r/whowouldwin • u/Tadprole • Aug 09 '23
Event Character Scramble Season 17 Semifinals: The Sacrifice
THE SACRIFICE IS COMPLETE. LINK HERE FOR ROUND VOTING.
Congratulations to all of our hardworking semifinalists, you've done a great job getting here!
THE DEADLINE HAS BEEN EXTENDED BY AN EXTRA 24 HOURS
The Character Scramble is a long-running writing prompt tournament in which participants submit characters from fiction to a specified tier and guideline. After the submission period ends, the submitted characters are "scrambled" and randomly distributed to each writer, forming their team for the season. Writers will then be entered into a single-elimination bracket, where they write a story that features their team fighting against their opponent's team. Victors are decided based on reader votes; in other words, if you want people to vote for you, write some good content. The winner by votes of each match-up moves on to the next round. The pattern continues until only one participant remains: the new Character Scramble champion, who gets to choose the theme, tier, and rules of the next Scramble!
The theme of Character Scramble 17 is Silent Hill. Round prompts will be based on scenarios and setpieces from classic survival horror games, which participants’ characters will be forced to endure all the while avoiding the terrifying Slasher characters also submitted this season.
Join the Character Scramble Discord!
Round 4: The Sacrifice
Whatever horrors your Survivors faced in the depths of the mansion, they fled with more than just their lives. They know now that escape from Scramble Hill is possible.
Somewhere in the town, there is an old bridge. Crumbling. Rickety. And long disused. But a bridge nonetheless. Symbols have power in Scramble Hill, and this makes the bridge a precious link to the outside world. All your survivors need to do is make it across in one piece.
But such is the cruelty of the curse laid long ago on Scramble Hill that the town reserves its most terrible trials for those with the most hope in their hearts.
As your Survivors make for the bridge, the hidden figures in the fog which have until now been content to lurk and wait and watch finally make themselves known. All the monsters of Scramble Hill emerge into a snarling, ravenous, feral horde rallying behind your most persistent antagonist--the one who has been there from the very beginning. The town is making its final jealous effort to trap you here forever. And it has chosen your team's Slasher as its executioner.
Round Rules:
Key Points: The Survivors have discovered a means of escape from Scramble Hill---a bridge. The town's curse is trying to keep them there, and has summoned up all of its monsters at once in a massive horde to try and stop them. This, and the dismal state of the bridge, means that the survivors will lose something of themselves in the attempt to cross.
The Horde: Scramble Hill does not let go of its prisoners lightly. It’s sending everything it has to drag you screaming back into the fog. The usual Dread Pool rules do not apply this round. Details below.
Head of the Pack: All of the evils which dwell in Scramble Hill have gathered to halt your Survivors in their tracks, and your own team’s Slasher has emerged to lead the charge. This time, they are out for blood. No more games. No more toying with their prey. They and their horde will pursue your Survivors with a dogged single-minded ferocity betraying desperation. Why are they so intent on keeping your team from escaping? And what do they stand to lose if they fail?
Left For Dead Too: Your opponent's Survivors are also looking for a way across the bridge to freedom. They're more than willing to work with your team to escape. Whether they'll make it out alongside you is up to fate.
The Bridge's Toll: Salvation is within your team’s grasp. They’re so close. Just a little bit further… but one final obstacle remains. A bridge too far that will force them to strain to their breaking point. There’s no way to get through it in one piece. One or all members of your team must lose something important to them in order to proceed. This could be a treasured object. A limb. Their special powers. Even their immortal soul. Do they give this sacrifice up voluntarily, or is it snatched away from them?
[OPTIONAL RULE] It's Your Funeral: Everything in equilibrium. One life spared means another life taken. If you chose to adopt a new Survivor last round, then this round you must kill off one of the Survivors on your team. This can fulfill your team’s sacrifice for the purposes of the round rule above.
The End…?: Once across the bridge, your Survivors know they should be safe. They've earned a moment of peace at last now that it's finally over. Or is it… The curse of Scramble Hill still has its hooks in them. Leave this round with a spine-chilling cliffhanger for the final fright to come.
Normal Rules:
There was a hole here. It’s gone now: The environment of Scramble Hill is disorientating and hostile: creeping industrial rust, out of place landmarks, stairs and corridors to nowhere. As much as Slashers might pose a threat to your characters, the town itself should feel like an antagonist.
Fear of Blood creates Fear for the Flesh: This is a horror themed Scramble. You don’t have to try to scare the reader with your stories, but they should include spooky elements. Scramble Hill is full of things that would make a normal person shudder. How do your characters react when they encounter them?
