The God Eater’s Crossroads isn’t exactly the most appropriate of places; it gets a PG13 rating. Please put content warnings where necessary.

We are allowing:

• Strong language

• Sexual themes* & limited artistic nudity

• Blood & violence

• Substance abuse

(*Not acceptable in relation to depictions of minors or characters that “just look young”.)

We will not accept:

• Pornographic or fetishistic material

• Excessive amounts of gore

• Putting opponents’ characters in romantic, sexual, or other boundary-pushing situations without artist permission (do not push them on it if they say no)

• Killing or maiming opponents’ characters without explicit permission to do so

Tab 3

These rules are copied from our community Discord & extend to our wiki & social media account interactions.

 

1. Be respectful

2. Do not spam the chat

• WIKI: Spamming comments on our wiki pages will result in a loss of comment privileges for violators or the wiki as a whole.

3. Do not post NSFW content (or disturbing imagery)

4. Keep conversations relevant to the channels

• WIKI: Keep conversations relevant to the page they reside on.

5. Mods (Organizers) have final say

6. Do not ban evade or use alt. accounts

7. Other OCT discussions…

• WIKI: Other OCTs may be mentioned on character pages to reference previous OCT appearances and/or character growth and cameos. Pages on our wiki dedicated entirely to other OCTs will be removed.

 

Let an organizer resolve conflict

————————————————————————————–

 

Failure to follow these rules will result in a warning. Further violations will result in a temporary 3 day ban. Any other violation afterwards results in a permanent ban.

Past problems are not to be discussed publicly if they occur. If you made a mistake, got temporarily banned, and came back after– it’s okay! We all make mistakes, especially when joining a new community. No need to apologize when you get back, just a “hey I’m back!” and we all move on, no worries! 

It is required for your rounds to include:

1. Starting the “battle” between your character & your opponent’s character in a Crossroads arena
2. Your character defeating your opponent’s character; satisfying a win condition

 

Please note that there are no ring-outs by leaving the main fighting arena; you don’t lose unless you’re knocked out, give up the tag, or lose to an alternate win condition.

 

Win conditions include:

• Rendering the opponent’s fighter unconscious/incapacitated (may include death if permitted by the opponent)

• Stealing the opponent’s tag and keeping it from them for 30 seconds (the MC, Miss X, will count down and call it)

• Or alternative agreed-upon match conditions approved by the God Eater
  • The God Eater will approve anything she finds amusing & sufficiently challenging between the two teams. If you wish to check the alternative match conditions with an Organizer, you may, but it is not required.
  • An alternative match condition should challenge both teams and not give one team a large advantage.
  • Teams may discuss alternative match conditions outside of the arena before a match, or immediately before the start of the match in the arena.
  • Alternative match conditions must be set before the battle begins by informing the God Eater or Miss X; whether the details are elaborated upon chronologically in an entry before the battle is up to your discretion as a creator, but it should be established that the match has an alternative win condition.

 

Feel free to use OUR JUDGING RUBRIC as a set of guidelines for how to handle your character’s story and balance it with your opponent’s character.

Competitor Character Guidelines

We are accepting teams of 1-2 characters: 1 FIGHTER character and 1 ASSIST character; although you only need to have a fighter in order to compete! (Please note that the God Eater is only gifting 1 wish for an overall tournament win, even if it’s a team of 2!)

A team can have its members switch between fighter & assist roles only between matches— the fighter must be determined before the match begins.

*For 2-in-1 characters, since they share a body, both are considered the fighter. 2-in-1 characters count as 2 separate characters due to dealing with separate personalities.

 

SUPPORTER Characters

Supporters can have helpful, but limited, passive abilities like buffs/debuffs/heals for use outside of matches. Supporters can also have no utility outside of being used to push character development and plots! Feel free to have more fun in exploring the role of the supporter, but be wary of bloating your cast and struggling to manage the quantity of characters.

Our “supporter” character role has been referred to as “tag-alongs” or “spectators” in past OCTs.

Limitations on OCs:

• Age Floor: Fighter & assist characters must be at least 16 years old (human years) to participate– we don’t allow kids to fight in potential death tournaments! (Must be old enough to sign a waiver.)

• No fan characters– this means characters that are currently made to fit into the universe of a published work you do not own. If they used to be in this state, but were altered, that is permissible.

• No God Mods or Gary/Mary Sues. Characters can be strong, but not overpowered– there needs to be challenges during the rounds. Gary/Mary Sues with their universe-bending abilities are just poorly-written power fantasies, and we do not wish to see those.

  • The God Eater does not allow characters more powerful than herself to appear in the Crossroads, for various reasons.

 

• Supporters & Self-created NPCs: Feel free to have these, but please recognize the additional strain having many characters can put on writing. Try to limit yourself to creating only what is necessary to tell your story or elaborate on the world. Supporters & Self-created NPCs are not expected to be utilized by an opponent during rounds, they exist for you to help yourself if needed.

• If you are unsure an OC would be acceptable and/or want to check power balance, feel free to open #support-tickets one of the Organizers on Discord.

