Festival of Local Anaian Games and Sports: Everything Thread

[Anaia Region]

Welcome to the Festival of Local Anaian Games & Sports!

Welcome to the everything thread for the Festival of Local Anaian Games & Sports (FLAGS), an olympics for people who thought that, not only should Korfball, Ballooning and Poetry Writing have become permanent fixtures, but that the decathletes were incredibly lazy for choosing so few disciplines.

Approximately one OOC and countless IC years ago (seriously, we cannot count them and trying to do so just causes confusion), Anaia was born in a wonderful series of events that culminated in the Declaration of Foxchester and its subsequent amendment. To celebrate that time, and the progress our region has made in that year, nations from across Anaia will be sending their best, their worst, and their people in between to compete in a gauntlet of sports, games and cultural curiosities.

To compete, simply sign up below with the name of your nation and three (3) competitors, with perhaps a short bio on each of them to get the creative juices flowing. These competitors will compete in all of the events that the FLAGS has to offer. They'll showcase their ability to be jacks-of-all trades and compete for the chance to win the coveted ANAIAN UNITY CROWN, a crown that some people in the more backwards parts of the region are convinced has magical powers.

Sports will be hosted and scorinated by the nations that provide the submissions, according to a loose schedule, with your competitors as the protagonists. Scorinators are encouraged to create a sport that showcases the best of what your nation has to offer, while also allowing each nation's three competitors per nation to take part. This can be as a team, in a relay format, individually, or in any format you choose! Please do your best to avoid injury and death, however, as the FLAGS aims to be a safe endeavour for the denizens of our wonderful sporting region and has thus only set a small sum aside for insurance payouts and lawsuits.

FLAGS will take place over X scorination windows (the number and timing of which is to be determined, but competitors will have 48h warning before an event is to be scorinated), once signups for nations and sports have closed. RPs submitted will be valid for all events and judged separately by those scorinating. If you do not wish for your nation's competitors to compete in an event, please TG the scorinator of that event and ask nicely for your removal. Each nation must be based in the region of Anaia and each user may field up to two nations, declaring ownership of the secondary nation.

Best of luck in the games, feats, and challenges to come. Let's see the best of what Anaia has to offer!

Signups:
Aquacorp
Audioslavia
Austailia
Avorago
Cobrio
Eselagel
Gortolekua
Ko-oren
Krytenia
Legalese
Mertagne
Mriin
New Gesem
Ochre Islands
Osarius
Saltstead
Space Laser Dinosaur Robot Pirate Land
StrayaRoos
The Karodin Tetrarchy
The Plough Islands

For your convenience, a spreadsheet is available of all individual competitors and all teams, for easy import into a scorinator - please TG Mertagne for a copy.

Events: (In order of sign-ups, not necessarily in running order)
Team Tennis - Strayaroos
Privateering - Mriin
Coo Runnings - Audioslavia
Bog Boarding - Mertagne
Ko-orienteering - Ko-oren
The Semaphore Bee - Eselagel
Competitive Beverage Prep and Service - Legalese
Scratch the Decks - Gortolekua
Cobre Cook-off - Cobrio
Inshore Yacht Racing - The Plough Islands
Cliff Grazing - Austailia
Palmsville Go-Kart Race - Ochre Islands
The Spice-Off - Krytenia
Underwater Lazer Tag - Aquacorp
Friendship Celebration - Space Laser Dinosaur Robot Pirate Land
Knights Game - Saltstead
Gwaregata flammenniñ - The Karodin Tetrarchy

Schedule:
Cut-offs will be between 21:00 - 22:00 UTC. Events will be scorinated at any time afterwards, but may only use roleplays posted for the previous cut-off. i.e, an event could be scorinated on May 20th, but could only use roleplays posted before the Day 1 cut-off. Exceptions apply, please check your local scorinator for terms and conditions.

Day 1: May 19th

• Bog Boarding Part One - Scorinated by Mertagne
• Palmsville Go-Kart Race - Scorinated by Ochre Islands

Day 2: May 21st

• Bog Boarding Part Two (Finals) - Scorinated by Mertagne
• Scratch the Decks - Scorinated by Gortolekua
• Cobre Cook Off Part One - Scorinated by Cobrio

Day 3: May 23rd

• Cobre Cook Off Part Two - Scorinated by Cobrio
• Team Tennis Part One - Scorinated by StrayaRoos
• Cliff Grazing - Scorinated by Austailia

Day 4: May 25th

• Cobre Cook Off Part Three (Finals) - Scorinated by Cobrio
• Team Tennis Part Two - Scorinated by StrayaRoos
• Ko-orienteering Scorinated by Ko-oren

Day 5: May 27th

• Team Tennis Part Three - Scorinated by StrayaRoos
• The Spice-Off - Scorinated by Krytenia
• Coo Runnings - Scorinated by Audioslavia
• Underwater Lazer Tag (Filtering Round) - Scorinated by Aquacorp

Day 6: May 29th

• Competitive Beverage Prep and Service - Scorinated by Legalese
• Gwaregata flammenniñ - Scorinated by The Karodin Tetrarchy
• Privateering - Scorinated by Mriin
• Underwater Lazer Tag (Finals) - Scorinated by Aquacorp

Day 7: May 31st

• Team Tennis Part Four (Placement Games) - Scorinated by StrayaRoos
• The Semaphore Bee - Scorinated by Eselagel
• Friendship Celebration - "Scorinated" by Space Laser Dinosaur Robot Pirate Land

[StrayaRoos]

Participants
Supreme Athlete Jeff Kal
Leader of strayaroos
Cruz Kaiplo
17-year-old Football superstar who plays for Turori's Cedniavella
Luci Asqi
Popular Roosian musician,also known as Altos,who represented strayaroos at worldvision 94 and 95 plus world hit festival 63 and wrote our Worldvision 98 and 99 entries
Event
Team Tennis
Decription:Davis Cup-Style games of tennis (3 singles ties,2 doubles),with the team who wins the most ties winning the match
Scorination:Xkoranate (Tennis 3 Sets)

[Mriin]

Entrants
Miria Taniir - The most decorated active sprinter in Mriin, representing the Mrii Athletics Authority.
Zinibia Volaan - Leader of the Sustainable Urban Development Bloc, having been selected via referendum.
Kormok Tekmalaana - Hosingr electrical engineering student, selected via sweepstakes entered by buying a variety of novelty Anaia-themed merchandise made for the occasion.

Event
Privateering [Crew]
The high seas are dangerous, especially when people keep shooting shit from their boats!
This event features a sailing course with a series of checkpoints to be sailed within a certain distance of and a multitude of targets (placed atop buoys) to be shot along the way. All three competitors will be on deck to operate the vessel, with one gun and a limited amount of ammunition brought along. Every target untouched at the end of the run will incur a time penalty.
Scorinated using xkor's biathlon.

[Audioslavia]

Event:
Coo Runnings

Izotzazubia has the highest average elevation of all major cities in the nation's mountainous Herradura region, a vast sierra of snowcapped mountains with high valleys housing a simply unrealistic amount of major cities.

The especially high altitude and surrounding peaks of Izotzazubia make for frigid weather in the winter, which often leads to cars refusing to start. Cue the infamous 'Zozi Roll', a ridiculous technique based on the belief that you can start your engine more easily if you just release the handbrake and let the car skid downhill across the icy cobbles while you frantically ker-choo-choo-choo the engine. It's a terrible idea that doesn't work, but try telling that to a local and you'll get an accusation of cultural insensitivity thrown at you in between the left jab and right uppercut. There's only one Zozian who might agree with you.

