Martiallais

Continuing on with our announcements leading to the start of the Grand Tournament...here's another addition to this year's events! For this year’s Grand Tournament, Kail Gerrad and the crew of the Ashen Rook shall act as bookies for any wishing to take a chance and lay with Lady Luck! Show your support for your favorite champion by backing their rise to fame and fortune with even more fortune! Play the odds for the long haul, or bet it all and pray that the odds are in your favor! The corsairs shall accept bets from any and all with the coin to spare for it! They demurely request that any not satisfied with their outcome spare the tournament assembly any violence outside the ring, and instead save their complaints for the back alleys of Limsa Lominsa. How It Works Interested parties are to locate Kail Gerrad before the start of each Tournament event (Ranged, Melee, Magic, Joust) on its designated day. Don’t fret -- he’s very loud. Gamblers will be "given" a purse of 50,000 gil each (IC coinage only) for the course of the entire Tournament. This encompasses all the money that Kail (the “house”) is willing to cover. Players can bet up to 50k each round, but losing does cumulative damage to their purse over the course of the tournament, and after 50k they can no longer bet for the duration of the tourney. Each event of the Tournament (Ranged, Melee, Magic, Joust) will be a “round” of gambling, each with their own prize for whoever takes the pot for that round. At the end of the tourney, there will be a final prize for the fattest purse. To qualify for this prize, players need to have bet on at LEAST two of the events. Just because you don't pick the winning pony, doesn't mean you go away with nothing. Picking a character that places in their event still has returns on your purse: Picking 1st place has a return of 100% (that's double your money folks!) Picking 2nd place has a return of 75% Picking 3rd has a return of 50%. [*]Kail reserves the right to laugh at bets under 1000 gil. What You Win Single Round/Event Prize 50,000 gil Fattest Purse Plunder* Dead Man's Chest Plundered Treasure Bragging Rights For the Next Twelvemoon *Calculations to determine this prize-winner will be determined at the conclusion of the fourth event, so please keep in touch so we can deliver your prizes if this winner is you!

Now that we're drawing nearer to the tournament, it's time to continue with our info reveals! First and foremost: this year's prizes!! "Good people of Eorzea -- our champions all: It is little more than a sennight until the Grand Tournament of the Fury opens on the 19th Sun of this very Moon. Surely at this point you are anxious to know what rewards await those who achieve victory!" - First Place Rewards - Victor’s Portrait The champions of each of our four separate events will receive a portrait commissioned by the talented Lord Evariste de Baudhuin, who has graciously donated his services in celebration of the occasion. The wonderful @aethericseafarer is offering a sketch portrait like the example below to the first-place winner of each event of the tournament. This is to be considered in-character; drawn by the hand of Lord Evariste himself! Prize Bundles** Tournament of the Mark - 5/19 Hunting Hawk Eternal Wind Orchestrion Roll Tournament of the Sword - 5/21 Weapon of the Round* Heroes Orchestrion Roll Tournament of the Wand - 5/26 Orchestrion Revenge of the Horde Orchestrion Roll Great Gubal Floor Lamp Tournament of the Lance - 5/28 Highland Barding Orthodox Barding Topiary Chocobo Oriental Striking Dummy Painted Foothills Orchestrion Roll **All bundles have been reviewed to be of similar value. *Weapon of the Round will be the Winner’s Choice. We will have all materials on-hand to craft upon victory. - Second Place Reward - Gil Prize Payout The second-place competitor of each event will receive a sum of 100,000 gil for their efforts. Remember, good people, that there is still time to pre-register for this year’s Grand Tournament of the Fury! Pre-Registration closes on WEDNESDAY, MAY 17th. Pre-registration is an incredible help to our being able to start on time, and therefore ensuring a better experience for all of you, our competitors and guests! Additionally, IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO HELP DONATE TO THE PRIZE POOL for the ball or otherwise, please contact Eliane Dufresne, Martiallais Heuloix, or Gwenneth Gilrouis to transfer your items BY WEDNESDAY, MAY 17th. Further information on the Tournament and its closing Ball and raffles is forthcoming, so -- as they say -- “please look forward to it!”

