All OCs, All the Time
Challenge Details
It would be cool to have a challenge of stories featuring all-original-character casts. No canon characters, except in cameos or minor, minor, insignificant roles.
Come on! Write outside your canon-comfort zone and delve into the lives of the little people. But here are a few (hopefully inspiring…) prompts for you to muse on:
-- Tolkien has been known to give notoriously short shrift to women and children. What would women's and children's lives be like in various Middle-earth cultures and locations? One idea might be to think about the wives, sisters, mothers, neighbors, and children of minor characters (e.g. Elfhelm, Beregond, Haldir, etc.)
-- Is there a story back in "the mists of time" that you have always wanted to hear or tell, but that involves few or no canon characters?
-- Think about the people "in the background" in any given scene: hobbits or men at Bree, an elven attendant or musician in Imladris, or stable boys in Edoras, a random orc on the march, for example. What are the details of their lives? What kinds of things do they worry or dream about?
-- Explore a place or culture that's not given much "screen time" in the books/films: what is daily life like in Harad or in a dwarven hall, for example?
Courtesy of Aeneid.
Challenge closes one year from now: December 21, 2005.
Entries with Stories
The following authors have entered a story in the Challenge.
- acacea - On The Flood
- General Audience
- Last Updated: 19 Feb 05
- “The shards came severally to shore...the other was found spinning on the flood by one who had an errand on the water” ... a cloven half of Boromir’s horn is found in the Anduin by one of his men
- Aliana - Fallen
- Adult Audience
- Last Updated: 08 Jul 12
It's one thing to survive the Siege of Minas Tirith, and quite another to imagine rebuilding one's city--and oneself. A coming-of-age story for Gondor's "greatest generation."
- Aliana - To Labor and to Wait
- General Audience
- Last Updated: 15 Dec 04
- Prepare, they tell us. Settle your accounts and your affairs: It would seem we go to war as if going to our graves. Five snapshots from the perspectives of various workers in the Houses of Healing, just prior to the Siege of Minas Tirith. A sidebar to a longer work in progress, but stands on its own.
- Dwimordene - Very Rain of Sparrows, A
- General Audience
- Last Updated: 11 Mar 07
- Peace. Land. Life. Loyalty.
A Kin-Strife parable. - Marta - Stock and Stone
- General Audience
- Last Updated: 01 Apr 07
- Ten years after the events of The Hobbit a girl from the Lonely Mountain and a boy from Dale meet for the first time. OCs only, obviously, though draws heavily from both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. No objectionable material.
- Molly Littlefoot - Hearth and Home
- General Audience
- Last Updated: 22 Jun 05
- A Hobbit wife uncertainly wonders what the future will bring. Based on both Book and Movie verse. Written for both the "Confessions to the Sleepless Night" and the "All OCs all the Time" challenges and my first public story in over twenty years. Be gentle or no cake for any of you.
- Nessime - Ashes and Dust
- General Audience
- Last Updated: 07 Feb 06
- One young woman's choices in a time of war.
- Nessime - A Song of Silence
- General Audience
- Last Updated: 30 Nov 05
- A tale of how a woman of the Rohirrim found her own unique voice, and a choice made to keep it from being lost. (inspired in part by "The Film Trilogy Challenge")
- Nessime - If Ever Two Were One...
- General Audience
- Last Updated: 31 Aug 05
- What began as a simple story about a woman of the Rohirrim, wife to one of the Riders in Eomer's eored, has become instead a full blown biography, liberally sprinkled with romance, intrigue, and tragedy. This will remain a WiP for the foreseeable future as I've no wish to ruin the lives of these characters with my own eagerness to see their story completed. Canon characters mingle freely with OCs, but I promise there are no non-canonical romances here.
- Nessime - As the Magnet Finds Iron
- Adult Audience
- Last Updated: 18 Aug 05
- Amid the losses of war, where does one find joy? A brief glimpse through the eyes of a Westfold woman. *Originally written for the 2003 Harvest Home Onlist Challenge. (A/N: the rating is for non-explicit adult themes)
- The Lauderdale - Treed
- Adult Audience
- Last Updated: 23 Jul 11
Her father searches for her in vain. Her mother mourns her death. Now one young Elf's only hope of survival lies with the monster who took her, and in her own desperate will to live. A prequel to Orc-brat.