Txordan Bogdan used to call himself a simple farm-hand, which is exactly the sort of thing a simple farm-hand would never say and entirely the sort of thing a moderately successful cattle slaughterhouse magnate would call himself in order to present himself as 'one of you' during a future career in populist politics. One particularly frosty morning many moons ago - the sort of frosty morning that only serves to harden the mounds of yellow snow that have already been shovelled from a town's roads onto a town's stone walls - Txo Bogdan decided to Zozi Roll his car down the winding cobbled road into town in order to complete a number of errands. The plan had been to first take breakfast at the Shilton Hotel, home of an expensive restaurant that catered not only to rich people with terrible taste but also to longstanding yet surprisingly racist curly-haired goalkeepers, before heading to deliver a number of large bloodstained aprons to his Apron Cleaning Guy, and finally going to the locksmith to get a replacement key for his Bullgate, an important piece of wood that separated a number of angry bulls from the surrounding neighbourhood. He'd lost his in one of his many pairs of red trousers and couldn't be bothered to look for it. The locksmith probably still had the imprint from last time, and the bulls probably wouldn't notice that the gate was still unlo...

Suffice to say, he didn't get to complete any of his errands that morning.

Those who saw it are known as The Chosen, a fortunate select few for whom True Joy has been achieved. All have long since passed to the other world, but if you'd have asked any about what they saw that morning, you'd've seen each of them recline into a relaxed position, look up at the ceiling, think for a moment, and then break out into a beaming, joyous smile. The only thing that could bring more joy than witnessing the invention of a new sport: witnessing a famed local douche frantically trying to start his increasingly battered car as it careened to and fro between the stone walls of the winding hillside streets - each with a high, curved ramp of snow softening the blow and increasing its cornering speed to hope-you're-wearing-a-seatbe-oh levels. Txo, with two doors and the boot of his car still open, had turned at the sound of four dozen hooves galloping angrily towards the guy with the bloody aprons in the back of his car and had immediately jumped into the driver's seat, released the handbrake and attempted vainly to start his car with a car key that immediately fell out of his hand and onto the street to be trampled flat by the stampede. Keys are already flat, yes, but they were made *flatter*.

His car keys now lost, all Txo could do was saw uselessly at his steering wheel and pray the car stayed straight and avoided anything that might stop it, as the furious bulls hurtled downhill behind him. With his speed maintained by the various snowdrifts, the sound of thundering hooves began to quieten, which Txo assumed must have been because he was getting away from the bulls.

Wreung.

The thing about guys like Txo is that it takes them ages to get round to doing anything. He'd been meaning to get that new key cut for a couple of days, and he'd had those bloody aprons in the back of his car for a full week, their stink infuriating the bulls in the adjacent field and their cloth freezing into a strip of solid ice so much that, when they eventually began falling out of the open boot, they hit the ground like a tea-tray and started sliding downhill after Txo. Not only this, but any bulls jumping onto them could take a break from running and simply keep their balance, surfing down the icy hill and gaining on Txo all the while through a number of smooth moves and, in one case, a kickflip. It wasn't long before they were starting to run into the back of Txo or even overtake him.

Cascading down into the town square, surrounded by a herd of bulls that weren't necessarily preoccupied with murdering Txo any more, instead enjoying their morning luge, Txo's car hit a corner of a monument to a local communist and rolled to a halt in the town square, leaving a bruised and battered Txo lying helplessly on the ceiling of his car. The bulls, no longer intent on murder, simply grabbed an apron each and walked back up the hill.

Txobogdanning is a sport wherein competitors use either frozen-apron-like tea trays (these days with long skates on each side) or large car-like monocoques on skates to travel downhill at great speed, usually through the use of long icy tubes with high, rounded walls, but once a year this is done over the treacherous cobbled hills of Izotzazubia in the infamous Bull Luge, now known exclusively as Coo Runnings.

For this special one-off event as part of FLAGS, each team will pilot a three-person 'Bob' from Bogdan's Beef Byproducts Ltd at the top of the hill to the Red Monument in the old town square. All teams will push off from the start at exactly 7 o'clock in the morning. Twenty seconds later, a herd of angry bulls will be let loose behind you with the aim of upending your bob and/or angrily bunting you over a fence. The record for the journey from top to bottom is a speedy three minutes nineteen seconds, but no points will be awarded for speed. The scoring is as follows: Finish and get one point. Don't finish and get zero points.

Scorinator: =if(rand(*2)>1,1,0)

Competitors:
Stan Mina - former two-time Cathair Marathon winner, now sparkle-toothed breakfast TV presenter renowned for making grannies fan themselves whenever he raises an eyebrow.
Horst Wildly - Former professional polo player from the brief time when Audioslavia's domestic Polo League was on free-to-air TV. Famous for his aggressive style.
Linda Morea - Former downhill skiier turned centrist politician who generally says nothing of note and has no platform.

[Mertagne]

Competitors:
Brandistock dentist and amateur survivalist Nico Lavery (Tough, Bright, Bulky), who was selected by winning the last season of Mertagnian obstacle-course game-show Galahad's Crash Course.
Neorudo-born football assistant manager Kristie Ettrick (Aggressive, Intense, Compact), who won the spot in a charity auction.
New Fligsive-based comedian Ron Newey (Goofy, Gutsy, Portly), who won the right to compete from a senior civil servant from the Department of Sport after it was offered up as a prize on comedy game-show Outfox the Foreman.

Event:
BOG BOARDING -- Mertagnian explorers of old were disappointed by the province of Dannmarsh - this fertile land, as pitched to Mertagnian settlers by the Assembly that demarked it for colonisation, was revealed to be no more than an unending stretch of wetland. Settlers, who had come primarily from the south and the east from provinces such as Bardiche and Plitterland, found the terrain near impossible to traverse with standard forms of transportation. In modern times, travel between the disparate communities that call the Great Calanian Marsh home travel by hovercraft, or on the shakily maintained network of roads that are constantly fighting subsidence.
One of the more fun ways to travel short distances, however, is Bog Boarding. Invented by a group of children from Craebog over fifty years ago, Bog Boarding involves taking a running start with a body-board before diving onto the muddy ground, ensuring your form is as aerodynamic as possible to slide across the mud before sinking into it. It's highly effective at distances up to 70m, with some competitors managing to slide up to 80m. Distances are judged from the starting line (which you get a 10m run up to) to the tip of your head, allowing you to make a last minute leap from your board if you notice it's started to sink.
Nowadays, Bog Boarding has achieved cult status in Dannmarsh, with the annual Bog Boarding Championship in Craebog drawing in nearly one thousand spectators.
The event will be scorinated using the discus throw in xkoranate.

[New Gesem]

Competitors:
Shelby Beach (29)
A former collegiate athlete (softball) and current personal trainer, Shelby is a fitness influencer and the proprietor of FITTEST South Constantinople, a struggling franchise of the nationwide FITTEST gym chain. Has a friendly and bubbly personality that completely inverts in certain circumstances, namely first dates and competitions of any kind, transforming her into a frothing, incoherent mess of aggro. But she's super sweet otherwise! Shelby tried out for FLAGS to increase her follower count, drum up interest in her gym, and attempt to patch over her feelings of inadequacy and impostor syndrome.