 Competitor Reference Sheet Guidelines:

Please note that writers are not required to have a visual reference sheet! You must include vivid descriptions of characters and items, however. Writers may also link outside images to refer to as visual reference. (Feel free to commission visual references to submit if you so desire.)

 

Each character competing in the OCT is required to have a reference sheet on our OCT’s wiki. Please use our character sheet template to build your ref. You may have an existing character reference outside of the wiki; feel free to link it to your character’s wiki page. We ask that all characters have a wiki page for everyone’s convenience. The wiki is our OCT’s gallery and has a search feature. You’ll find a quick guide on implementing templates under the “Submit” tab.

Please include the following details:

• Front & back art, colored. (If not flat colors, have a palette handy!)

• Name, Gender/Sex/Pronouns (whatever you wish), Race, Age, Height & Weight.

• Strengths, Weaknesses, Personality, Backstory, Abilities, Items– please include the Tag accessory that will be used in the audition.

• If using 2 OCs, include a description of their relationship with one another.

 

round deadlines current on the wiki homepage

Submit Rounds via Google Form

 

round submission checklist

1. Follow Round requirements under “Rounds” tab and Medium Guidelines!
2. Update your Creator page with a link to the round submission
3. Submit links through our Google Form before the deadline!

 

 

Audition Submission Checklist

1. WIKI— Create a Chapter under your medium’s Book on the wiki. Title the chapter with your character’s name and include your username in the description.
   1. Create Creator Template
   2. Create Character Reference(s)
      – Include drawn refs if submitting for comics or animation
2. AUDITION
          –  Link submission to the Creator Template
          –  Does the audition include the team accepting the invite, showing up in Crossroads & meeting an NPC?
3. Submit links through our Google Form before the deadline 

If there’s any confusion on the wiki format, please see our 2021 Writer League archive as an example to follow.

Create a reference page for your character on the wiki under your Chapter. Title should be your character’s name in [brackets] followed by “Reference”. [Template]

(ie. “[Vilivian] Reference”) 

Create a Creator’s page on the wiki [Solo – Duo] under your Chapter. Title should be your Character’s name.

(ie. “Vilivian” or “Piano & Forte”)

 

How to use a template on the Wiki

First, create the page by navigating to your medium’s Book, then “Add a Chapter” or “+ New Chapter” if you haven’t created your Chapter already.

In your Chapter, “Create a New Page” or “+ New Page” to create a fresh page. Then we’ll apply the template.

Desktop view– on the sidebar on the right, click the [=] icon. This brings up the Templates tab. Click on the desired template to apply it to the page– WARNING: This deletes existing page content. Copy existing information to another file to save that information before overwriting the page.

 

IT IS REQUIRED FOR YOUR AUDITION TO INCLUDE:

1. Your character(s) accepting the fox familiar’s invite to compete– thus gaining a “tag”.

2. Your character(s) showing up in Crossroads—

   • Your character(s) may travel to Crossroads with their own abilities or means, or the fox familiar can provide transportation via a portal.

3. Your character(s) “check-in” with an NPC–

   • They just need to see that your character has a newfound “tail”.
   • Check-in NPCs include: The God Eater, Chiifu, Tenki, Saki, Miss X, or any Crossguard (you can make a custom Crossguard to fit your needs!)

Anything else you’d like to show regarding story or characters is up to you! The audition is a great opportunity to introduce your character(s) and world before your character(s) need to share the spotlight with your opponent(s) in future rounds!

TAGS & TAILS:

After defeating a competitor in the tournament, their collected tags will be added to yours–an evolved accessory appearance is up to you.

Tags: 

In the past, tags have commonly been depicted as a simple golden bell on a red string bracelet or necklace.

• Alternative tag designs should be similar in size to a trinket; if the tag takes the form of a weapon, it should be no bigger than a revolver or kitchen knife.

 

TailS: 

The ghostly white tails that mark an accepted competitor match the markings of the God Eater and her familiars’ tails. These tails are visible only to the God Eater and NPCs.

• After accepting the tournament invite, your OC will have 1 tail.
  • A round 1 winner will have 2 tails; round 2 will have 4 tails; and round 3 will have all 8 tails.
• There is no benefit or detriment to the competitor’s abilities, regardless of the number of tails– it is meant for NPCs to have a visual cue to your OC’s status. Whether or not there is a plot point to the purpose of the tails is up to you! If one exists, the God Eater won’t easily reveal it~

If you make it past auditions, you’ll receive:

• A competitor headshot from Vashle–ex. from 2021
• Discord role reflecting your league for the season

 

If you win your first round, you’ll receive:

• A competitor chibi from Vashle–ex. from 2021

 

If you win your second round, you’ll receive:

• A competitor portrait from Vashle–ex. from 2021
• Custom role & icon in the Discord community with a title based on your character(s).

 

If you win your third round, you’ll receive:

• Custom charm from Minty
• Wiggly OC .GIF from Minty
• Experimental piece of your choosing from Vashle
• 2023 Cross Champion Discord role, reflecting your victory!

 

 

If you’d like to contribute a prize to the pool, please reach out to an organizer on Discord through DMs or our #support-tickets.

