In our return to Monster Island, we find that the dangerous environment has left us with a need for a new ruler. Perhaps you can be that ruler? But, this time around, the monsters must come from Midgard, which provides you with an added challenge!

Behold the King of the Monsters Contest, the greatest and most glorious contest ever! Welcome to Kobold Quarterly’s third semiannual tournament of monster design where you, the fans, test your skills by designing amazing monsters that are evaluated by a panel of industry professionals and by the fans themselves, all for fame and prizes! It’s easy to enter the arena: you simply design a monster and submit it. As noted above, we want you to create monsters that can fit into Midgard, and the Midgard Bestiary will be a good resource for you as you work on your creature.

Here’s how it works: To enter the contest, your monster submission MUST…

• Be sent to the King of the Monsters Contest—that is, to miranda(at)koboldquarterly(dot)com—no later than Friday, May 18th, by noon PST.
• Be submitted as a doc, docx, or rtf attachment.
• Read KotM3 Submission [insert monster name] in the email’s subject line. Your full name and contact information should be in the body of the email (not in your attachment).
• Be designed for Pathfinder Roleplaying Game/3rd Edition D&D or for 4th Edition D&D. Additionally, the flavor of the creature should work well within Midgard.
• Be 800 words or less and contain 1 full statblock (no more, no less)and the appropriate flavor text and lore to flesh out your creation. (You should look to previously published Monday Monsters for insight about format and content. The splicer beast and Xaldraxis are good examples.)

We are looking for monsters of all kinds and all levels. Even a CR 1/4 Small reptilian humanoid can rise to be king!

Judging
All submissions that meet the criteria will be entered in the contest and be judged by us, the Kobolds, and our guest judges on originality, effective writing and design, and “fun.” The 5 best monsters will be published here on koboldquarterly.com and be voted on by the public. Of those 5 monsters, the one with the winning votes will be crowned King of the Monsters in May/June 2012.

So who’s judging? As ever, we have a trio of extremely talented and terrific judges: Ben McFarland, Adam Roy, and Sigfried Trent. Take a look at their bios below.

Ben McFarland once beat Zeb Cook in a Greyhawk Trivia Contest.  Ben began freelancing with Open Design in 2008, tackling projects that run the gamut from 3.5 to 4E to Pathfinder and all points in between, and he hasn’t looked back. He lived on a desert island for two years while serving as an officer in the US Air Force. He likes to brew his own beer, make his own Chinese food, and fence saber, although he does none of these as much as he would like anymore. His premises are guarded by a man with a shotgun three nights a week—you guess the nights.

Adam Roy is the alter ego of Mighty Mongo, half-orc barbarian blogger and founder of the Humanoid Anti-Defamation League (‘Tuskers Unite!’). He is a freelance writer and editor for Open Design (Kobold Minion #13), Game Master-at-large-without-portfolio, as well as a full-time father, husband, and wireless guru in his offline life.  He manages all this by avoiding sleep altogether. Adam is the co-author (along with Christina Stiles) of Open Design’s upcoming Player’s Guides to Midgard

Birthed in the savage north beneath cold open skies, Sigfried Trent spent his youth learning the harsh discipline of rules lawyering and tale spinning in countless games of D&D. When no dungeon could stand against him, he traveled south to the lands of hill and rain. There while dueling with strangely colored rectangles, he crossed paths with the famed bard Wolfgang. After battling to a draw, they joined forces to found a great empire along with many other stalwart allies. Best known for the Netbook of Feats and theAdvanced Feats series from Open Design, Sigfried also works behind the scenes of Open Design along with his wife Anne. Together they edit, design, market, do layout work, and otherwise kick butt for goodness.

Prizes for the King

As the king, the winning monster will have its portrait commissioned and be published in an upcoming Kobold Quarterly. In addition, its designer will receive a free print or PDF copy of the magazine in which the monster appears. It’s good to be the king.

Additional Rules
1. The contest is open to all.
2. One entry per person. The entry must be your own work, which has not been published previously, is not being considered for publication by any other publisher, and is original and does not infringe upon any copyrighted material.
2. All entries become property of Open Design.
4. By entering this contest, you authorize the use of your name and likeness without additional compensation for promotion and advertising purposes in all media.
5. This contest is subject to federal, state, and local laws where applicable.
6. Open Design reserves the right to withdraw or terminate this contest at any time without prior notice.
7. All decisions of Open Design and the contest judges are final.