Chris Adams (43)
A recently divorced pastor and father of three, Chris is active in the New Gesem paranormal community. He has an avid social media following and drives all over New Gesem tracking witches and hauntings and performing exorcisms, a habit that likely contributed to his divorce (although it isn't impossible that his ex is possessed, as he claims). As soon as Chris heard about FLAGS and the alleged magical powers of its prize, he devoted his life to being selected to compete, which, to his credit, included giving up his three-a-day Lord's Chicken habit, losing a hundred pounds, and running in the Damascus Marathon. If only he'd put that kind of effort into his marriage, but oh well. Chris tried out to distract himself from mind-numbing loneliness, increase the level of validation he gets from his followers, and maybe, just maybe, win his wife back.

Jared Rhodes (23)
Jared is a recent graduate of the University of Griffinsburg and an initiate of the Noble Order of Gryphons. He is also unemployed, which his father attributes to laziness and Jared attributes to wage stagnation and cost of living. Either way, he signed up to get his dad off his back and maybe proved something to himself along the way.

[Ko-oren]

Event - Ko-orienteering

In Orienteering, a map with complicated squiggles in specific locations is given to competitors, who then have to figure out the quickest way between these marked points and to the finish line. The athlete who gets there first, and has touched every single checkpoint on the way (as indicated on said map), wins. The length of the course varies: some events are about 15 minutes long, while some are 2 hours+. The scenery also varies: there are urban routes, rural ones, some take place in nature, and some can even be underwater. The skills needed vary as well: you need stamina to keep moving, while you need some intelligence to translate the map into the world in front of you and vice versa, and calculate fast routes between points across (sometimes) large distances.

Orienteering is a great Ko-orenite pastime taking place in the rich tapestry of biomes of the Dragonfly Archipelago. It is one of the most played sports (depending on your definition of that word) in the country – more than soccer, gridiron, either rugby, cricket, baseball, etc, etc. There is a massive index of routes that brings domestic tourism that little extra: gamifying the great outdoors started several centuries ago, before the term 'gamification' was even coined: if you're in an area you've not been to before, chances are there is a route that starts near there, and you can get a new checkmark in your orienteering booklet, awarding stars for speed (if you want to go for that) or just to note you've completed a route.

What is Ko-orienteering, then?

It's all of the above – with a little extra, to introduce Anaia to the previously mentioned rich tapestry of biomes. A massive, (almost) 12 hour long race, through winding streets in cities as well as rough, rugged nature. Athletes are not to (supposed) use (motorised) transport, and GPS-trackers will be handed out to ensure that (as well as making sure we're not losing any athletes in the wilderness), but otherwise just about anything is fair game. Just don't touch your fellow competitors or impact their performance in any way.

Athletes will be brought to the starting line at 15-minute intervals, where they will be given their map. They then have 60 minutes to figure out that map, to strategise an optimal route, etc. After that hour, they're released into the wilderness, visiting checkpoints, and getting to that finish line as quickly as possible.

[Eselagel]

Competitors: The Kingdom of Eselagel submits as their champions:
Ulthor the Bold, Lord of the Northeastern Section Near the Stone Fort
Olthur the Brave, Lord of the Middle
Wulf, serving on behalf of Alther the Skittish, Lord of The Places Nobody Else Go

Event: The Sempahore Bee

The small-but mighty nation of Eselagel takes pride in many a thing -- their peoples' abilities at fighting on horseback, navigating the high seas with aid of wind and/or oar, winning at all costs -- but the activity that gives them the highest point of pride, is their ability to plant the flag.

Oh, I'm sorry, I meant use the flag. Two of them, in fact.

Competitors will be randomly drawn in order, and will be given two flags each. They will be given a word, and must spell it in semaphore, using the two flags. Get it right, and you advance to the next round. Get it wrong, and you are eliminated. This will continue until one competitor remains; however, said competitor must spell a word correctly in their final round, in order to win -- otherwise, the previous round will be repeated.

Scorination: A standard deck of 52 cards plus the four jokers will be shuffled. For the first round, four cards will be drawn for each competitor. If any of the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th cards are equal to or higher in numerical value (with 2 as the lowest, Ace as the highest) than the first card drawn, the competitor is safe; if all of the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th cards drawn for a competitor are lower than the value of the first card, the competitor is eliminated. If a Joker is drawn, the competitor is also eliminated. The deck will be reshuffled when there are too few cards to complete a competitor's attempt, as well as at the end of the round.

For the second round, competitors will have three cards drawn, and either the 2nd or 3rd card must be greater than or equal to the first card's value, with the draw of a joker also counting as an incorrect word. From the third round on, only two cards will be drawn, and the second card must be greater than or equal to the first for the competitor to remain in the competition.

[Legalese]

Competitors: The three entrants, chosen by the LCSD through a careful selection process that involved a pair of dice, three decks of cards, and a 52 pickup -- that is, a pickup truck with a driving range of 52 miles, making it the least efficient electric truck in Legalese -- are:

• Hektor Corgman (24, He/They): Hektor hails from the northern Bekkside town of Shappington, where they've been serving coffee for as long as he can remember. It's a bit of a passion, really.
• Jerrye Agnew (37, He/Him): Jerrye grew up in Kingsville, in the midSouth region, and hit the ground running as far away from the town as he could when he was old enough to join the Service. While in the service, he learned that a hard day's work installing solar panels was best rewarded with a refreshing drink -- to the point that he started doing more research into flavor combinations. When not competiting, you can find him behind the bar of Extraneous E's in Surf City, regaling folks with his array of alcoholic and non-alcoholic options for every palette.
• Mary Carmen Zark (52, She/Hers): When asked why she applied, Mary Carmen's response went for over twenty minutes, and essentially amounted to her just being happy to be here.

Competition: Competitive Beverage Prep and Service

Over the past half-century, Legal culture has undergone a revolution, of sorts. Economically, even the Legalites with the “least” were still, near the top of the multiverse in terms of standards of living. At worst, one could say they had what they needed, even if they didn’t have what they wanted.

And what did the people want? More quality, more craft, more art. Rather than just making more of everything, Legalities wanted to see what they could do to get the better version of what they had. If you were a local craftsperson, it was a good time to be alive. Where there wasn’t a craft, one could be made.

Legalite cuisine was an obvious target for those seeking something a bit more refined and inventive, and an opportunity for those who were willing to dive into a craft. Specialty coffee and tea shops are a regular fixture in the town center, typically adjacent to, or even sharing a building with the Post Office in the square. New cafe owners started experimenting with unique combinations, trying different coffee varietals and roasts, as well as all different brew styles.

It was inevitable that skills competitions would form. And in that tradition, the Legalese Cultural Services Department, in coordination with the Specialty Coffee and Tea Association and the Convention of Mixologists, have put together a unique multi-part competition for the Festival of Local Anaian Games and Sports.

Format: This will be a single-day competition. All competitors will participate in all three events: The Barista Challenge, The Double Brew, and the Performative Cocktail. Points will be given out for each event, and honors will go to the top-three finishers individually and overall.

Details on the Individual Events:
The Barista Challenge: Competitors will take the role of a cafe barista, charged with presenting a complement of three drinks in 15 minutes to the tasting judges. These drinks will include: a single espresso of approx. 1 oz of coffee, an espresso-and-milk drink containing a milk-to-coffee ratio of 1:1 or more (in other words, a drink with as much or more milk in it than coffee), and a signature drink, which has only two rules:
[*]It must have espresso in it
[*]It must be at least six ounces in volume.