Hey there Keiji! I'll field the jousting question if that's quite alright. With that said, we'll be applying the same 'gauge by whichever competitor has the higher roll' rule if both jousters fall within the same category, even with breaks. Hopefully that clears things up! And as Gwenneth already noted, we separated the event days this year just so that people could participate in as many events as they wish. That was definitely one of the pieces of feedback we received with last year's Grand Tourney that we wanted to try and change this year.

Because you demanded it, the Grand Tourney is back and with even more fury than before!

You can dance if you want to, You can leave your kupos behind! Cause your kupos don't dance, And if they don't dance then they're no kupos of mine! :frustrated:

Looking forward to this! I'll be in attendance.

/hijack Coming in a bit late on this but the joust competition event was (and is - stay tuned!) a part of the Bellworks' Grand Tournament of the Fury. 8-) We'll be bringing back all 4 events again this year! /endhijack

This was something we chewed on too but in the end we had all the 'champions' who'd won their specific tournaments (melee, magic, ranged, and mounted joust) fight it out to see who would be the grand champion. In the end we decided that everyone knew it was just for fun (and a sweet title) so everyone rolled with it. In our FC training/sparring matches and such however, we don't have any kind of restrictions like that and let anyone use whatever skills they have available to them. It makes things a bit flashier but in the end during our last Bell Bouts (as we call them) it ended up being two melee types with access to some magic/enhancing abilities (a DRK and a WAR) slugging it out so it evened out well enough. I'm of the mindset that as long as everyone goes in knowing that it's basically a 'any given day, any person could win' kind of situation, they can justify winning or losing however they like.

Hey just wanted to weigh in here because when The Dufresne Bellworks put on the Grand Tournament of the Fury last year we ran into a lot of the same questions you've noted here. 1) Since the rules have been answered I'll speak to the theme. And really that depends on what you're looking for and what sort of audience you're after. There have been (and are) a number of different fighting tournaments so aside from time zone what are you looking to bring to the table? With the Grand Tournament we wanted, basically, to try and recreate 'ye olde fighting tournaments' with the same sort of fancy flair that Ishgard would support. I'd suggest maybe poking at a few of the EU FC leaders and seeing if they have any suggestions on what their members might be willing to participate in. Chances are if you see something of a 'hole' in the community offering (which you've already started by noting the EU folks are possibly missing a combat tournament) someone else probably has thought about it too. And more support is -always- a good thing because you don't want to try and run something like this on your own. 2) Going to echo Gegenji here and say that the rules work by and large because the Grindstone has literally been around that near everyone knows of it or has seen/participated in it at least once. 3) ExAtomos has the right idea here: Reach out to the people who run these tournaments regularly. The advice offered by Warren especially was invaluable in helping our tournaments run smoothly. It was nowhere near the turnout the GS regularly sees but for a group of first time runners like us it was still a bit of a chaotic mass. One thing I'd say remember is, that it's okay if behind the scenes things don't go exactly according to plan. Someone may drop out right before the fighting starts or during the event and you have to scramble for replacements or there's always someone who's friend is running late, etc etc....just try and keep a calm face for the crowd. As long as people think the event's running smoothly, it'll keep doing so.

Aya continues to be one of the nicest and most laid back folks in the community. 8-) Please don't change

Way late to the party on this but while folks didn't seem to enjoy Saw, having followed the Clone Wars series it was great seeing that connection to the main film for me. I kind of hope Rebels doesn't drop the ball on him veering off into 'extremism'. I'd also like to see what happened to leave him all part-machine-ish. To skip rehashing a lot of what others have said I'll ask this, was anyone else hoping that final scene/scenes would be our 'main characters' hopelessly facing off against Vader as he just cut them down one by one? Maybe I'm just a terrible and dark person like that. >_> /incoming that guy moment And while it doesn't save the places the film dropped the ball, it is worth adding that the book does add a good bit of depth to a number of the characters. I'm currently at the point where the 'Rogue One' ship takes off to get the plans and I enjoyed the added character thoughts/info/etc. So if you liked the movie, I'd say it's worth giving it a try. It reads pretty quickly.

