Hub Post - Laborynth Opening - YCH Slots Info

So today it all begins. With the debut of the first chapter in the ‘Escape From Dr. Daring’s Laborynth’ story, I’m kicking off the bidding for the first of seven (7) slots for those willing to take the plunge to try and survive this unique story experience. This will also serve as a hub post for future reference as needed.

Be sure to check out the initial chapter first to set the tone for things which was posted to Patreon on the 3rd of August.

As mentioned in my last post, there will be some criteria for those slots and not much of it has changed since then. First, let’s cover how the process is going to work for bidding.

Since I'll be conducting this over a few websites (FA, DA, Patreon, and others), I’ll be taking bids as direct emails to this address: katemarquetCYOAsit@gmail.com . Messages should include the character’s bio, your bidding name, and bid amount (in dollars $ US) formatted like will be shown below. All slots will start at $20 and bids can be made in increments of $5. You’re allowed to keep bidding until you wish to bow out or are that highest bidder. The highest bidder as of the deadline will win that slot for their approved character. The winning bid amount and bidder will then be posted before moving onto the next slot.

For the first round of bidding, I’m going to set an end time of noon (EST) on Wednesday the 5th of August. Going forward for future slots, this time period may be reduced. This longer period for the initial slot will hopefully allow for the fact that all will be presenting their characters for initial approval and I’ll have to go through each. Once you have a character that is approved, you can focus solely on bidding. Even if you don’t win a particular round of bidding, you can bid for another slot with that same character without the need of getting it approved again. If you win one (1) slot and would like to bid on another, you can using a new character. However there will be a limit of two (2) slots per bidder in order to ensure we have a wide range of participation.

I will keep both this post updated with the current highest bidder and bid. This will be the same for every slot and I will make sure this information is kept as up to date as possible.

If you have the winning bid, I will notify you and from that time you will have 48 hours to make payment for that slot via PayPal. If payment is not received by this time then the slot will go to the next highest bidder. If you win one slot and plan on bidding on another, payment for the first must be made before the second bid can be placed.

Once all seven slots are filled, I’ll announce the full cast and then take some time to formulate the second chapter of the story, which will introduce everyone, to have it ready by September. Then the story will continue exclusively on my Patreon with voting helping determine the outcome of the story and characters. Once the story has completed, the finished piece will be assembled as a novel to be self-published with all winning bidders along with Patreons in the related tier and up receiving a copy of the complete story for free. So to be clear, you DO NOT need to be a Patreon of mine to participate in the bidding. If you want to have some control of the story’s direction, read each new chapter as it debuts, or discuss the story as it unfolds on Discord with others, then being a Patron would be the way to go.

So to be clear, winning a slot entitles you to:

1) Having your approved character added to the ‘Escape From Dr. Daring’s Laborynth’ story.

2) Once the tale is complete, receiving a free copy of the finished story.

One thing I want to make clear to any potential bidders is that you have to be fine with two extremes in a story like this. The first being that your character may not make it past the third chapter. The other is that the character makes it to then end in (mostly) one piece. The amount of money bid for a slot will have no bearing on a character’s chances so far as the story goes. If you’re going into this with a specific or an expected outcome for your character(s), you will be disappointed. This is because I want to keep the story unpredictable but also because the votes of my Patreons will also steer the direction of things. So if you would be uncomfortable or unhappy with your character in either of those extreme cases, or not getting a particular transformation, this may not be the story for you. If you are totally fine with this or love the idea of not knowing what’s coming, then I will at least promise to make sure no one has any cheap sort of “off screen” transformation. I will be aiming to make every character and chapter and choice matter.

As for the characters you’ll be bidding with, I’ve mentioned having an “approved” character and what I mean by that is simply one that works within the given world, which is one effectively the same as our current reality. To that end, the only real limits are:

- Be human.

- Aged between 18-50.

- Be believable.

The first two points are self-explanatory but for the third, what I mean by believably is someone that could reasonably exist in our world. That means a character with no flaws, perfect body, IQ of 5,000, and a photographic memory isn’t going to work because they’re not believable and quite honestly, they sound boring.