While presenting, the baristas will talk about their theme, and how the coffee ties into it. Baristas will aslo explain the flavors they expect judges to taste; tasting judges will incorporate the accuracy of that description in what they drink into their scores, along with flavor and enjoyment of the drinks. Meanwhile, a set of technical judges will observe the shot-pulling and milk-steaming activity of the barista, and give them a score based on the quality of their technique.

A total of 18 points will be given out, up to eight for the technical elements, and ten for the tasting portion. A competitor that is unable to serve all three beverages in the 15 minute time limit will receive a points deductions for going over time, and will receive zero points if they have not completed service in 16 minutes.

The Double Brew: Competitors will have 20 minutes to present and serve a pair of brewed beverages to three tasting judges. The beverages will be one each of coffee and tea, and the only rules are:
Drinks may not have anything added to them after the brew. If a competitor wishes to sweeten a drink, it must be included in the brewing process and sent through the steeping device/filter as part of the brew.
The definition of “tea” is relatively loose, and may include herbal elements in place of/in addition to actual tea species.
One cannot use an espresso machine to brew, however any other brewing method from the country of origin is permitted. The SCTA will provide equipment options to brewers upon request.

Each beverage will be judged on the taste quality and descriptive accuracy, along with a small technical score for the proper execution of technique. A total of twenty points are up for grabs -- up to eight per drink, as well as four points total for the technical score.

The Performative Cocktail: Competitors will have ten minutes to prepare and serve a mixed drink to their judges. The drink itself matters to an extent -- it should be well-made for the style of choice, and combine flavors to be well-rounded, balanced, and pleasant -- but the fun here is in the style of prep and pour. The more, um, flair the competitors put into the prep, the higher their score.

Each performance can earn a total of eighteen points -- six for the drink tasting, and twelve for the technique and artistry of the preparation.

Scorination: You know what makes a beverage cool? DICE.

Scorination will use a set of dice, with one roll of all of the dice in question for each competition. A competitor’s score will be based on the following dice rolls:

Barista Cup: a ten-sided die (D10) and an eight-sided die (D8) will be rolled, as the tasting and technical scores, respectively. A 20-sided die will be rolled to check for catastrophic failure.

Double Brew: two D8s and a four-sided die will be rolled, as the beverage and technical scores, respectively. Competitors can pick which score applies to which beverage. A 20-sided die will be rolled to check for catastrophic failure.

Performative Cocktail: three six-sided dies will be rolled; two will be of one color and represent the technique and artistry score, with the third die of a different color representing the drink score. A 20-sided die will be rolled to check for catastrophic failure.

Catastrophic Failure: Now, all of the equipment used for the competition will be tested for top mechanical shape and structure in advance, however, mistakes do happen. Prior to each event, a 20-sided die will be rolled, and that number will be the event’s failure number. The 20-sided die roll with a competitor’s turn will result in a catastrophic failure and zero points for that event if either the D20 roll is equal to the failure number, or falls between the failure number and the failure number plus the number of maximum score rolls from the other dice in the roll.

Examples:
-Barista Challenge competitor rolls a 6 on the D8, a 10 on the D10, and a 5 on the D20. This is either a 16 score, or a catastrophic failure if the failure number is 4 or 5.

-A different competitor rolls a 6 on the D8, a 5 on the D10, and a 14 on the D20. Their score is an 11, or a failure if the failure number is 14.


Formally confirming ownership (OOCly) of the nation above whose name makes it most obvious whom it refers to.

[Gortolekua]

Event
Competition: Scratch the Decks
Gortolekua is clubbing’s best kept secret. I mean literally, though: Nobody was allowed to enter or exit the country until very recently. But now that the nation is open to all who choose to enter, the club scene is bound to catch some eyes for those inclined to check it out. But if you’re a FLAGS competitor, your challenge will be playing DJ for a night in a randomly selected Gortoleki nightclub. Thankfully, the people of Gortolekua recognize each person’s music taste is unique, but they also recognize good music is universal. Your challenge? Get your crowd dancing as fast as possible. The one catch is that there is a high standard for good music in the country. So bring your best 45s and 12” promos, because you will need them.

Scorination: xkor men’s marathon. Don’t think It’s going to be easy to get a dance floor, especially one in Gortolekua, grooving. Being a DJ is a respected profession in this country, so think twice about insulting that as a living. Please have your three competitors send a song of their choosing (OOC: You’ll post each respective competitor’s song in the RP) to the Turntablist’s Association of Gortolekua (TAG). From there, TAG will make sure you have an appropriate selection of music is at your array for your DJing session. (OOC: The three songs you choose for your three entrants will play a role in the RP bonus, as well as your actual RP.)

This will be a one-night only event.

Competitors
Taavet Sniders - This dude just found a phone number in a bar's bathroom stall and called it. When asked if he wanted a good time, he said yes. Now he's a Gortoleki representative in FLAGS. Former video game shop owner, made bank on the stock market somehow.
Braelynn Debenham - A quiz show legend, Braelynn Debenham is the longest lasting contestant on Mind the Gap, a show that combines jumping massive gaps and quiz knowledge. The more answers you get wrong, the larger the gap you have to jump. Debenham's furthest leap was a tiny step until the showrunners gave her an impossible set of questions to answer. Librarian by trade.
Finn Gilchrist - Lead singer of math-rock band Paeonia, Gilchrist won the Million Sporze Sprint for Charity, where he outran 49 fellow musicians to win the third and final coveted spot on the FLAGS roster for Gortolekua. Wanted to be a chef when he grew up.

[Cobrio]

Entrants
Kolawale Aduba, a former military chef of nineteen years experience -- he once kept his unit alive for seventy-three days in the wilderness by foraging and preparing nutrition rich dishes; Kiké Baloyi, an architecture graduate with a hand for crafts -- she handcrafted the "mediation table" used by the Council of N'Katoma in Dynapolis; Dibu Iduzoka, considered a "prodigious savant", they have remarkable capacity for memory.

Event
Cobre Cook-off

Scorination method: a modified version of the artistic gymnastics paradigm in xkoranate.
The competition format is to be determined later. Many TV shows exist on Cobre networks which pit cooks of varying experience against each other in a variety of ways -- the list is far too long to display here, but see here if you're curious -- but for this event, we will be using standard cook-offs with no additional rules. All entrants will be assigned a skill value of 0.5 before each scorination, with RP bonus added accordingly.

Food is a hugely important part of Cobre culture, and the nation has many proud culinary traditions reaching back generations -- to the point that you can, with practice, tell which ethnic group a Cobre person descends from by the subtle differences in how they produce traditional Cobre dishes. For example, the Akkan people include starchy vegetables in their curry goat, making it thicker, and milder; while the Koromanti prefer an oily, spicier curry base. By extension, the importance placed on food by the Cobre people has extended to agriculture -- farmers are among the most respected peoples in Cobrio, as a result -- and, of course, cooking.

Going back several generations, the original peoples who settled in Cobrio often came to blows on the battlefield. The cost of life was great, and over time, generals and commanders sought to prevent mass fighting. The nomination of champions was one such adjustment, wherein opposing armies could simply allow their best fighters to duel one on one to determine who should win the battle. This eventually grew out to multiple battles of champions, because some armies would argue they had a greater number of elite warriors... until eventually, the best warriors were mostly dead, and alternative methods were needed. Some peoples opted for dance battles, or verbal combat, but gradually, culinary battles emerged as the preferred method.

