Questings

The Questings are a adventurer competition held every four years in the Cathadras Valley in the town of Turnbuckle Town. The event is hosted each time by either AD Venture, Dungeon Disasters LLC, or Goblin Games with the other two non-hosting companies supporting through preliminary adventure creation.

Questing Structure

The Questing are a multi-month, invite only, affair that start with hundreds or thousands of participants and end with a finale, the winner of which is given the Crown of Valinthor. The structure of the games is as follows:

Round	Adventure Type	Description
1	Fetch	Teams are placed in fetch adventures against other teams. First to complete the fetch quest earns the fetched item and moves on to round 2. Placements are decided based on seed number
2	3. Organizations/Businesses/Adventure Companies/CAd Types/Delivery and/or Survival	In the second round groups of round 1 winning teams compete against each other to be the first to deliver their fetched item to a new location. This round usually, but not always, involves a survival component. First team to deliver their item wins the round.
3	Protect/Destroy	In this round, the winning team of round 2 is given 1 day to fortify the delivery location before all the teams they eliminated are given a chance to destroy their found item. If the item is destroyed the protecting team is eliminated and replaced by the destroying team. If the item is protected, the protecting team wins and can then begin to use the item in round 4.
4	Investigate, Negotiate and/or Attain	Round 4, otherwise known as the non-combat round, allows the remaining teams to learn, discover and prepare for the final round. They are allowed to travel freely in the world, investigate which teams remain, what the final round will consist of, or attain status or items that might help in the final round.
Final	Combination	The final round, designed by the host adventure company, is a wild card combination round. Usually this round is a vast, week to two week long epic that requires every skill a party or adventurer has to win. Often finalists fight and kill each other before facing the final challenge.