Each entry (ie. each round & audition) should abide by the following guidelines, respective of their medium:

All submissions must be in English.

Writers

Maximum length: 60 pages*

Submission type: PDF

Style: Narrative prose is expected, but feel free to include poems or other literary styles.

Format:

• 1.5 – 2 line spacing
• 10-12 font size
• Can include up to 3 illustrations to help flesh out imagery– but this is not a substitute for descriptions, only to add to the atmosphere. *These illustration pages are not included in the 60 page length, so a 63 page submission with 3 illustrations is acceptable.

Comic artists

Maximum length: 50 pages or 300 panels

Accepted Reading Orders: 

• Left-to-Right (Western)
• Right-to-Left (Eastern) 
• Hierarchical (Top-Down) is recommended for webtoon-style comics.

Formatting:

• All speech bubble text should be typed
• Pages, strips, or website comics are accepted
  • Multi-paged entries must be linked together if not in a PDF or webtoons-style format (ie. Cubari)
• Visually readable at a glance with clear speakers and action

Recommended submission types: PDF, Cubari.moe (with image hosting of your choice), website, or an alternative easily-scrollable viewing experience.

Post to webtoons or tapas at your own discretion– these may not be reliable hosts.

• We are not accepting comics on Twitter (or equivalent difficult experience) as the final submission. If we have to open each page in a different tab to zoom in and be able to read it, it is not acceptable.

Artists that are used to DA for OCTs — we heavily encourage trying Cubari.moe with github for its gist feature. The time spent learning Cubari is better used (and faster) than linking individual comic pages on DA.

• Example of Cubari.moe with Vashle’s entries (Audition through round 3) for Crown of the Beast OCT, using its gist feature.

animators

Maximum length: 25 minutes

Submission type: Video

This medium includes animation, animatics, and video game-style entries (Visual Novels, RPGs, etc.) due to the added elements of audio and time. Even if an entry is interactive, the final submission should include a recorded playthrough video that falls under the maximum length timeframe.

Formatting:

• Include subtitles, even if you have voice actors (embedded or on the video player)
• Minimum resolution: 480p
• FPS minimum: None

 

Try to avoid using copyrighted music to prevent against DMCA takedowns, but copyrighted music will not disqualify entries.

 

Tab 2

Tab 3

You’re permitted to have 1 judge NPC if you are accepted as a candidate for judging. These NPCs are for flavor, and considered to be “minor” in the sense that they must have no mechanical influence over the tournament. Your NPC will be more prominent in your league’s reality, but they can show up in other realities.

Examples of admissible NPCs:

• A worker at the Fox Den, a traveler from afar who hangs around to tell tales, a librarian, a shop owner, a landlord in town, etc.

• Previous judge NPCs can be found here.

Examples of inadmissible NPCs:

• A character who changes the rules of how matches are won.

• A traveler who offers powerful magic items that significantly alter/add to competitor abilities during combat– this creates power imbalances.

  • Selling minor buffing/debuffing potions is okay, just nothing absolutely game-changing or heavily tilting in favor of 1 competitor. The God Eater wants to see the competitors show their abilities, not a fancy staff they picked up along the way.

• A character that alters the plot of the official prompt (ie. someone who gets into a power struggle with the God Eater, either from within the town or as an outside threat).

Judge NPC Reference Guidelines:

Note that judges for writing do not need visual refs. Please include vivid descriptions & links to reference photos instead.

Each character in the OCT is required to have a reference sheet on our OCT’s wiki. Please use our character sheet template to build your ref. You may have an existing character reference outside of the wiki; feel free to link it to your character’s wiki page. We ask that all characters have a wiki page for everyone’s convenience. The wiki is our OCT’s gallery.

Please include the following details:

• Front & back art, colored. (If not flat colors, have a palette handy!)

• Name, Title (optional), Job, Hobby.

• Gender/Sex/Pronouns (whatever you wish), Race, Age, Height & Weight.

• Personality, Location, Backstory, Job description & skills.

 

2023 Judge NPCs will be featured here on the wiki.

2023 Helper Judge Application PERIOD:

Friday nov 10th, 2023 THROUGH Sunday jan 7th, 2024 @ 11:59PM EST 

Judge SUBMISSION CHECKLIST

• OPTIONAL: NPC reference sheet
  • 2023 NPCs – Wiki page for the NPC 
  • Drawn refs if judging for comics or animation

 

• Final submission through our Google Form
  • Small judge test (est. <= 1 hour)

 

Create a reference page for your character on the wiki under your Chapter. Title should be your character’s name in [brackets] followed by “Reference”. [Template]

 

How to use a template on the Wiki

First, create the page by navigating to the 2023 NPC book, then “Create a New Page” or “+ New Page” to create a fresh page. Then we’ll apply the template.

Desktop view– on the sidebar on the right, click the [=] icon. This brings up the Templates tab. Click on the desired template to apply it to the page– WARNING: This deletes existing page content. Copy existing information to another file to save that information before overwriting the page.

 

If you stick with us for the duration of the tournament (all 3 rounds), you’ll receive:

• A half-body commission from Vashle– examples below