Samanayrs

On June 11, the day of the illustrious NommableDragon's wedding, an event will begin...

Throughout the homeworld of the Samanayrs, a song has gone out. It echoes from the furthest reaches of the Northern wastes to the barren flats of the Desert sands. It reverberates throughout the deepest waters and the darkest subterranean caverns. It's carried on the wind, through the mountains, whispering through the trees like a cool breeze and through the grasses like an excited rush.

One of the oldest and most revered Sharians in the history of the species will be celebrating her joining, at long last and after a lifetime's wait. To honor the happy couple, one of their elegant 'pets' got it into her head to harass invite others of her species to pay tribute. Well, not of her species. Of the lesser species. But she's aiming to be polite so as to encourage them in their efforts. She can be so very charming when she wishes.

Prepare yourselves for an RP scavenger hunt, hosted by the ever-so-ladylike Princess!
There will be prizes for all entrants, with a cutoff after the seventeenth person has signed up and chosen their item (if there are that many responses). I will be giving an initial prompt with instructions and signups where you will choose the item you seek earlier in the week, possibly Wednesday, and the actual event itself should begin on Friday. The three 'best' responses, as judged by myself and two others who aren't involved with Samanayrs, will receive the most especially wonderful prizes!

Any questions or discussion, throw them at me. This thread is open for conversation!

Oooh, I definitely want to take part in this!
I'll bring Fury along, seeing as she's such a good spotter. |D No questions yet, though I'll probably think of some later, but definitely a heaping helping of endorsement! <3

Ooh, this sounds like fun~ Though I don't quite get what we're going to be doing... >_>; I'll be throwing either Mystic or Drift in there once it starts. :3

I would love to join in and play, I just hope sign ups, if they are done on Wednesday, are before I leave and catch my flight.

If I catch a spot, I will probably use my newest pretty, Luminosity

Oooh, this sounds fascinating! I hope I can manage to sign up and join in on this! I can't decide if Chirp or Wink would be better to play for a scavenger hunt... Though Wink might be reluctant to turn over her treasure again depending on what it was. So maybe I'll choose when I see the items being sought.

So, will the sign ups be handled in RP form as well then? I can't quite tell from the description.

I can't quite say whether signups will be early or late on Wednesday (or even super-late Tuesday), but I'll definitely keep your flight in mind.

As to signups, they'll be RP-optional. Keep in mind that prizes are determined by quality of RP, though! It certainly wouldn't hurt your chances for a more pricey - or more special - prize! I think I'll offer for people to fill out the form and sign up for the item of their choice, and then optionally provide an RP response once they've secured their item.

I'm so thrilled to see a positive reception to this! Sushi really seemed to like the idea too, and there were a few different hooks I'd had in mind for the hunt's purpose.

It sounds interesting, but I don't RP. Too much of a storyteller and wanting to control everything from every angle. May just watch.

I do have a question, should I change my mind about trying to participate, though. Do you have to have a Sam in order to play?

Heya! This RP contest might actually be perfect for a storyteller-type, the way I have it planned. You don't have to have a Sam to participate (I'll offer a few of mine that don't have clearly defined personalities for non-owners to use) and you don't have to play with others if it doesn't suit you. The only thing required is that you use my initial prompt(s).

The basic plan I have for the event is this:

I post an explanatory signup post, detailing the event's specifics, the items needed, available Sams for non-owners, and signups. Owners can optionally reply to the initial post with a story after posting the signup form, but it's not required. There will be no back-and-forth RP at this point. After you have your item, you can actually start writing for the contest, though nothing can be posted until Friday.

There will be the option for participants to write solo or to write in collaboration with another participant (or a group, I suppose) so long as the parts written by each person were clearly labeled. So, if you wanted to take the prompt posted on Wednesday and the second prompt posted on Friday and write a story, that is perfectly fine. ^_^

Huh. Now that sounds like it might be right up my alley. I'll have to check it out once you get everything posted.

If you don't own a Sam, will it still be possible to part take?

This sounds fun! I'm not really into RP, but I'd definitely like to try I find my issue is I'm used to writing really concisely (hammered into me from all my science classes!), and so I feel lame posting my short little things next to everyone's posts full of detail and description XD If I can make the sign-up though, I'd definitely like to make an attempt at least, haha!

Oh, wow! What a remarkable idea! You've really outdone yourself, Jenn. The premise for the "In Honor of the Eldest" Samanayr RP scavenger hunt captivates the imagination. I can tell this is going to be a lot of fun!