- The Lauderdale - Orc-brat
- Adult Audience
- Last Updated: 03 Mar 11
Maevyn is only nine when her family is slaughtered by a band of Orcs. The Orc Grushak takes her with him as his personal captive, planning to amuse himself with her torment and murder, but a vengeful Maevyn has sworn to see him dead.
- Vaysh - Gardener in the Vineyard
- General Audience
- Last Updated: 14 Sep 10
Wils Longholes, vintner of Old Winyard, has to confront what happened to the vineyard during the Occupation of the Shire. He remembers a visit from Frodo and Sam. Mithril Awards 2004 - Winner: Best Story focusing on Hobbits & Runner-up: Best Characterisation Original Character.
- Vistula the Dunadan - The Last Biscuit
- General Audience
- Last Updated: 23 Jun 05
- On a brief rest, during the journey through the Paths of the Dead, a member of the Grey Company contemplates fear, food, comfort and those he left behind. Written for the “All OCs, All the Time” Challenge. This is a companion piece to Molly Littlefoot’s “Hearth and Home.”
- Werecat - Beast of Burden
- General Audience
- Last Updated: 02 Feb 09
- Heroes come in all shapes and sizes; some of them not necessarily human. Meet Summerstraw, a horse of Rohan.
MEFAs 2005 - Third Place, Drama
Mithrils 2005 - Finalist, Drama - Werecat - You Will See Them at Night
- General Audience
- Last Updated: 30 Dec 06
- The tale of an orc bard. Seriously. Rated PG-13 for gore and violence, just to be safe.
2004 Galvorn Awards: Winner -Best Evil Character Trying to be Good
2004 Galvorn Awards: Winner -Best Characterisation (Improbable OC)
Mithrils 2005 - Finalist, Other Races
Mithrils 2005, Runner-up, Silmarillion - Werecat - Something Wicked This Way Comes
- General Audience
- Last Updated: 30 Dec 06
- A former corsair captain who resents the king, a strange man who speaks in eerie rhymes and their meeting in Umbar during a night of the early years of the Fourth Age. Some disturbing subjects implied, but nothing graphic.
MEFAs 2005 - Honourable Mention, Horror
Mithrils 2005, SemiFinalist, Original Character - Werecat - Old Wives' Tales
- General Audience
- Last Updated: 30 Dec 06
- A very pregnant and rather emotional Eowyn goes in search of a childhood relic and finds something unexpected. Through the words of a tale, the Shieldmaiden meets a Queen of old.
Mithrils 2005: Runner-up, Concerning Men - Werecat - Grasping at Moonbeams Glistening
- General Audience
- Last Updated: 30 Dec 06
- In the Houses of Healing, after the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, a woman who tends to the wounded meets a certain Elf in a story that deals with a Gondorian woman's infatuation for Legolas. Includes OCs, of course. Story rating should be PG-13 at most. Romance/Drama.
MEFAs 2005: Second Place, Cross-cultural, Post Ring War
Mithrils 2005 - Runner-up, Romance/Het - Werecat - Dolor Meus
- General Audience
- Last Updated: 04 Mar 06
- O all you, who pass by the way - attend and see, if there is a sorrow like My sorrow. In another land and another time, the man who loves birds meets the one with a strong voice. Fourth Age, AU.
MEFAs 2005: Winner - Post-Ring War
Mithrils 2005 - Semi Finalist, Fourth Age and Beyond - Werecat - When All Lights Pass
- General Audience
- Last Updated: 04 Mar 06
- Set at Pelargir after the Battle of Fornost, this story deals with a young man suffering from the Black Shadow, a desperate mother and two strange travellers, one clad in grey and one in earthen brown.
They say that the hands of the king can heal... and there were other kings in Arda before Aragorn’s time.
Probably AU, this story also draws inspiration from H.P.Lovecraft's "Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath".
MEFAs 2005 - First Place, AUs, pre-LotR
Mithrils 2005 - Quarter Finalist, AU/Crossover - Werecat - Full Circle
- General Audience
- Last Updated: 27 Dec 05
- Beasts, they've called us. So end the days of Kolgrun, last warrior of the race of orcs.
MEFAs 2005: Third Place, Villains/Orcs - Werecat - Death, I Call Thee
- General Audience
- Last Updated: 28 Oct 04
- Deathfic, focusing on some of the final thoughts of five different individuals at Pelennor Fields, each one of different race and/or alignments. Some are good, some are bad and some are, well, already dead.
Inspired from the Pelennor Fields battle scene from the RotK film.
