Better late than... even more late, the contest results are in for
October. I'm pleased to say that the average quality of entries to both
contests was excellent this month.

Also, a small change to the rules: All entries to the bardic and
artisanal contests from now on should be in some way related to an
Aetolia theme, place, character, organization, etc. Artistic license
will be granted as much as possible, but entries do need to have some
kind of Aetolian context. So for example, we can no longer accept things
like generic seascapes or poems about general themes with no mention of
Aetolian characters or events. Portrayals of fictional Aetolian
characters and events are fine, so long as they are clearly derived from
the context of Aetolia. Landscape paintings and such are also fine, so
long as the landscape can somehow be identified as a part of Aetolia.

Why this change? Two reasons: first, there have been an unpleasant
number of people who have foolishly tried to pass off the work of others
as their own. In nearly all of these cases, the works obviously had
nothing at all to do with Aetolia. That's how we have caught most of
them, in fact. Second, while we appreciate that those of you with
artistic flair probably have old and unrelated works available that you
could submit, the purpose of these contests really is to promote
creative expression of Aetolian themes.

I don't expect this will negatively impact most people who submit works
to the contests, as 90% of submitted works clearly originate within the
context of Aetolia. And without further ado, the winners for October:

-ARTISANAL CONTEST-

Winner: Silmarillion
Runners-up: Milvushina, Serivalis, Takara
Merit awards: Sydney, Ebvory, Videl


-BARDIC CONTEST-

Winner: Tarkuul
Runner-up: Herlaf
Merit awards: Scraelyn, Surach, Gothin, Roahin, Ikne

Congratulations! The winning entries will be available for perusal on
the web site very soon.

-Varian

Penned by my hand on the 6th of Variach, in the year 87 MA.