"Dancing is very much a tradition that involves a lot of physicality, and co-ordination," explains Dr. Lekan Abagwale, Professor of Cobre Studies at Université d'Hautlieu-Courcime. "So this again lent itself to favouring the better warriors. Verbal combat was sometimes not possible due to the linguistic complications at the time, you see this was before the regional languages had begun to coalesce, and mutual intelligibility was not so common. But food? Food was a language all these peoples shared."

Many armies already travelled with cooks, as feeding a sizeable number of people was not easy, and it is common knowledge that a well-fed soldier fights better than one forced to subsist on dried meat and crackers. The idea of the first culinary battle is credited to Lushiku, a Koromanti general, whose love of seafood led him to keep the master chef Okwelle, among his retinue. Legend has it that after a long march inland, to engage with Biafrai tribesmen encroaching on Koromanti territory, Lushiku did not like the idea of battling, due to his men's fatigue. Instead, they set up camp and settled down to eat, with Okwelle having caught some fish from a nearby river for Lushiku, and preparing a curry made from salted goat meat for the rest of the men. The smells of the food being prepared are said to have drifted on the winds and the Biafrai descended from their vantage point on nearby hills, toward Lushiku's men. His scouts reported them when they were roughly five hundred hides away – distances were measured in lengths of buffalo hide in those times, and it was easy to approximate how far away a man was, on flat ground, by comparing his size in the distance to your finger length – but rather than mobilise his soldiers, Lushiku strode out to the open plain at the foot of the hills, with only two guards for company, waving a flag of parley – a plain square of cloth with the akoma ntoso (a symbol of understanding and agreement) painted on one side, and the mpatapo (a symbol of reconciliation) on the other. On the plain, Lushiku met with Mpindami, who led the Biafrai forces that day, and proposed that the two armies wait until the next day to begin their combat. Mpindami however, noted that he had the upper hand, and could likely rout Lushiku's forces. Seeing an opportunity, he seized it, demanding that Lushiku surrender instead.

Unperturbed, Lushiku instead offered Mpindami a seat around his fire, some of Okwelle's fish, and safe return home. Mpindami in return demanded to know why he should consider this offer instead of simply routing Lushiku's forces and taking whatever he liked. "Because my men are not so tired as you think, and my chef Okwelle, is the greatest known to man," Lushiku is said to have replied. Mpindami laughed, and countered that his army's cook, Sentosi, was certainly Okwelle's equal, if not superior, leading Lushiku to propose a challenge. "Let both cook us a meal, and we shall taste them blindly so as not to know which cook prepared which dish, and choose the better between them. If Okwelle wins, as I am certain he will, you and your army must retreat one thousand hides from the riverbank."

Mpindami countered with his own terms, "and if Sentosi wins, as I am certain he will, you and your army must retreat two thousand hides from the riverbank." To his surprise, Lushiku accepted. The two armies were soon arrayed on the plain around two cook fires, as the chefs prepared their dishes. Lushiku and Mpindami were seated a way away, backs to the fires. Details on the dishes are varied depending on who tells the tale, but all agree that both men prepared fish, after Lushiku's suggestion. Of course, Mpindami had no way of knowing that Okwelle specialised in seafood, and Sentosi was defeated. Mpindami kept his word, and the Biafrai retreated the agreed distance. Tales of this event spread quickly, and Okwelle's prowess became the stuff of legends, with a settlement in Raizal eventually named for him as he is said to have never lost a cook-off during his time serving in Lushiku's army.

[The Plough Islands]

COMPETITORS

Name & pronouns ☭ Leanne Amanda Martin (she/her)
Date of birth ☭ 27 March 1989, Foxdale
Occupation ☭ Dockworker and elite-level cricketer

Like most Plough Islanders, Leanne can trace her roots back to shortly after the start of British settlement of the archipelago in the 18th century; she is of English and Scottish Highlander descent, like many of the families that colonised the country. Most migrants came to the islands to escape poverty and famine in the United Kingdom, but often found they had traded an apathetic establishment for an exploitative one; until the 1900s the economy of the Plough Islands was based almost entirely on resource extraction, overseen by a small number of wealthy landowners not beholden to the rudimentary protections established back in Britain.
Increasingly the islands' workers found themselves living ever more precariously, while the colonial elite demanded more and more in the aid of profits that those who earned them never saw. From this unjust system were sown the seeds of revolution; Leanne's great-grandfather Jeremy Martin, a longshoreman from Bradford Island, was one of the founding members of what became the Party of Socialists of the Plough Islands, and her second cousin Stephanie, a Member of the People's Assembly since 2002, continues the family tradition of Socialist politics.
Leanne herself did not follow that exact path, but took after Jeremy at least as far as the sea was concerned; she started working on Foxdale docks aged sixteen, loading wheat and wool on ships bound for the other islands and beyond, and is a trade union steward. She is perhaps best known, though, as a cricketer for Bradford in the Harrison Cup and Sutcliffe Shield; normally a specialist batter, she has played 27 times for the national representative team, and scored 43 runs in 39 balls in the final of the recent Anaian One-Day Cricket Championship as she helped the Plough Islands defeated Krytenia by 13 runs.
As a cricketer, Leanne's best qualities are her reflexes and split-second decision making, as well as her raw power; her arms and shoulders are powerful enough to clear the longest of boundaries when batting, and can do so consistently with the tenacity and endurance that comes from hauling cargo from ships nine hours a day. She also possesses a remarkable calmness and even temper, albeit one that is sometimes undone by overconfidence, and few people on the islands have more of a natural competitive instinct than Leanne.

Name & pronouns ☭ Evgeny Sergeyevich Levenko (he/him)
Date of birth ☭ 11 December 1982, Highrock
Occupation ☭ Diplomatic official at the Ministry for Defence & Foreign Affairs

"Eugene", as he has been called since almost before he could talk, represents the more recent history of the Plough Islands, in the period following the Socialists achieving the country's independence from the British Empire and the building of the modern communist society. Specifically, his roots go back to the Vital Skills Programme of the late 1970s and early 1980s that sought to counter the islands' international isolation by recruiting skilled, educated people from within the Soviet bloc to assist with development. Conducted as it was clandestinely and without the approval of anyone outside of Sutton, most of the engineers and specialists migrating through the program knew they effectively had a one-way ticket, and it wasn't long before some of them settled in the islands and started families, either amongst each other or with the local population.
So it was for Sergey Levenko, a demolitions engineer from the Siberian city of Tomsk, who met and married a New Dalmatian sailor; Eugene was their eldest child, and like many of his generation, grew up with an enthusiastically adopted Plough Islander identity, and studied international relations at the University of the Plough Islands before embarking on a career as a diplomat. He most recently served as an at-large consular official in Ko-oren, but following the Declaration of Foxchester returned home to Sutton to further Anaian relations from within the Ministry of Defence & Foreign Affairs, coordinating the missions of the Plough Islands to other countries in the region.
That the Plough Islands are taking part in the FLAGS at all was his idea; he took it upon himself to get the People's Sutton Yachting Association involved in the event, and after a change of plans at the Plough Islands Cricket Association meant a team entirely of cricketers was no longer feasible, volunteered himself as a participant. He retained Leanne from the original proposal, and recruited Loreithel from the students' union clubhouse at the University of the Plough Islands.
Eugene is not as strong as either of his comrades - though he played cricket at school, he spends most of his days behind a desk or walking, and lacks the raw muscle of Leanne or the flexiblity and range of Loreithel - but his intelligence and perception are his real strengths, as is his undoubted charm. He has a natural talent for organising and is probably the closest that the Plough Islander delegation has to a "leader", although he would be the first to admit that while their unity of purpose will hold up under pressure, any plans or preconceived ideas probably will not.