Previous Questings

Questing #	Host Company	Winner	How they won	What happened afterward
I	AD Venture	Sable Rook (solo)	Treated the rounds like a logic puzzle: decoy item in Round 3, true item hidden on her person; in the Final she used misdirection and ruthless timing.	Founded an anti-sabotage school in Turnbuckle Town and built a quiet network of informants.
II	Dungeon Disasters LLC	The Mudlark Five (team)	Collapsed an old spillway to create floodwater, then rode the chaos to deliver first; their Round 3 defense was engineered failure—traps that worked even when broken.	Became “consultants” for safe dungeons; later exposed for selling illegal “danger upgrades.”
III	Goblin Games	Tikka “Knifesmile” Brann (solo)	Goblin Games let crowds “suggest twists,” so she used the noise: delivered via a chain of street kids while rivals chased her decoys; in the Final she walked through an unguarded “staff-only” gate.	Turnbuckle kids idolized her; her Crown supposedly sits in a pawnshop window, priced as a joke.
IV	AD Venture	The Lantern Choir (team)	Won Round 4 with social engineering—learned everyone’s grudges, negotiated a truce, then broke it with a single phrase that triggered three betrayals at once.	Their anthem became official Questings music; the cleric refuses to hear it and lives off-grid.
V	Dungeon Disasters LLC	Hollis Pike & the Half-Map (duo)	Their fetch was a map that only revealed routes when torn; Round 3 defense was pure audacity—the item was nailed to the town notice board labeled “LOST.”	Hollis became a famed cartographer; the partner vanished, and Hollis now leaves one corridor blank on every map.
VI	Goblin Games	The Bramblebutt Brigade (team)	Goblin Games “safety rules” were basically vibes—so they used trained goats on cliff trails at dusk while other teams died trying “official routes.”	Formed a touring theater troupe that smuggles survival lessons into comedy… and sometimes recruits.
VII	AD Venture	Ser Caldrin Vane (solo)	Used law as a weapon: he made destroying his item a punishable offense; guards enforced Round 3 “protection.” The Final was won with precedent, not steel.	Became magistrate; the Crown looked dull on him, like it hated being domesticated.
VIII	Dungeon Disasters LLC	The Ashweld Sisters (team of 2)	A “surprise blizzard” was part of the design; they tunneled under ice with heat-magic and arrived where no one thought travel was possible.	One married into nobility; the other became a hermit smith forging only keys—never saying what they open.
IX	Goblin Games	Sable Rook (solo, 2nd win)	Goblin Games swapped rules mid-round; she prepared for that: carried three plausible “fetched items,” then revealed the true one only at the finish line. In the Final she out-cheated the cheaters.	Returned colder. People say she began collecting favors like weapons, expecting she’d need them “next time.”
X	AD Venture	The Glassjaw Guild (team)	Built defenses meant to fail gracefully—outer walls that fell inward, trapping attackers while the item sat safe in a hollow pillar; in the Final they simply outlasted everyone.	Formed an adventurers’ union that pushed safety standards across Eritora—creating new enemies in the industry.
XI	Dungeon Disasters LLC	Tansy “Third-Hand” Lorne (solo)	Discovered the Final’s hidden timer during Round 4 and negotiated a delay—then finished the key steps before the Final officially began.	Became advisor to rulers and thieves; her tomb already bears an epitaph: “SHE LEFT EARLY.”
XII	Goblin Games	The Nine-Coin Pact (team)	Goblin judges could be “persuaded,” and hazards were lethal; the Pact bought time, alliances, and deniable protection instead of gear—half the battlefield refused to fight them.	Became a bank. The Crown sits behind glass “on loan,” and nobody agrees who actually owns it.
XIII	AD Venture	Orin of the Quiet Rope (solo)	Won by being unseen: a silent pulley network through trees delivered the item; Round 3 defense was a decoy site so empty attackers doubted themselves.	Trained scouts and guides; one morning his house was packed and he was simply… gone.
XIV	Dungeon Disasters LLC	The Red Ditch Irregulars (team)	Studied soil and collapse angles in Round 4, then reshaped the Final’s terrain overnight—turning enemy routes into sinks, slides, and dead ends.	Became builders of valley roads and irrigation; locals call them the “most useful” winners ever.
XV	Goblin Games	Pip & Pummel (gnome duo)	Goblin Games loved “audience participation,” so they weaponized it—prank traps that disarmed, not killed, while rivals got baited into lethal spectacle. They solved puzzles faster than murder caught them.	Quit fame after a kid asked if anyone died because of them. They never answered, and left town.
XVI	AD Venture	Sable Rook (solo, 3rd win)	Everyone targeted her from Round 1—so she orchestrated the bracket: fed rivals “true” intel that was true only for them. In the Final she forced opponents into each other’s solutions.	The anti-sabotage school became a quiet power center. Her invitations were coveted…and feared.
XVII	Dungeon Disasters LLC	Nema Saltblood (solo)	Endured the survival Round by eating what others wouldn’t and rusting enemy gear with saltwater flooding in Round 3; the Final demanded sacrifice—she paid with a treasured memory.	Returned gentle and oddly blank. She donates winnings to orphans every year, unable to explain why it matters.
XVIII	Goblin Games	The Last Apricot (team)	The fetch was a fresh apricot from a “no liability” orchard full of lethal traps; they delivered it unbruised and defended it like a saint’s relic. In the Final it became the key—edible, fragile, irreplaceable.	Their leader became a healer; the team splintered. Apricots became a Turnbuckle symbol: sweet, brief, worth guarding.
XIX	AD Venture	Jorren “Two-Prayers” Malk (solo)	Negotiated with eliminated teams in Round 3: “Help defend, and I’ll resurrect one of you if I win.” He did—then the revived rival helped him finish the Final.	Celebrated, then feared. His name became shorthand for “a debt that outlives death.”
XX	Dungeon Disasters LLC	The Iron Orchard Crew (team)	Investigated root-tunnels under the Final site in Round 4 and expanded them; on Final day they bypassed half the hazards through dirt-dark shortcuts.	Started their own curated adventure company—then were bought out and quietly erased from posters.
XXI	Goblin Games	Sister-Lie (solo, masked)	Goblin Games allowed “informal substitutions” and “mask clauses”—she used doubles, false surrenders, and planted rumors until rivals fought ghosts. She won while everyone chased the wrong person.	Left the Crown on a shrine step. By morning it was gone; the shrine-keeper swore it was never there.
XXII	AD Venture	The River-Thread Fellowship (team)	Turned Round 3 defense into community infrastructure—a clinic, shelter, food depot—so when eliminated teams attacked, locals resisted because the place mattered.	Became builders and civic leaders; critics call it soft—most valley folk call it the only year that felt honorable.
XXIII	Dungeon Disasters LLC	Sable Rook (solo, 4th win — killed)	She won anyway. Round 4 uncovered the Final’s “failsafe”: a kill-switch meant to prevent repeat champions from monopolizing the Crown. She finished the Final with seconds to spare… and the failsafe fired.	Died on the victory platform. The Crown of Valinthor wouldn’t sit still afterward—people say it rang like a struck bell for a full minute.
XXIV	Goblin Games	The Soot & Sunrise Company (team)	Goblin Games’ Final was “wild card” in the ugliest way—shifting rules, unsafe terrain, and judges who enjoyed panic. They realized violence fed the living dungeon, so they used restraint and collaboration to starve it of adaptation.	Became the face of “cleaner Questings,” and immediately drew the hatred of gamblers, sponsors, and anyone who profits when things get bloody.