Let us once again venture forth to Monster Island and see what our creative monster artisans have wrought for our deadly amusement. Will you choose to join the ranks of the monster artisans and set your monster creation against those of others? If so, read on for contest rules!

Behold the Monarch of the Monsters Contest, the greatest and most glorious contest ever! In this, our fourth tournament of monster design, you can test your skills by designing amazing monsters that are evaluated by a panel of industry professionals and by other gamers, all for fame and prizes! It’s easy to enter the arena: you simply design a monster and submit it.

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

• Be sent to the Monarch of the Monsters Contest—that is, to miranda(at)koboldquarterly(dot)com—no later than Friday, November 29th, 2013 by noon9 PM PST.
• Be submitted as a doc, docx, or rtf attachment.
• Read MotM 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 either Pathfinder Roleplaying Game or 13th Age RPG.
• 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 Kobold Press 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 the winning monster!

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 koboldpress.com and be voted on by the public. Of those 5 monsters, the one with the winning votes will be crowned Monarch of the Monsters in December, 2013.

So who’s judging? As ever, we have a group of extremely talented and terrific judges: Wolfgang Baur, Jobe Bittman, Adam Daigle, and Ben McFarland. Take a look at their bios below.

Wolfgang Baur is the founder of Kobold Press, its publisher, and general go-to kobold. He enjoys the Gothic style in architecture, the Venetian style of rampant mercantilism, and the Dutch style in gardens and hydroengineering. For adventures, he’s an omnivore. Wolfgang is the author of the Midgard Campaign Setting, the Dark*Matter setting, the Kobold Guides to Game Design, and a smattering of other RPG titles dating from the days when TSR walked the earth. Wolfgang lives in an impenetrable set of warrens near Kirkland, Washington.

As far as he knows, Jobe Bittman is the only writer/game designer living on Bainbridge Island, WA. His work has appeared in publications from Kobold Press and Wizards of the Coast, among others. Jobe is a self-espoused monster fanatic and has been awarded the fabled crown of the King of the Monsters twice. His next book “The Monster Alphabet” is being released by Goodman Games in 2014.

Crowned by Wolfgang Baur himself, Adam Daigle was the first King of the Monsters. Despite writing game material other than monsters, Daigle found himself in strange labs hacking monsters apart, fusing appendages together, and imbuing the spark of life to dozens of creepy critters. A longtime contributor to Kobold Press, Daigle created a number of devious monsters and went on to serve as lead developer on the Pathfinder Midgard Bestiary. Currently, Adam Daigle is a developer at Paizo Publishing working primarily on the Pathfinder Adventure Paths.

Ben McFarland once beat Zeb Cook in a Greyhawk Trivia Contest.  Ben began freelancing with Kobold Press 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.

Prizes for the Monarch of the Monsters

The winning designer will receive a freelance design commission from Kobold Press, and he or she may be interviewed for the Kobold Press website. All five finalists will receive PDF copies of the Midgard Bestiary for Pathfinder RPG, Midgard Bestiary for 4th Edition, Midgard Bestiary for AGE System, and the double-ENnie winner, the Kobold Guide to Worldbuilding.

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 Kobold Press.
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. Kobold Press reserves the right to withdraw or terminate this contest at any time without prior notice.
7. All decisions of Kobold Press and the contest judges are final.