In general, I tend to think joke or pun flavor text is best when it’s brief. The flavor text format doesn’t usually lend itself to drawn out jokes, though there are occasional exceptions.
3.) It’s been a while since we really had some Metrix development. Give me a piece of flavor text that helps expand our sense of the location – it could be a quote from this character (feel free to name her if you go that route), a bit of information about the city, something about what a Dissolution Sphere does, or anything else that you think helps flesh the setting
Runners-up
– She couldn’t believe her luck; it was an actual, unrectified Data Doll Mk I Microprocessor. She scanned it again, and the results came back the same: none of the Assembly’s post-scandal safety mechanisms. It was the solution –or rather the Dissolution – to all her problems.
– “Those Tenatan cores aren’t cheap, but I hear that some fell off a truck and into a warehouse in Coppertown…” – Gambit, broadcasting on The Foundry
Winner
– “The solution to that problem is obviously some dissolution. Here take this sphere, you’ll figure it out!” – Ulrika, gizmo maven
Thoughts: As with the puns, this one received a cluster of entries around the same idea. In this case it was variations of “the streets of Metrix are dangerous” with an implication that the sphere could help. Many of these were perfectly fine contributions, but again, getting several similar ones made it difficult for many of them to really stand out. The ultimate winner here had a pleasant flow to it and felt right on target for someone hawking their wares and, honestly, “gizmo maven” is a rad job title.
4.) Write me a bit of flavor text about this big antlered-wolf. I don’t know if it *is* a “Frost Fang”, if it’s a type of creature that lives in Aria, or if it’s some sort of unique legendary creature -That’s for you to decide. Just make sure your flavor text tells us something about it
Runners-up
– “We don’t know where it came from, or how it channels the Flow, but it’s been terrorizing the slopes of Isenloft since I was a young boy” – Oldhim
– “Few things disturb the night on Isen’s Peak. If you see the snow barreling towards you, best pray it’s an avalanche.” -Torvund, Larinkmorth Guide.
– During the frost, herds descend from the peaks of the Isen with a blizzard in tow. Don’t be deceived. Look closely and you will see brilliant blue eyes. Listen closely and you will hear bones crunching among the squeals of the herd.
Winner
– Many believe it’s the wind that howls in Aria, but the locals know it’s something far more dangerous.
Thoughts: This category had a lot of strong, flavorful entries, and the runners-up category could have easily been expanded even further. The Oldhim one makes a nice temporal nod by calling out events as occurring in his youth. This is a nice in-lore way of giving a sense of scope. Our attribution to “Torvund” has some great imagery of the creature coming at you like an avalanche. And the winner used a similar structure but managed to be just a bit more haunting and ominous, which tipped the category in their favor.
5.) How does this not have flavor text?! Give me something that helps contextualize this in relation to the more familiar Cracked Bauble (you may interpret that broadly; be creative).
Runners-up
– “Don’t drop it.”
– “That casing should hold it in for now, but I expect you’ll need something stronger soon.” – Gamil, Master of The Forge
Winner
– “I’ve cracked thousands of baubles but I’ve never seen one like this. Send a cable to corporate, lockdown the site, and crank the plasmas to kill. No one enters or leaves until the suits get down here” – Foreman of Teklo Pit Mine #211R-MP.
Thoughts: This is an interesting one because it was the only category without a strong consensus. I picked the eventual winner based on it being so outside of the box of what I’d expected here. This one really does a lot of work to imagine what Metrix (and maybe the Pits) might be like for the lower classes. Other entries play with the idea of danger being held within the bauble, but this one not only riffs on the existence of Cracked Baubles, but it also theorizes the sort of corporate relationships we see in films like Alien where large corporations are delving into things perhaps better left alone in the interests of profits. It’s got great eerie vibes
6.) Yep, we’re doing more callbacks to the last competition. I want you to give me an excerpt from a poem that you feel captures the mood of this card (remember to cite the author and the poem as part of your word count)
Runners-up
– I determined to depart, yet live—to leave the world, yet continue to exist—in short, to be plain, I resolved, let come what would, to force a passage, if possible, to the moon. – Edgar Allan Poe, A Voyage to the Moon
– A wisp of beauty all alone
In a world as hard and gray as stone—
Oh who could be bitter and want to die
When a maiden moon wakes up in the sky?
~ Sara Teasdale, “Flame and Shadow” *(prize recipient)*
Winner
Thou silver deity of secret night,
Direct my footsteps through the woodland shade;
Thou conscious witness of unknown delight,
The Lover’s guardian, and the Muse’s aid!
~ Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, “Hymn to the Moon” *(multiple wins – prize passes down)*
Thoughts: People keep getting with the Teasdale on these poetry ones. I think I need to ban her from any future flavor text contexts because I don’t want there to be an obvious cheat code to my brain. Still, the winner of this category went to the Montagu selection, which has some elements that I think play particularly well with the Sun Kiss//Moon Wish duo. The Poe piece is nice but loses out on a couple technicalities. First it’s from a short story, not a poem. And secondly, said story is “The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall”. Still, I liked it enough to include it here, even if it wasn’t prize-eligible.
7.) One of the things I like about this piece is that you can interpret Kassai’s reflection in a variety of ways, which can really change the tone of the card. I want you to pick some song lyrics that reflect what you think she’s feeling here to sell me on your interpretation of this piece (remember to cite the song title and artist)
Runners-up
– I can’t escape this hell
So many times I’ve tried
[…]
But there’s still rage inside
~ Three Days Grace, “Animal I Have Become”
-“Tell me who’s gon’ save me from myself”
~ Kendrick Lamar and The Weeknd, “Pray for Me”
Winner
– Drop the dagger and lather the blood on your hands
~ My Chemical Romance , “The Sharpest Lives”
Thoughts: The consensus pick out of the gate was the Three Days Grace submission; however, when I went to look over it, I noticed that the elided part (the “…” bit) was doing a lot of work in terms of cutting out several lines to make those bits fit together. It felt a little too much like a cheat, so I’ve kept it in but held it out of prize contention on this one (worry not, the entrant already won earlier). I feel like the Kendrick Lamar contribution could have extended itself a bit –the next line is “When this life is all I know” which also feels on target for Kassai
8.) Ok, let’s lighten the mood. Give me some fun and/or funny flavor text for this one.
Runners-up
“Damnit Randall, that was my third favorite Mannequin!”
Winner
The “Pets Welcome” policy is being reconsidered. *Overall Winner*
Thoughts: “Third favorite mannequin” is just conceptually hilarious, and I should note that the person who contributed this one also won categories 6 and 2. This would have probably won this category on most days, but instead, we got the deadpanned “Pets Welcome” entry. I also gave my co-judge the latitude to pick her overall favorite entry as a recipient of a full playset of promos as well as a Doomsday playmat> This entry claims that honor, so an extra congratulations to our overall winner .
9.) These tiny dragons are adorable. I’d like a piece of flavor text that tells us something about Ouvia.
Runners-up
– “Nobody knows for certain which dragon is the oldest, but I’m with those that hold that they’re all the children of Ouvia.” – Harold Honeysett
– Mothers of Aria call on Ouvia to watch over their newborns. They pray to The Flow that their children are less destructive than hers.
Winner
– The birth of a dragon does not come without sacrifice. Isolated within a volcano, vigilant of temperature and predator, Ouvia has given up the sky so they may one day fill it. *(entry opted out of prizes)*
Thoughts: I especially liked the phrasing of “given up the sky” in the winning entry. Speaking of the winner; thus one came from my editor over at the Rathe Times, who graciously declined prizing, but also, in a shameless display of pandering, cheekily submitted a quote from my favorite book in category 10. So, I’ll call it a push. 😛 Note: No prize was awarded for this one as all winners and runners-up have either declined prizing or won other categories. Instead, I rolled a virtual d8 to award a second set of promos to one of the other category winners (our overall winner was excluded). So, the winner of category 4 is getting a second set of promos.
10.) I love the weird surreal pieces as flavor text prompts because you can kind of go wild with them. In that spirit, this is an open one; do whatever you’d like!
Runners-up
– “Time is merely a concept which some grasp more than others” -Ilad Rodavlas
– Lightly undertaken be to not is time manipulating.
Winner
– “Ytiroirp ssap, tnatsni na yalp I pets dne ruoy erofeb” – Ancient incantation *(entry opted out of prizes)*
– Shouldn’t’ve done that. Should NOT have done that.
Thoughts: After much debate, this one ended up with two winner. Several people did backwards text jokes, which is very much in the spirt on Rewind, but his was my favorite. The second one hits that right level of funny by taking the “nope, nope, nope!” approach to the surreal mindscape we see depicted in the card (humorous entries did pretty well in this contest despite my general feeling that flavor text isn’t the best format for jokes –but I’ll recognize strong submissions when I get them.) In terms of runners-up, I like the subtle use of backwards text for “Ilad Rodavlas” (hint that first letter is a capital “i” not a lowercase “l”). Meanwhile our other runner up had a novel take on time distortion that went beyond a simple inversion.
*Header Image – Frosting by Immanuela Crovius
FAB with Freyja 