Masque

Masque is not precisely an Original Character Tournament; it was an Anonymous Character Tournament, held by Deviant ART's BlackLillian that was announced November 2009 and began in February 2010. The artists were represented solely by the character they entered, not by their name, history, or reputation. On top of this, if one of the artists got unmasked before they were knocked out of the tournament it gave them a penalty in the judging (Judges identities were also a secret). Contestants were to send in their auditions after uploading them to sites like imageshack or other untraceable links, and the final roster was instructed to create accounts with their character's names so they could upload further entries on those.

The premise was every character was to come to the Usher Manor, a sprawling, ramshackle estate. Their arrival was up to the artist, no force on the grounds compelled them to come against their will. Once they were on manor grounds, they could not leave. Attempting to walk out the gate resulted in the gate moving progressively further and further away the closer you get; the walls grew too high to climb, the forest too thick to pass through. The characters are trapped until the end of the tournament. Once the tournament has been won, they were to be free to go – assuming they’re still alive.

A contestant was allowed to enter up to four characters in a team, but each round one should be doing the majority of the fighting and to win a round you only need to take down one character. Artists were also allowed to team up and collaborate an entry if they wanted so it could be easier to hide their style and keep from being unmasked.

The final round is still in progress.

This OCT contains examples of the following tropes:

 * Ambiguous Innocence: Rhodie, with her nursery rhymes, rainbows and her playing
 * All of the Other Reindeer: Ollie and Fergus
 * Amulet of Concentrated Awesome: Naname's Edge of dreams, which after her defeat was used to aid Lady Penny's continued plot.
 * Badass Longcoat: Darnell, the Prince, and the Nameless Musician
 * Battle Royale With Cheese: Lady Penny—somewhat ironic, as the final round is her verses Templar
 * Bedlam House: Meet a few of our NPCs, Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether.
 * Bee-Bee Gun: Wadaen a bit. He has a bit of control of the bugs coming out of what was his eye...
 * Big Guy, Little Guy: The tag team of Julia Polidori and Bosphoros
 * Blindfolded Vision: Wadaen.
 * Blondes Are Evil/ Blond Guys Are Evil: Vicare Lovelace, Eveyln Riethle and Rhodie. The Nameless Musician is questionable..
 * Burn the Witch: Where Corvina (Raven) was essentially headed before the detour to the Manor.
 * By-The-Book Cop: Billie Cheese and Dillon. Rule sticklers the both of them.
 * Closed Circle: No one can leave until there is a victor
 * Cluster F-Bomb: Nathaniel
 * Determined Widow: Even if only her fiancé, Penny qualifies.
 * Dishing Out Dirt: Hephaestus
 * Elegant Gothic Lolita: Eva
 * Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Vicare Lovelace has a loving wife and child.
 * Kangaroos Represent Australia: Dingo
 * Everything's Better With Monkeys: Russet, Dillon and the lemur Spot.
 * Evil Cripple/ Genius Cripple: He’s DESPICABLE. Dr. Vicare Lovelace~
 * Extra Ore Dinary: Abbie Finch and the Prince.
 * For Science!: SCIENCE!
 * Good Witch Versus Bad Witch: Leslie and Eva are always at it.
 * Haunted House: Once a Big Fancy House, complete with a tower, this is the Manor and our setting. Also an Inn Between the Worlds, since characters from many different times, countries and dimensions seem to have walked right in.
 * In the Hood: Tep.
 * Kaleidoscope Eyes: Visam and Rhodie
 * Kid Detective: Abbie Finch, and an excellent, albeit naive, one at that.
 * Kid Sidekick: Drizzle to Ashtyn and Timmy to Jones.
 * Kill'Em All: Templar. His rounds bring a bounty of opponent death.
 * Knife Nut: The Ghost to a major extent, Darnell Breen and Jacqueline as well. The Nameless Musician favours them at times too.
 * Le Parkour: Darnell
 * Living Shadow: The Nameless Musician's Shadow is not his own, and runs commentary on most situations. Also see That Guy and Ciaros for shadow like creatures.
 * Magicians Are Wizards: Corteo (And maybe ???). Ironically, Pip claims wizards are cheaters.
 * Masks Everywhere...: The Ghost, Ciaros, Verrine, Corvina (Raven), ???, and later in the story Dorothy, and Penny and Naname
 * Malevolent Masked Men: One of our lovely NPCs
 * Masquerade Ball
 * Meta Guy: Laurent and Nameless Musician
 * Mismatched Eyes: Rhodie
 * My Country, Right or Wrong: Ciaros
 * Mysterious Waif: Aletha
 * Never Mess With Granny: Auntie Mildred. She could just eat you up
 * Nietzsche Wannabe: The Ghost. His and Verrine's second round is evenly aptly named after this.
 * Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Verrine is a... fairy-storyteller-criminal-on-ze-run-extraodinaire~!
 * No Honor Among Thieves: Archie and Anya
 * The Obi-Wan: Richard Freeman
 * Older Than They Look: Rhodie, Eva, Ciaros and Colt
 * Our Zombies Are Different: Zombie Jones
 * Playing With Fire: Nathaniel
 * Pyromaniac: Julia (her Madness Mantra is BURN IT) and Nathaniel
 * Red Eyes, Take Warning: Do NOT anger Visam. Or Evangeline, Witch of Ideals, for that matter.
 * Reset Button: The Edge of Dreams was used for this in Naname vs. Penny
 * Rule of Cool
 * Rule of Three: Team Witchworks. Eva, Ambrose and Leslie. Coven of witches.
 * Rummage Sale Reject: arguably Pidgetta
 * Running Gag: OOC many contestants decided (due to an occurance in the chat) that Rhodie's rainbows were infectious, causing colourful insanity. Lots of art cropped up from this, and then, it suddenly appeared in Templar's canon. Jones then used it in his own as a joke. Other Running Gag s generally were in Jones' entries, like his drinking games in every round and his Hero Origins story.
 * Schedule Slip: So many extensions. By contestants and judges alike. It drove some of them craaaazy.
 * Shell-Shocked Veteran: Bosphoros.
 * Silent Partner: Jacqueline, to a degree. Less so a partner, but more silent, is That Guy.
 * Silent Snarker
 * Smoking Is Cool: Nathaniel
 * Spoiled Sweet: Leslie Jordan
 * Stage Magician: Pip, he even has his stage name Chance all picked out and his trunk of tricks along
 * Summon Magic: Verrine and Eva
 * Sweet Tooth: Pidgetta.
 * The Munchausen: The Nameless Musician.
 * The Napoleon: Julia.
 * The Plague: Mentioned in the introduction of the NPCs and prominently featured in the plot of Templar and Raven.
 * The Speechless: Charlie and Gibson. Mimes.
 * The Unintelligible: Door
 * Thrown From the Zeppelin: Quite literally in Vicare Lovelace's introduction.
 * Tome of Eldritch Lore: Miles and Laurent, Necronomicons ahoy!
 * And Ambrose has his Malleus book it is more of a Spell Book
 * Warrior Prince: The Prince, as he is aptly called.
 * Well-Intentioned Extremist: Miles Freeman. He wants to save the world. With necromancy. You get the problem, no?
 * What Could Have Been: Like all OCTs the tournament's canon is decided by the winning entries, wheras content from the losing entry is lost.
 * Wicked Witch: Evangeline Crowell, Witch of Ideals.
 * Your Tomcat Is Pregnant: Toto. Who is a rag that sits on Tep's head.

