XDMC 32: Develop a Contact!

Welcome to the thirty-second Expert Dungeon Master Competition! The primary purpose of the Expert Dungeon Master Competitions is threefold:

• To create a resource for new Dungeon Masters drawing on the vast talent pool of the experienced Dungeon Masters of this forum.
• To create a fun and vibrant competition that is sportsmanlike and friendly.
• To showcase the creativity and talent of Dungeon Masters like you.

The best way to keep informed about the competition is to join the Expert Dungeon Master Competition group. There you can review the rules, archives, and future contest ideas, and get broadcasts telling you when new competitions begin and when results are released!


The topic for this competition is Contact. There is one treasure more valuable to adventurers than gold, magic items, and diamonds: information. Information tells adventurers where the treasure is hidden, what enemies seek to slit their throats, and where they can sell their loot without a lot of annoying questions being asked. This competition asks you to create an NPC whose primary purpose is to provide the heroes with information to aid them in their adventures.

Required Elements

In order to enter this competition, your entry must fulfill the following required elements:

• Epithet: State the name by which the contact is most commonly known.
• Expertise: Describe the subjects in which the contact is knowledgeable.
• Ego: Describe the contact's personality.
• Engagement: Describe one or more ways the heroes might locate the contact.

If you fail to include a required element, you will receive a score of zero in Themes.

Optional Elements

Each entry must include three of the following optional elements:

1. Adversarial: The contact gives the heroes reliable information even though it wants to see them fail.
2. Clandestine: The contact prefers not to meet directly with the heroes.
3. Esoterica: The subjects in which the contact is knowledgeable are not covered by the Arcana, History, Religion, or Streetwise skills
4. Guildmaster: The contact leads a powerful professional organization.
5. Hobbyist: The contact has a full-time job unrelated to the subjects in which the contact is knowledgeable.
6. Inside Man: The contact can influence one or more major political figures, but will not do so on the heroes' behalf.
7. Millenarian: The contact is more than a thousand years old.
8. Monstrous: The contact has the animate, beast, or magical beast type.
9. Obsessed: The contact's obsession with one or more of the heroes may place the heroes in danger.
10. Provocateur: The contact seeks to overthrow the current government.
11. Rare Remuneration: For the information provided, the contact demands payment in a physical form other than coin, works of art, or magic items.
12. Shapechanger: The contact has at least one alternate form, which may or may not be known to the heroes.
13. Unreliable: The contact is a valuable informant even though it is known to occasionally give out inaccurate information.

Your entry should list the optional elements you intended to include. If you do not, you will be scored only for those elements the judges happen to notice.

General Rules

Following are some general rules of the Expert DM Competition. The complete list of rules is in the Expert Dungeon Master Competition Group Wiki.

• Code of Conduct. All entries must comply with the forum's Code of Conduct.
• Contest Duration. Contests usually run for two weeks, beginning with the post announcing the competition. The Coordinator may extend the duration of the contest at his discretion after consulting the other judges for that competition. However, such extensions should be done very rarely.
• Edits Made at Entrants' Own Risk. A judge may download your entry any time after it is submitted. So any edits you make might not be considered by a judge. For this reason, you should submit your entry in as complete a form as possible. Use the preview function liberally. Once winners have been announced, entrants may edit their entries.
• Multiple Entries Prohibited. Each applicant may only submit one entry during the period in which entries may be submitted. Submitting multiple entries disqualifies all entries. Additional entries may be submitted after the competition closes, but they will not be judged.
• Multi-Post Entries Prohibited. Each entry must be contained within a single post. The judges must ignore any subsequent posts.
• Outside Materials Prohibited. Your entry may not include material hosted on a website other than wizards.com and community.wizards.com. Images from your profile gallery may be used. The judges must ignore material hosted on other websites.
• Plagiarism and Peer Reviewing Prohibited. All entries must be the original, exclusive work of the applicant. Entries found to be copying the work of another, or that have been posted for review prior to the close of the competition, will be disqualified.

Judges and Schedule

The contest will run from today through Friday, November 18, 2011. All entries must be submitted no later than 12:00 midnight at the end of that day (Eastern Standard Time). The judges of this contest are ChimericPhase, Exultation, and mccowen, and the coordinator of this contest is wrecan. Good luck and have fun!!

Entry List

1. Alustaerial's Khalis Ghalum
2. Frostpanner_19's Tamerlane Castle
3. Pelletse's Guenevrièvre Corrival
4. Cassan's Namona
5. Hocus-Smokus' Grove
6. Tequilasaurus' Chot Tzukh
7. PowerAttackForTwenty's Vlad the Chained Drinker
8. Geoffa's Captain Thaddeus Darke
9. ClanBattlerage's Jonah Wainwright
10. Wipxepitl's Mo
11. DontEatRawHagis' Alzer Keelhaul
12. Jaxom's Isten Lareth
13. Lord_Ventnor's Vyserizax the Imperial Sage
14. Fedosu's Koriatzu, Seer of Death
15. Devourerofpancakes' George

Disqualified Entries:

• pluisjen's Kivernus the Chaotic
• pluisjen's Crucible of Worlds

Sample Contacts from Film and Literature:

• The Merovingian from Matrix Reloaded
• Varys from Game of Thrones and a Song of Ice and Fire
• Oracle of Sunken Valley, from Order of the Stick

Oooh... I think I'll be able to get something done for this one