This is a really awesome event idea Syranelle!

Man events like this make me wish we had an Ishgard GC sooooo badly. Kale other than rallying folks, what will the OICs need to do?

Can second this for House of Leaves. It's...definitely something! It took some getting into but once I reached a certain point in the book I couldn't put it down. I've also heard good things/recommendations for the Mistborn series so that's on my list, same as Black Company, I think it is? But next on my 'to read' list is the Dark Tower series.

Sharing this since it's somewhat relevant to the discussion topic here. xT5zfGkr9aU

Posting this a bit late, but thanks for the event! It was a lot of fun!

Martiallais' journey was one that he was kind of born into. His family were Ishgardian soldiers and especially after the passing of his mother, his father was hard pressed to train his trio of children (to be the very best like no one ever was). It was circumstances that forced Mar's sister out of Ishgard that made him leave the lance behind and pick up the sword and shield instead however. Armand had some similar circumstances but rather than becoming a clergyman, he saw that many of the people in that field and around him in general (as a noble) were either corrupt or using their positions against others. Since he was already in training to be a knight, he made the sidestep (after a few other revelations) into Dark Knight territory. Now he's kind of doing a bit of the semi-roaming vigilante thing.

I don't think I've posted here but both of these character tumblrs go under the 'Elezen' tag. Martiallais Heuliox: Unlikely to have anything NSFW but potentially - http://mythrilreflections.tumblr.com Armand Tremaux: Has NSFW-ish stuffs on it, could have more - http://heretic-borne.tumblr.com

Yeah I'd honestly expect things to change gradually rather than SURPRISE BRAND NEW GAME as soon as we load up Stormblood. Now maybe that means we'll start to see things changing between now and then (which would be kind of cool but who knows). Back on topic, I'm in the 'plz no new race' department. Give us more ways to customize the ones we have, more options and looks and such not just another 'hyur with pasted on accessories' like the Au Ra. I know they said it wasn't likely but something that looked more like the concept art Au Ra would be nice though from an RP standpoint having to deal with another two or three dozen "I was secretly xyz race all along!" is something I could go without. But whatever's fun for folks, I suppose. I think making a Captain Bucky O'Hare or Usagi Yojimbo homaging Viera would be cool but then it's a debate on if they allow male Viera or if we have another situation like in 1.0 where one part of a race is 'reclusive and never seen'. Considering they promptly dropped that in 2.0s relaunch and you currently can't /wave without hitting 3 Miqo'te, I'd be surprised if they went that route.

I'm kind of hoping it does away with/consolidates some of the mandatory cross class skills (or at least the ones generally taken) that each role needs or makes use of. I'm thinking things like Provoke, Blood for Blood, Swiftcast, etc will get merged into the 'role pool' for lack of a better term.

I don't read many at all myself but I do keep up with Eliane's The Ambassador over on tumblr. For the most part though I'm bad at reading them regularly and tend to binge them when the mood strikes....which thanks, I'll be stealing quite a few from this thread!

Seconding this. While what is 'correct' will vary from person to person, there's no reason not to use it for both/either as far as I can see? Mileage may vary as with anything else. On top of that, there's no way we'll ever get a community consensus on it so I hope people don't take down the 'OMG YOURE DOING IT WRONG' path.

The Warriors of Darkness are IMO an alternate version of the WoLs we've been seeing in cutscenes. Basically as they said, they were from a world where they WON. They saved the day completely and utterly. It just backfired rather than being a happy ending. That said, I think it does open the door to the more sensible/well reasoned world traveling RP characters. I wouldn't say everyone and their mom does/can do it but it definitely proves that it is completely possible. Also I think the 13 worlds/13 games is too much of a coincidence. While the references are probably small, hidden, or yet to come there's now canon reasons for all those other bits from other FF games. Very cool stuff that I definitely want to know more about.

Considering some RP things that've happened I'll need to either withdraw or bump Armand down from being the first crew member backup. >_>

Gonna chime in & echo the others on Sophia looking amaaaaazeballs. Also yeah, definitely ready to throw down with the Warriors of Darkness.