We're safe... for now: This is the story of your characters’ survival against terrifying forces. This means that however scarred and broken they emerge, they’re going to make it out alive. Even if your characters have only a small chance of victory, write that small chance happening!
If I kept it, I'm not sure what I might do…: Survival Horror is all about scavenging for something, anything you can use to stave off the monsters in the dark. You are absolutely encouraged to write your characters gaining or losing equipment/abilities/injuries/sanity. However, your opponents are not expected to keep track of these in-story changes and vice versa.
The only me is me. Are you sure the only you is you?: Give a brief summary to introduce your characters at the start of your post. Be sure to mention things like powers, personality, history, just stuff that the average reader should know before reading.
The Horde
This round, you may select as many enemy Slashers as you like (minimum 1) which you HAVE NOT written previously. You may choose from your opponent’s adopted Slasher or from any previous round’s Dread Pool.
Semifinals will run from Wednesday August 9th to and end Friday September 8th 9th at 11:59 PM Central Daylight Time on the dot. Voting will last for three days after that. Remember to get your vote if you don't want to be disqualified.
In recognition of confusion over previous deadlines, we're switching to a compromise time zone that works better for most Scramblers. For reference, that is 12:59 AM on September 9th 10th EST or 5:59 AM BST.
To make things even easier, check out this site to convert the deadline to your timezone.
The universal code is - 1694235540
Character limit is 9 full length Reddit comments, or 90k characters.
While it is fine to go a little bit over, anything that far surpasses this limit will be disqualified. This limit does not include intro posts, or analysis of the matchup.
2
u/GuyOfEvil Sep 05 '23
Ryuji chased the cat for well over five kilometers. It seemed to just want to run in as direct a path as possible and shake him by wearing him out, but friggin’ come on man, he was two years removed from running a marathon and could do another one tomorrow if he wanted to, this weak shit was not going to work on him.
After a while longer, the cat started looking back at him, like it couldn’t believe he was still chasing him. This lapse in attention was enough for the cat to run itself into an alleyway and get cornered.
“Ha!” Ryuji yelled through a pant, “I got you, Morgana.”
The cat looked back at him incredulously. Upon closer inspection, despite the fact that this was a talking black cat, it wasn’t Morgana. It looked at him blankly, “You’re an idiot.”
“Well then what does that make you, a cat that got caught by an idiot?”
It didn’t seem fazed by the taunt, “An Incubator, do you know what an Incubator is?”
Ryuji had no clue what an Incubator was. An incubator might have had something to do with chickens or something, but Incubator, no clue. Before he could even form a lie, the thing responded to the blank look in his eye.
“Of course you don’t. And yet somehow I know who you are. Sayaka Miki’s hanger-on. Barely a bit player in this little game, and yet you persist, seemingly to do nothing more than gawk at its real stars. Let me offer you some perspective, young man. You are not a Magical Girl, and you stand on a game board that is absolutely littered with them. You have nothing to offer this place save a swift death, and believing otherwise makes you little more than a fool. If you do not run, you will die.”
“Fuck you, cat.” Ryuji replied.
“Why even waste my time with an idiot?” The cat jumped, and landed on top of a fence at the side of the alley, seemingly never trapped in the first place.
So, Ryuji was left alone. He walked towards a nearby vending machine to get a drink, and wondered why that stupid cat’s words stung him so much. Without much thinking he came to a conclusion, it wasn’t the first time he had been called an idiot by a cat. It probably wasn’t even the thousandth.
Before this thought ran too deep, he got a phone call from Sayaka.
“Yo.”
“Hey, I think I’ve got the keeping Pukin from transforming part of the plan covered, she’ll be indisposed at sunset in three days, but it’ll mean I can’t be in Wonderland. Do you think you can meet Alice and figure the rest of it out on your own?’
“Uhh… Yeah. I think I got it. Are you gonna be ok, you sound a little nervous.”
“Nervous? No. I’m totally gonna be fine, I’ve got three days to get ready for a fight with her, I’ve totally got this.” She was pretty obviously nervous and trying to psych herself up, but Ryuji couldn’t really blame her, he was gonna have to do the same thing.
“Meet me at work and we’ll go over everything one last time, then we’ll both start getting ready. Sound good?”
“Sounds great,” Sayaka replied, “It’s getting late though, let’s do it tomorrow.”
“Gotcha,” Ryuji said, then hung up.
Alright, Palace heist was all up to him. He totally had this. It was high time to prove at least one stupid ass cat wrong.