So with that said, the format I’ll be looking for when it comes to character bios is:

- Full Name:

- Age:

- Height:

- Weight:

- Gender:

- As detailed physical description of the character as you can give. If you have visual reference(s), even better!

- General personality traits. Feel free to list adjectives here, including both the good and bad of your character. Also, read the first chapter in order to get an idea of the situation the character is starting off in when framing traits.

- Basic backstory.

- Useful skills the character might posses.

- Transformations you DO NOT want happening to this character. For anything completely off-limits but this list shouldn’t be too long, given the story’s many possible outcomes.

- Transformations you’d like to happen to this character. The more options you list, the better.

- Character’s slogan or words they live by or them in a nutshell. A short sentence, quote, idiom, or something that you feel encapsulates your character.

-Bidding name. This will be used publicly and will show up in the case of you being the highest bidder. If you bid for two slots you will be using the same bidding name for both.

As for what sorts of transformations will be covered in the story, I’m mostly focused on full/partial animal, anthro, possible merging aspects (CTF as an example), and with possibly some degree of inanimate as well, though I’ll be taking every winning bidder’s likes and dislikes into consideration as well.

One thing I will note from above as far as transformations you DO NOT want: while I can guarantee I won’t change a character into something from their DO NOT list, I can’t make the promise that it won’t appear in the story and potentially happen to someone else. Especially if that’s a transformation someone else likes. So if you don’t want a pig transformation occurring to your character, I’ll be sure to accommodate. But if someone else turns into a pig due to their preferences, try not to  be surprised or angry. I’ll be doing my best to tow the line between all the winning bidder’s preferences and keeping the story unpredictable and entertaining.

Character sheets won’t be made public just so that certain details, like transformation preferences, won’t steer voter’s opinions or choices. I’ll keep everything organized on my end as the storyteller and will try my best to keep characters true to what details you provided.

A few final, related points to keep in mind:

- I’m looking for a well-rounded cast of characters and while I won’t choose winning bids based on the approved character, you should have in mind things that make your character different.

- Especially in the first round or two, I’ll likely be dealing with a lot of character sheets so I might take some time to reply but I will be active throughout so I will get back to all. ^^

-If there is still active bidding between individuals when the deadline comes, I’m fine with keeping things going between those individuals until a winner is reached.

-In the case of matching high bids, as there is only one slot available at a time, highest bidders will be asked if they want to make a higher bid. If all high bidders keep their current bid, then I will take the one who made that high bid first as the leader as the tie-breaker.

-For any new round you bid, you will be sending a new email to the address rather than replying in a previous chain. If you didn’t win a previous round but would like to use an already approved character, just include the approved character information in the new message rather than replying in an ongoing chain which can get messy with possible multiple bids across several rounds.

-While the story is progressing and exclusive to the related Patreon tier and above, I won’t be answering email questions related to updates about your character, plans I may have for the story, or otherwise as the content is meant as Patreon bonus.

-The related Patreon tier will be debuting the same time as the second chapter in September as an intermediate tier. This will allow access to all chapters as they debut, voting in polls to decide the story’s direction in a CYOA format, access to exclusive Discord channel discussion about the story as it unfolds, along with a few other perks unrelated to the story but still pretty nice. ^^

- While I can’t begin to give an estimate to a final word count for the story, I would imagine 40K+ easily, if not much more. Also, I couldn’t begin to give a time frame for how long the story will take to complete since that’s very much up to how voting and the story goes. Several months at the very least.

- Much of this will be new to me so I’ll be doing my best to make sure the bidding and character approval process is quick and painless for all and that the story produced exceeds even my expectations. There may be some bumps along the way but I think the experience will be worth it.

- Certainly if this all works out, either future installments could continue the story or new tales could be told using the same format.

- Future posts as slots come open will refer back to this original post as I won’t be including all these details each time. If you have any general questions or comments, feel free to reply to this post or message me directly.

- As slots close and new ones open, I’ll be posting Journal and Discord updates until all slots are filled. So keep an eye on my feeds if you’re interested in one of the slots as updates will come frequently this month.

And that should cover it! I will be posting the official Slot #1 opening message in just a few moments which will officially kick things off. I hope this turns into an enjoyable and unique for everyone and can’t wait to see what we create together. ^^

-KM