-2 to Wildcard due to tournament posting rules.

Plot: (13)

Storytelling (4) – You laid the foundations for this story in the early posts, but the abrupt ending sort of handwaved everything that you’d built up to that point. It seemed like there was no real reason for the guardian, his riddles, and the statues. Taking the time to put together a more cohesive ending will increase this score.

Setting (4) – Neither of you spent much time making your thread’s scene feel alive. You did a good job of setting the scene in the initial posts but, especially in the last post, the rest of the world around your characters didn’t go much of anywhere or felt tacked on with no reason or explanation.

Pacing (5) – You had good transitions between your posts and a decent flow to your story, but the abrupt finish really put a damper on this part of your score.

Character: (15)

Communication (6) – While Itera’s random asides fleshed out the character concept, they were too numerous and tended to distract from the scene rather than add to it.

Action (4) – While there was quite a bit of action in the thread, it felt very muddy and often off pace. When writing an action scene, take some time to reread what you’ve written and see if it makes sense without adding your mental picture of the scene.

Persona (5) – I found the completely unflappable nature of your characters, despite how true to character they were, to be very off-putting. Perfect characters, while fun to play as, don’t make nearly as interesting a read as characters that people can relate to in some way.

Prose: (16)

Mechanics (7) – No real errors leapt off the page at me.

Clarity (5) – When writing something complex or abstract, try to explain it in the simplest, cleanest terms possible. The combat action in your thread weren’t very clear and simple things like combatant’s positions often got twisted around.

Technique (4) – Changing font size in the middle of the thread really had the opposite effect as intended, pulling me out of the thread’s flow rather than adding character to the guardian. Despite the thread being posted on a web forum, things like changing font size or color should be kept strictly to out-or-character arenas.

Wildcard: (1)

Total: 45

Hysteria receives 394 exp and 45 gp.
Itera receives 225 exp and 36 gp.