Name & pronouns ☭ Loreithel (they/them)
Date of birth ☭ not known; arrived in the Plough Islands 14 September 2008
Occupation ☭ University lecturer and artist

If Leanne and Eugene symbolise the two main threads that make up the fabric of the Plough Islands, Loreithel is far, far harder to define in such terms; perhaps they are the dye in this metaphor, or the weathering and wearing of the cloth that turns it from a small piece cut from the main bolt into something unique and irreplacable. They represent the success of the nation building process that was accelerated and defined by the revolutionary movements that arose in the early 20th century as they strove to build socialism; the emergence of a common identity and shared, deeply held values that attracted even a weary Calanian elf to call the Plough Islands home.
As far as anyone is aware, Loreithel is the only one of their kind on the islands. While they prefer not to talk about the distant past, they spent many years living in Starblaydia, making a living on the trade routes across the Bekk to Krytenia and enduring times of rapid change as Starblaydi imperial power waxed and waned. During its apex, when the lands either side of the lake were briefly unified, Loreithel had been caught out completely by the changes, becoming involved in a dispute with the Stanton authorities the morning after separation on the grounds they had already paid West Starblaydian taxes; the Krytenians disagreed, strenuously, and Loreithel spent several days or weeks in prison accused of assault.
They left the area soon afterwards, embarking on a search that ultimately concluded on the docks at Sutton, and what started as a temporary respite from the encroaching madness quickly became permanent, with the slower pace of life on the Plough Islands and the sincerity and openness of their people persuading Loreithel that they belonged. In the years since they have turned their talents to music, teaching at the University of the Plough Islands, and increasingly come to identify with their adopted home and believe fervently in its social and political aims, although the bat-and-ball game that their new friends seem to live for remains something of a mystery.
Taller and far lither than either of Leanne and Eugene, Loreithel stands a good head, shoulders, and chest above most of the people around them, although usually they adopt the permanent head-bowed slouch of someone trying either to not be noticed or to access a structure that really was not designed with them in mind. Their outsized frame is as much of an athletic liability as it is an advantage - there is surprisingly little muscle on those thin bones - but there will be situations where Loreithel's reach will be extremely useful, and any games that are more mental than physical could well benefit from someone with a naturally different approach to situations.

EVENT

Inshore yacht racing ☭ Scorinated with Xkoranate's sailing 'Fleet race' file

This will probably be a surprise to anyone casually familiar with the Plough Islands; the obvious choice for a Plough Islander event in something like the FLAGS would have been cricket, or something tangentially related to it. If this small country is known across the multiverse for any reason - aside from sixty-one years of a principled implementation of Marxism-Leninism - it is for the exploits of the national team in Global Cricket Federation tournaments, where the Foxes regularly bloody the noses of far larger and better resourced teams through unity, determination, and a culture that practically counts a good leg break technique as one of the identifying marks of a Plough Islander. However, the recent Anaian One-Day Cricket Competition consumed most of the bandwidth of the Plough Islands Cricket Association, and with the weekend of the FLAGS clashing with the Harrison Cup and associated club games it proved difficult for Eugene to secure a venue for a double wicket competition or similar.
Hence, sailing. The Plough Islands have had a long and beneficial relationship with the Celestial Ocean dating back to Cornelius Sutton's first visit to the archipelago in 1747, and the tradition of purely recreational boating has been nurtured by the various yachting and sailing clubs that operate out of the country's major ports. The People's Sutton Yachting Association (known from 1854-1976 as the Royal Plough Islands Yacht Club, and one of the very few remaining bastions of the pre-colonial era before it underwent its own internal revolution and replaced its Blue Ensign with a red and gold burgee) is the oldest and most eminent of these, and has volunteered to organise a special meeting for the FLAGS. The route for the race will be laid out across the eight kilometre strait separating the island of Avalon from the capital city, with the boats starting from the jetty at Avalon harbour and sailing north to the finish line located on the Sutton waterfront, in the shadow of the Plough Radio tower.
The course should take approximately two hours to sail, depending on the wind. Each country competing will have one boat in the race, with a crew of three¹; the PSYA's own vessels will be used, not all of which will be quite identical, and a random draw will be conducted just before the race start to allocate boats to teams. There will be very basic training given before the event to anyone with no prior experience, but with a focus more on personal safety than the finer points of how to handle a boat - consequently there is an acceptance that accidents will happen, and the Plough Islands Naval Force will be following the race closely and should be on hand to pick up any crew that fall overboard. This may be needed as the strait can be quite choppy, and depending on when the race is held the thick fog may make it difficult to navigate - but the Naval Force medics are very well trained and there should be no deaths or serious injuries in the event of a shipwreck. Probably.

¹ or fewer; the Plough Islands still have a strict entry ban in place for citizens of any foreign country with ties to, or a travel history including, the region of Atlantian Oceania, and exemptions will likely only be granted if such travel predated the Declaration of Foxchester. Please contact the Ministry of Defence and Foreign Affairs before travel for more information.

---

Many thanks to Krytenia and Starblaydia their input/help with developing Loreithel and kind permission to use that backstory - I'm unsure how much I'll get from this character in future but the idea that the Plough Islands have one (1) elf in the entire country is just amusing to me, heh. Also thankyou to everyone else who provided some feedback while I was working on this, and just to everyone who has been a part of Anaia this last year - for me, it's been the best part of my NationStates experience, and long may it continue. <3

[Austailia]

Entrants
Kevin - A thick-headed Hoofbart lad that likes to solve problems with his horns.
Ephraim the Wretched - Sydneigh pharmacist-slash-veterinarian with a soft spot for kittens.
Anya - Owner and barkeep of Ramberra's favored local tavern.

Event
Cliff Grazing
If there's one things goats love, it's chilling on a sheer cliff scrounging for bits of roughage that have managed to grow in the cracks and crevices. It's something of a status symbol to be known as the one who can stay out on the local ridge the longest, with a cadre of self-stylized monks hewing a rudimentary system of meditation to find peace as the rough waves of northeastern Anaia batter the earth below.

This tradition has been adapted into a form of competition to be submitted to these here games (including safety measures as required, there will belays and padded landing areas and the works), wherein competitors take their places upon a specially-selected cliff on one of the broken isles and must cling to it for as long as they can. The last competitor to retain their grip wins, simple as.

Scorination will use xkoranate's autoracing qualifying feature. RP bonus will be inverted (ie, decreasing your rank from a baseline above 0), with the time recorded by the scorinator being how long each participant managed to hold on.

Puppet of Mriin.

[Ochre Islands]

Ste forgot some details. The lap is about 980metres long, so 15 laps is probably enough for each driver.