I will most certainly try my best to come and sign up with Robot! Sounds to me that this type of event requires a systematic grid search with haste and thoroughness in order to procure the required item.

Everyone, please feel free to use this as a discussion thread for the event! Questions, comments, and chatter are all very welcome.

Here are some questions I've received so far, and the answers I've given:

Q: Also, I was wondering...do the hunt posts need to all be finished and posted on Friday, or is that just when it starts and then we have a day or so to post our Sam finding and returning with their object?
A: Hunt posts will probably need to be finished by either Sunday or Monday, with the thread "inviting" them opened up on Friday. There won't be too much in the Friday prompt, honestly, just some of Princess tooling around. Not much useful to hunters.

Q: Err...any length limits to these posts?
A: There's no length limit in either direction! I look forward to seeing what people are able to whip up in a few days.

Q: I was just wondering if you had a set behavior in mind or anything for the stranglevines. I know you've been following Sams longer than I have and wasn't sure if the plant species of their world had ever had anything defined about them that I needed to follow when I type up Friday's responce. Such as, are they fast moving plants or slow creeping plants. I'm guessing by the name and description that they do move and will try to wrap around anything that comes near them and strangle it, then the decaying body will either be eaten the way venus fly traps and such do, or else used as fertilizer.
A: You are 100% free to describe it in any way you'd like! I just made up the plant on the spot, assuming that something of the sort may exist on the Sam homeworld. Most all of these items came from the depths of my brain last night on a caffeine high, so people can go nuts with them as they choose. I'm very open to questions and willing to offer opinions, however!

Oooh yeah...this thread is still there... XD Guess I should have posted questions here since they wound up being relevent to more than me... Thanks again Jenn! Though in my defence I started just asking about the stranglevine which didn't seem relevent to others though the answer wound up being so after all.

I've started writing my reply for the next stage because I have ideas and don't want to loose them, and feel like writing it now. I'm beginning to feel that Jenn may regret not putting an upper limit on length. I may have to trim this down before actually submitting...right now it's less of a RP post and more of a short story. *eyes work and continues on*

I'm also surprised, what with the interest that the poll showed for this...that there's still two slots still out there, just waiting to be claimed!

I would certainly love for this to look more like a short story than an RP post! I just called it "RP" because that's the most common classification for Sam writing contests that also require responding to a prompt. <3

And inorite? Two more spots available, guys! *grin*

Oh good! Then I don't need to worry about the fact that you're likely to get several pages from me. Splendid! I hope you enjoy reading it once I get it finished and the final prompt goes up!

*looks around* Twwwwooooo more chances to join in the fun writing event! Twwwwwoooo more! Come and get them before the main event starts!

I did post on the PI thread that sign ups had started to remind people to check the forum. But right now things seem to have gone quiet with Sushi gone...

Every time I think I'm getting close to Chirp actually getting her leaves...her story decides it needs another twist!

There's no reason why wild Sams couldn't offer to help her on the quest, is there?

Absolutely no reason at all why wildies can't help! <3 I'd be delighted to see what sorts of NPCs you come up with. Just keep it consistent with the Sam world, which I know you will, and it's all cool!

Splendid! And now that I've finally almost wrapped it up...I come back with one more question. I told you I was full of them!

What sort of room is Princess going to be waiting in? Would it be acceptable to write her as lounging on cushions going over her list one more time? Based on what you've written about her that sounds reasonable, but since she is NOT an NPC but rather your Sam I thought I'd check before writing anything about her.

That seems perfectly reasonable for her, yes! <3 And many thanks for cheching.

I wound up giving her a possessive gleam to her eye when she watched Chirp hand over the leaves; hope that was acceptable as well. If not, I can edit it out again. But it seemed like something she would be doing...

Aaaand...I think I just double the length of that thread by posting my insanely long story reply. Word count says I wrote over 6k words for this. O_O

Well, I've got an npc song of merchant sams trading modiems for the kinds of items Sharians might be interested in, reaching songs Sharians couldn't. I hope that's reasonable.

I also got terribly distracted and started sketching various characters. So... I might end up a bit late. Ah well, I'll get it finished eventually.

Got my really short, not really awesome entry in! XD I didn't even have time to go back and add an rp bit to my item claiming, but at least I participated, which was my goal. I'm not really a big rper or anything, so it was nice to try and stretch my wings a little, even though I didn't have as much time as I might have liked to make something nice.

I've got my idea in my head, I just have to grab the time some time today to write it out! It includes something sort of... new. I hope it works out ok!