Contestants: (In order the roster was announced)

 * Dingo, Pidgetta and Visam, Audition: page 1
 * Lexi and Naisha, Audition: page 1
 * Eva, Leslie and Ambrose, Audition: page 12 3 4 (Not available on account)
 * Pip and Jacqueline, Audition: page 1
 * The Nameless Musician, Audition: page 1
 * Evelyn Riethle, Audition: page 1
 * Arden, Alexei, and Grace, Audition: page 1
 * Toto, Tep and the Prince, Audition: page 1
 * Ashtyn, Drizzle and that guy, Audition: page 1
 * Ollie and Fergus, Audition: page 1
 * Laurent and Hephaestus, Audition: page1
 * Corteo, Charlie and Gibson, Audition: page 1 2 (Not available on account)
 * Darnell and Aletha, Audition: page 1 2 (Not available on account)
 * Felix Russet and Jason Dillon, Audition: page 1
 * Nathaniel, Audition: page 1
 * Vicare Lovelace, Audition: page 1
 * Auntie Mildred and Door, Audition: page 1
 * Abbie Finch and Roosevelt, Audition: page 1
 * ???, Audition: page 1
 * Lady Penny, Audition: page 1
 * Logan and Pennsylvania, Audition: page 1
 * Naname and Ciaros, Audition: page 1
 * Juila and Bosphoros, Audition: page 1
 * Colt and Wiggs, Audition: page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 (Not available on account)
 * Anya and Archie, Audition: page 1
 * Billie "Cheese" Chisholm, Audition: page 1
 * Zombie Jones and Timmy, Audition: page 1
 * Wadaen, Audition: page 1
 * Miles and Richard Freeman, Audition: page 1
 * Verrine and The Ghost, Audition: page 1
 * Rhodie, Audition: page 1
 * The Templar and the Raven, Audition: page 1

Note: While most of the audition located on the deviantart accounts link to their next audition pages for those with more than one, some however do not. Try checking their gallery for more.