[Ko-oren]

Entrants

1. Gridiron fullback Jonas Wilson (27) of the Greencaster Godspeed (pros: wise, quick, agile, nimble, risk-taker)
2. Cricket pace bowler Augustus Smith (25) of Greencaster and the Linieux Lieutenants (pros: mature (for his age), nimble, well-educated, intelligent)
3. Soccer left/centre back Harmon Mulvahil (25) of Osarese Marcadia, AUD (pros: good teammate, not easily moved (emotionally), aggressive, shithousing)

It shouldn't come as a surprise that our list of entrants is the result of careful consideration by a comprehensive committee. First, they identified what field our entrants should be chosen from: sports. People that, ideally, have the combination of social skills and physical features, who can deal with pressure, and hopefully spot competitive edges in whatever ruleset is thrown at them. Secondly, the committee decided on the sports these entrants should come from: soccer and gridiron were obvious, as national sports that the country could rally around. The third was decided to be cricket, which is a regional force.

The shortlists per sport:

Gridiron
LC Herman Jennings (25) - Sterrenwolde Dragonflies: a Neutral, Athletic, Communicator.
FB Jonas Wilson (27) - Greencaster Godspeed: a Wise, Nimble, Daredevil.
RD Hannes Sjouwman (29) - Mayara Wolves: an Adventurous, Fit, Showman.

Jennings is a defensive back, so by nature instinctive, agile, and quick. Wilson is more about dishing out than accepting hits. Sjouwman is just a massive specimen.

Cricket
Augustus Smith (25) - R fast/R Pace Bowler - Greencaster/Linieux Lieutenants: a Mature, Nimble, Genius.
Lewis Tilcott (26) - L unorth/L Spin Bowler - Greencaster/Aubury Maroons: an Independent, Nimble, Run limiter.

Both players excel in two out of three formats. Smith doesn't really do T20, while Tilcott could never settle into the one day game. Both are bowlers: technicians, not just hitters.

Soccer
LB Harmon Mulvahil (KOR, 25) - Osarese Marcadia, AUD - a Good, Staunch, Aggressor.
RF Hikomoto Mizuno (KOR, 30) - Tempala United Saints, DAR - a Mischievous, Hard-hitting, Cheater.

Two defenders, one striker, which is more or less as expected. Mulvahil has perfected his trade in shithousing Audioslavia, on top of his stable personality - and uncanny ability to pick up yellows. Mizuno is an insanely well known player - can we really select him, with all of the ramifications for his career?

[Krytenia]

ENTRANTS

James Makone - Krytenia's only combined Summer and Winter Olympian, competing in rifle shooting and biathlon. Positive traits: athleticism, co-ordination, accuracy.
Sara Patrese - KBS Radio DJ and club swimmer. Positive traits: enthusiasm, focus, quick thinking.
Jonathan Welch - Emberton Quiz League champion and novelist. Positive traits: analytical, intelligent, strategist.

EVENT - The Spice-Off

Contestants will be pitted against each other one-on-one in a contest of who can hold their heat by eating progressively hotter chilli peppers until one metaphorically blinks by either refusing a chilli or reaching for their drink. (Scorination: xkoranate judo, simple W/L results. All competitors will compete in each round to decide full range of positions.)

[Avorago]

Entrants:

Otutodilinna Choike (Female; Age 22) - Coming off a very, very strong AODICC earlier in the year, Choike has a very quiet personality, but is a very shrewd thinker that cannot be underestimated. Having already made a name for herself on the regional stage, things will be expected of her in the FLAGS, but whether she can actually produce those results will be a completely different story. However, her calm and collected nature will only help her and despite being only 22 years of age, as the oldest in this team, she will be expected to lead from the front.

Osinachi Amadi (Female; Age 17) - A young fisher with an excellent eye for navigation, Amadi is a tall, slender woman with aspirations to play both pigball and cricket for Avorago. A well-liked person in many senses, she also possesses strong leadership qualities, but only uses them when the need is dire. Like Choike, her ability to stay calm under pressure is one of the many reasons why she has been selected for this team, but will her youth hold her back?

Chinelo Chimaijem (Male; Age 21) - Complementing Choike and Amadi, Chimaijem has a bit of a more volatile personality, but is still a good person at heart. Having represented Avorago in the inaugural CAFA, he is a rather well-known name in some nations and will look to use that experience in the festival. Pivotally, Chimaijem gets on well with his two teammates despite their differing personalities, and he is also very aware of his strengths and weaknesses, which was one of the reasons why he was selected for this team of three. Just how important will that knowledge be in the festival itself?

[Aquacorp]

Event: Underwater Lazer Tag (Self Explanatory)

Entrants:
- Laser Shark #1 (An Actual Shark, will require accommodation for any events out of water)
- Nova Wexler
- Tipalo Nado

[Space Laser Dinosaur Robot Pirate Land]

COMPETITORS

Evan. (he/him) Footballer on the Space Laser Dinosaur Robot Pirate Land national team's CAFA Cup 3 roster. Evan has a heart of gold, even if he is perhaps a little too honest sometimes.

Eva. (they/them) Tla's best friend from Z. Zilot-Izilv's class. The bounds of Eva's imagination, if they exist, have not yet been discovered.

Tla. (they/them) Eva's best friend from Z. Zilot-Izilv's class. Tla's hugs have the power to cure sadness.

EVENT

The Festival of Local Anaian Games and Sports is an expression of camaraderie uniting nations from all across the region. What better way to cap this historic event than a celebration of friendships forged by real people from across the region — the FLAGS competitors themselves?

The friendship celebration will assess the friendships each competitor has made over the course of the entire festival. Scores will be determined at the very end — that is to say, as the final event — to allow competitors to meet as many new friends as possible. Scores are simple: each competitor earns one point for every friendship they have with a fellow FLAGS competitor. Team scores will be the sum of all individual scores. Scores will be determined by an expert panel of judges. The panel:

• Evan. (he/him) Footballer on the Space Laser Dinosaur Robot Pirate Land national team's CAFA Cup 3 roster. Evan has a heart of gold, even if he is perhaps a little too honest sometimes.
• Eva. (they/them) Tla's best friend from Z. Zilot-Izilv's class. The bounds of Eva's imagination, if they exist, have not yet been discovered.
• Tla. (they/them) Eva's best friend from Z. Zilot-Izilv's class. Tla's hugs have the power to cure sadness.

Some people have said words like "conflict of interest" or "prejudicial" or "blatantly nonindependent," but we don't know what literally any of those words mean, so we assume you're telling us how great the panel is. Thank you!

Notae bene:

• If possible, the friendship celebration will be the last event to be scorinated. I do have access to a scorinator for this event and will not require independent scorination, so this is a stylistic choice, not a technical necessity.
• If competitors are already friends with a fellow competitor before they arrive to FLAGS, their friendship will be be given the same number of points as a friendship between two people who first met as a result of FLAGS.
• Some competitors may be "more than friends." We don't know what that means, so we'll just treat them like really close best friends (even if they're straight).
• We talked for a while about whether you could be your own friend. We decided that, if you can be your own worst enemy, you can also be your own best friend. Competitors who are friends with themself will be awarded a point, just as they would for a friendship with a different competitor.
• RPs about friendships, smiles, hugs, and general kindness are welcome.

