October 2017 Announcements.
It's that time of year!
Odds and Ends
We're starting off with odds and ends at the start for once! First, apologies for the delay on this. It's been a busy month and we've been stacked under stuff. This is a pretty big announcements post, and there's a lot of stuff going in!
We have a new FAQ about restarting characters for those who want to start fresh. We've also expanded our upgrading power FAQ to include examples of how many threads you can expect to do. Currently no one has any powers waiting on powers staff, but if you want to upgrade your characters powers, please shoot a PM to both @Kyros and @Romi!
Events
It's the spookiest month of the year, and Manta Carlos is guilding up to celebrate Samhain! You can read a bit about Samhain on the event calendar, and we have several events coming up near the end of the month.
On the 13th-15th we have a costume party taking place in the ICC. Similarly, on the 28th and 29th we have an ICC version of our time-honored tradition: The Masquerade Ball!
The Forum version of the event officially takes place on October 31st, but the forum thread is already open and running all month long!
Elections
Starlight Academy just ran it's Student Council Elections, electing a new council for the coming year:
President - Thievenne "Moon Moon" Paget
Vice President - James Havoc
Auditor - Nia
Treasurer - Ruben Spencer
Secretary - Fatima Danvers
In order to make the elections happen at a bit less busy of a time, the elections will be offset in the future. Rather then February and September, elections will be run in May and November. This means the next student council election will be run in May of next year.
Contests
We've had a lot of contests and a lot of great participation! Our Create an Event contest had some great participation, and the winning entry was entry C:
"With so many teleporters and dimension hoppers around, it comes as little surprise to experts when the barrier between worlds starts to weaken. Wild creatures from other realities begin to appear around the island, and it's up to occupants of the island to restrain these creatures while the government tries to determine a way to repair the damage."
This means our winner is @Saber! You can expect to see this event later this year.
We have a new general contest running as well, the Spooky Prompts contest! Signups are open now, and will be open until the end of the 7th. This is a new contest type, so hopefully we see some great participation!
Spotlights
Member Spotlight: @Sissel!
Sissel is one of our newer members, having only joined over the summer, but you'd never know it from watching them around the cbox! They're always quick to greet people and chat, and they're very active around the site. It's great seeing a new member who has integrated themselves into the site as well as Sissel has!
Character Spotlight: Heath Greer by @Lalilulelo!
Heath Greer is a new member of SA's security team. While having no true powers of his own, Heath has several abilities (and curses) he's gained over the course of his life by making literal deals with the devil. The worst of these deals involved selling his daughter's soul to the devil to protect his family, an event that backfired when his wife divorced him and was killed. Heath now searches Manta Carlos for his daughter, who he believes has taken shelter on the island. It's a great idea for a plot, and a very well done character who I love to see around the site!
Plot Spotlight: Party in the MCI!
Party in the MCI starts off as an unseeming get-together for strangers but things take a funny turn when a couple of guests decide to try out new things in the midst of all the dancing. What starts out as a harmless meeting spins up new off-shoot plots for participants that may or may not have been expected! We all agree that parties are where the action starts, but sometimes there's no harm in being a little more careful when the guest list has too much surprises in store.
You can check out the next set of spotlight nominations here. We've also updated the Complete Guide to Contests to reflect the changes to last month, and to add some detail on contest types that have become established. As a smaller note, while no change has been made, we encourage people nominating for the plot spotlight to pick out plots which have already become plots, rather than plots which have the potential to create them.
It's that time of year!
Odds and Ends
We're starting off with odds and ends at the start for once! First, apologies for the delay on this. It's been a busy month and we've been stacked under stuff. This is a pretty big announcements post, and there's a lot of stuff going in!
We have a new FAQ about restarting characters for those who want to start fresh. We've also expanded our upgrading power FAQ to include examples of how many threads you can expect to do. Currently no one has any powers waiting on powers staff, but if you want to upgrade your characters powers, please shoot a PM to both @Kyros and @Romi!
Events
It's the spookiest month of the year, and Manta Carlos is guilding up to celebrate Samhain! You can read a bit about Samhain on the event calendar, and we have several events coming up near the end of the month.
On the 13th-15th we have a costume party taking place in the ICC. Similarly, on the 28th and 29th we have an ICC version of our time-honored tradition: The Masquerade Ball!
The Forum version of the event officially takes place on October 31st, but the forum thread is already open and running all month long!
Elections
Starlight Academy just ran it's Student Council Elections, electing a new council for the coming year:
President - Thievenne "Moon Moon" Paget
Vice President - James Havoc
Auditor - Nia
Treasurer - Ruben Spencer
Secretary - Fatima Danvers
In order to make the elections happen at a bit less busy of a time, the elections will be offset in the future. Rather then February and September, elections will be run in May and November. This means the next student council election will be run in May of next year.
Contests
We've had a lot of contests and a lot of great participation! Our Create an Event contest had some great participation, and the winning entry was entry C:
"With so many teleporters and dimension hoppers around, it comes as little surprise to experts when the barrier between worlds starts to weaken. Wild creatures from other realities begin to appear around the island, and it's up to occupants of the island to restrain these creatures while the government tries to determine a way to repair the damage."
This means our winner is @Saber! You can expect to see this event later this year.
We have a new general contest running as well, the Spooky Prompts contest! Signups are open now, and will be open until the end of the 7th. This is a new contest type, so hopefully we see some great participation!
Spotlights
Member Spotlight: @Sissel!
Sissel is one of our newer members, having only joined over the summer, but you'd never know it from watching them around the cbox! They're always quick to greet people and chat, and they're very active around the site. It's great seeing a new member who has integrated themselves into the site as well as Sissel has!
Character Spotlight: Heath Greer by @Lalilulelo!
Heath Greer is a new member of SA's security team. While having no true powers of his own, Heath has several abilities (and curses) he's gained over the course of his life by making literal deals with the devil. The worst of these deals involved selling his daughter's soul to the devil to protect his family, an event that backfired when his wife divorced him and was killed. Heath now searches Manta Carlos for his daughter, who he believes has taken shelter on the island. It's a great idea for a plot, and a very well done character who I love to see around the site!
Plot Spotlight: Party in the MCI!
Party in the MCI starts off as an unseeming get-together for strangers but things take a funny turn when a couple of guests decide to try out new things in the midst of all the dancing. What starts out as a harmless meeting spins up new off-shoot plots for participants that may or may not have been expected! We all agree that parties are where the action starts, but sometimes there's no harm in being a little more careful when the guest list has too much surprises in store.
You can check out the next set of spotlight nominations here. We've also updated the Complete Guide to Contests to reflect the changes to last month, and to add some detail on contest types that have become established. As a smaller note, while no change has been made, we encourage people nominating for the plot spotlight to pick out plots which have already become plots, rather than plots which have the potential to create them.