[Saltstead]

Entrants
In the spirit of Anaia-ness, the Royal Olympic Union of the Saltsteadish Confederation—or “KOVSALS” for short—decided to partner with the country’s most popular chocolatier to determine Saltstead’s three competitors for the Festival of Local Anaian Games and Sports. Three tickets were hidden inside three random chocolate bars, each of which would confer the right to participate in FLAGS on whoever found it. (Though, for legal reasons, the tickets were required to be transferable.) With a few dozen people hospitalised after brawls in Audfort and Michaelsport, a ticket counterfeiting ring in Merhoven province busted and all three tickets now found and redeemed, KOVSALS can now confirm the Saltsteadish delegation:

Alexis Håus (41; Rodcastel, South Tungerland) — Bought a bar for his niece on a whim and had to snatch away the ticket before she ate it, but no one else was willing to take it off him.
Natalie de Marħt (18; Westerburg, North Tungerland) — Currently taking a gap year before uni, she had no clue about the ticket promotion, but thought this FLAGS thing might be fun.
Bob (??; ???, ???) — We don’t know who this person is or how they(?) got their hands on a ticket, but it’s apparently genuine, so it counts… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Event
Knights Game — Like draughts/checkers, but wish there was more horsing around? You’re in luck! Played on an 8×8 board, each player starts with 16 pieces on filling the two rows closest to them. Players take turns moving one piece at a time in the characteristic L-shape of the chess horsey (to use the scientific name). Pieces may jump over other pieces, but may not move to a square occupied by a piece of the same colour. Pieces may move to squares occupied by a piece of the other colour, capturing that piece and removing it from the board. First player to capture all of the opposing player’s pieces wins the game. (Yes, we know it’s the worst event of the lot, but who cares?)
[OOC: This event will be scorinated using the Xkoranate chess file.]

[The Karodin Tetrarchy]

Competitors:

Audrey Laorans
Rozena Le Hir
Morna Le Guyader

You might expect four competitors from a nation made up of four major cities in tight collaboration, but no. Three Karodinian women enter FLAGS, and they do it mostly by mistake. They are not sportswomen, or famous celebrities, or indeed known in any way except for Rozena making a mean wild boar stew on the weekends. They just happened to be in the area when the Tetrarch of Porzhbihan, Yannez Le Ho, decided that she would send a group of women to represent the nation at this festival of solidarity.

Event - Gwaregata flammenniñ:

Despite seeming deceptively simple to observers, there is history behind the Gwaregata flammenniñ. As a nation reliant almost entirely on the bow and arrow to hunt, whether for food or for sport, archery became a common pastime picked up by all young Karodinians. However, hunting in the Tetrarchy was never quite so simple, as the dense forests, particularly around Havreg, led to many difficulties: aiming at prey, stealthily approaching it through the undergrowth, and indeed even identifying where your target fell when you struck it. Thus, hunters have longed trained themselves in distance archery, with the best shooting almost 100m from simply constructed bows. That did not solve the latter of the three problems though, but flaming arrows did that, allowing hunters to identify their fallen prey by the smell of slowly cooking meat. Eventually, this became a sport of sorts at community events. Instead of aiming at animals, the community's best hunters would simply shoot ahead across a long mat, made of flame resistant material so as to reduce the risk of injury. It seemed the perfect way for Karodinians to induct the rest of Anaia into their culture.

(OOC, the Gwaregata flammenniñ will be scorinated using Xkoranate's men's javelin file.)

[Osarius]

Entrants:
Lucea Hyde - professional footballer. Lucea's parents are actually Aquilliano, but when she put herself forward to represent Osarius, the panel felt that this was perfectly in line with the spirit of the region. Embracing all, regardless of background. Also doesn't hurt that she is an elite athlete, of course. Likely to see a significant number of personal fans in attendance at any event, too, given the popularity of her "amazonian" frame.

Toussaint Lupin - no Osarian selection would be complete without a little bit of nepotism, would it? Literal nepotism in this case, as the First Minister recommended his nephew (his youngest sister's oldest son, specifically) for selection. Toussaint -- or "Touey", as he is most often called -- is perhaps the most mediocre person to ever exist. Distinctly mediocre, one might say. He even looks sort of like he has an approximation of the average Osarian face. That said, while he doesn't excel at anything, he's also not notably bad at things. Except excelling, I guess.

Phoenixperson - aaaand this is the problem with letting the general public decide things. Phoenixperson -- who resides in Phoenix Roost; no, not the suburb of Burningham, a literal... you know what? I can't do this. They claim to be Osarius' "pre-eminent super hero". We have no idea what their "powers" are, though. And they refuse to take off their uh... costume. If any events require identification, I er... I guess you'll have to come to some agreement with them. I envy the person honoured with knowing Phoenixperson's real identi- oh wait never mind. I'm being told their real name is ||REDACTED||


Event
While Osarius had originally planned to host an exhibition event for FLAGS, the logistics appear to be too complicated, and so instead, a demonstration event will be held instead. None of the FLAGS entrants will take part and the event will have no bearing on the festival itself. It is merely a... checks notes ... Showcase for Rabastorian ingenuity and technological advancement. Whatever that means.

(OOC: It means flying cars. That's what it means. I am finalising the anti-grav background stuff this week hopefully.)

[Anaia Region]

Signups for competitors and events to the Festival of Local Anaian Games and Sports are now closed. Thank you to everyone who has signed up!

After some minor consultation on Anaia's discord server, the FLAGS will be run as follows:

• Approximately every 48 hours, a role-play cut-off will be announced from this account.
• The FLAGS will provisionally run for two weeks, meaning in this time there will be 7 (seven) cut-off windows. The schedule of these windows will be posted in the OP.
• If you are scorinating an event, you may choose to take one or more of these role-play cut-off windows into account when determining RP bonus, if applicable. This could be the cut-off that is closest to your event, all of them up to when your event is scorinated, or in the case of multi-stage events, each cut-off between when your event starts and finishes.
• There is no defined schedule, so it is hoped that nations that are scorinating events are proactive in their participation in the FLAGS and choose an event time that suits both them and the tournament. It would be great if at least one event was scorinated in each cut-off.
• Nations scorinating events are highly encouraged to give competitors prior warning to their event being scorinated, to give time to role-play. One cut-off window (48h) is the recommended minimum.
• At each role-play cut-off, a medal table will be generated (by Mertagne, who is currently pulling the strings) based on all of the event scorinations that have been held up to the current cut-off.
• After all seven cut-off windows, the FLAGS will be declared finished and a final medal table will be produced, and the winner of the ANAIAN UNITY CROWN will be declared. With luck it could be you!

The first role-play cut-off will be in 58 hours, at 21:00 UTC on 19th May 2022.

[Mertagne]

The first round of two rounds of Bog Boarding will be scorinated after Day 1's cut-off. Half of the competitors will be eliminated, and the remaining half will compete in a second round to determine the winner of the event.

[Gortolekua]

Let’s get grooving folks.

The one-night-only Scratch the Decks competition will be scorinated following Scoring Window No. 2, which is May 21st at 22:00 UTC.

Please note that, in addition to your traditional RP, please have each of your competitors submit a song of their choosing to the Turntablist’s Associstion of Gortolekua (TAG) as well. A sample entry is listed below.

The sample delegation of Gortolekua (GTK) submits the following to the TAG:
Sample Entrant 1: Artist I - Song A
Sample Entrant 2: Artist II - Song B
Sample Entrant 3: Artist III - Song C

You can also submit your songs in traditional roleplay format as well, like a letter to the TAG or even as a discussion, internal monologue, whatever you want. As long as you submit three songs and indicate who submits what is what matters.

Thanks!