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Hey everyone! It's my turn to pick some girls! For me, the idea of staff picks seemed like a good way to listen to the community, take what you were all asking for or making interesting cases for and try to best represent those points or thoughts for everyone, help give the community a way to be involved with the tournament more. While there were a lot of girls added to various round 1 polls thanks to the community, due to various issues on our end as well as a lot of comments at the very beginning it was hard to take everything you all had to say into account for round 1, and I hope that my picks today will help many of you feel like you had a bigger part to play in this tournament!
Ghost: This is a monster girl that I had actually meant to submit myself for this tournament but I ended up getting caught up in a lot of stuff and missed the deadline. So you can expect that when I saw some fans talking about a ghost girl even before the first poll I was excited to see that there looked to be some traction here. While different fans had a variety of ideas as to what a Ghost Girl would behave like, it was our discord user Earnest Hemingway that hit what I want from a ghost girl the best and ensured that she made it into this thread! What I would want to see the most from a ghost girl is getting to see them be shy and nervous at times, probably covering their face with their hands before they start turning transparent which has the effect of still exposing their blushing face and just all the fun to be had with her getting flustered. While there's a lot of Boosette images that could be pulled from, I felt like going in a different direction would be good for the image here since aside from the 'tail' Boosette tends to look pretty human.
Golem: While the earliest stories of golems come from Judaism which we are trying to steer away from, after a bunch of talk of golem girls on the discord and the below image posted by Promestein, I couldn't help but give this sort of monster girl a bit more thought. While I don't exactly have a lot of firm ideas here myself, I do find the idea of the Dungeon King perhaps stumbling on a broken down golem and fixing her up, whether she's made of stone, clay, mud, or even is clockwork, to be a rather appealing idea. While the below reference image is clearly wax and I don't imagine we'd go with a candle based golem, I do think it does communicate the idea very effectively.
Mindflayer: Some sentiments that I saw being expressed a few times were people hoping for some Scylla (Squids/Octopi) and also more eldrich monsters. Now, I'll be honest I wasn't really sold on the Scylla myself, and some of the Eldrich suggestions I saw, while tempting, never really struck a cord with me either. It was however pointed out to me that Mindflayers might be a good way to incorporate both, and when Romeo shared the below reference image with me where they do keep the tentacle aspect without having a straight up octopus head, I was sold on the idea and decided to add them here! Now, that being said don't just think of them as a more creepy Scylla for this tournament, Mindflayers are pretty well known for having strong psionic powers allowing them to enthrall other living creatures to use for their own bidding. They're generally portrayed as viewing themselves as above other intelligent creatures, even across the multiverse and going as far as to feast on the brains of other intelligent creatures, but I doubt we'd go that far if we did include Mindflayers. Instead I imagine you'd be looking at some psychic powers, maybe even some mind control like being able to take control of weak willed adventurers to sow seeds of discent in the party or even make them leave outright if you've broken their spirit enough!
Nereid: One idea that I saw come up a few times from Cazador in particular was the idea of a Zora-esque characer, a different kind of human/aquatic mix that better showed off the qualities of the aquatic creature while still having a pretty clearly human form, using Zora's as a very clear example of it being done well. I really liked the idea, and while 'Mermaid' and 'Marrow' were already used in the tournament after a lot of research (and a big detoir on Sahagien's that didn't turn fruitful) I was able to come across Nereid's which I felt were a good mythological creature to fit this idea under. In Greek mythology Nereid's are kind of portrayed as sea succubi, being sort of reborn spirits of women in the sea, taking on a more fish like appearance and being friendly and helpful to sailors. They are meant to symbolize everything that is beautiful and kind about the sea. More classical depictions of Nereid's take on a far more human appearence, but as I said, this option wouldn't be here if I hadn't been convinced to find a way to add Zora's into this tournament so that's how they're going to be represented here.
Quetzalcoatl: This addition nearly didn't make it onto my list, while I had seen a few members of the community asking for a Quetzalcoatl to be added it just dind't click with me until I was looking through old suggestions on the discord and found this great reference image posted by Allingzae. Now, the image may be a dragon girl while Quetzalcoatl is a "winged Serpent" but the image I feel does fit pretty well with the large wings and tail. As for Quetzalcoatl's origins, he was an Aztec diety who's name more literally means 'serpent of precious feathers' but in an allegorical sense means 'wisest of men', with Quetzalcoatl himself being related to the gods of wind, of the dawn, merchants, and of arts, crafts, and knowledge so If we were to pull largely from this I would imagine that a Quetzalcoatl girl is probably a successful merchant with a taste for the fine arts, and using her large wings to travel great distances with ease.
Rakshasi: While there were several instances of round 1 girls missing out on votes because someone missed a thread, the Rakshasi stood out to me as a few people didn't vote for them due to missing that they could vote for multiple options. Since her thread was on day 1, I felt she should get another shot to win all those votes she missed here! While I do want to do this for all of the girls who missed out on votes, I fear that there's simply too many to do them all, but I got the impression that the Rakshasi missed the most in large part because her thread was on day 1 so let's see if I was right on my estimation!
Satyress: While the Satyress has certainly done very well in the tournament so far, conversations with a few people as well as reviewing their lore for myself has left me personally feeling a bit endeared to the Satyress. While she may not need my help, I personally would like to see these horny goat girls making it into ILTSDK and getting to see all the fun that can be had from more casual drunken hookups for the sake of having fun.
Ghost: This is a monster girl that I had actually meant to submit myself for this tournament but I ended up getting caught up in a lot of stuff and missed the deadline. So you can expect that when I saw some fans talking about a ghost girl even before the first poll I was excited to see that there looked to be some traction here. While different fans had a variety of ideas as to what a Ghost Girl would behave like, it was our discord user Earnest Hemingway that hit what I want from a ghost girl the best and ensured that she made it into this thread! What I would want to see the most from a ghost girl is getting to see them be shy and nervous at times, probably covering their face with their hands before they start turning transparent which has the effect of still exposing their blushing face and just all the fun to be had with her getting flustered. While there's a lot of Boosette images that could be pulled from, I felt like going in a different direction would be good for the image here since aside from the 'tail' Boosette tends to look pretty human.
Golem: While the earliest stories of golems come from Judaism which we are trying to steer away from, after a bunch of talk of golem girls on the discord and the below image posted by Promestein, I couldn't help but give this sort of monster girl a bit more thought. While I don't exactly have a lot of firm ideas here myself, I do find the idea of the Dungeon King perhaps stumbling on a broken down golem and fixing her up, whether she's made of stone, clay, mud, or even is clockwork, to be a rather appealing idea. While the below reference image is clearly wax and I don't imagine we'd go with a candle based golem, I do think it does communicate the idea very effectively.
Mindflayer: Some sentiments that I saw being expressed a few times were people hoping for some Scylla (Squids/Octopi) and also more eldrich monsters. Now, I'll be honest I wasn't really sold on the Scylla myself, and some of the Eldrich suggestions I saw, while tempting, never really struck a cord with me either. It was however pointed out to me that Mindflayers might be a good way to incorporate both, and when Romeo shared the below reference image with me where they do keep the tentacle aspect without having a straight up octopus head, I was sold on the idea and decided to add them here! Now, that being said don't just think of them as a more creepy Scylla for this tournament, Mindflayers are pretty well known for having strong psionic powers allowing them to enthrall other living creatures to use for their own bidding. They're generally portrayed as viewing themselves as above other intelligent creatures, even across the multiverse and going as far as to feast on the brains of other intelligent creatures, but I doubt we'd go that far if we did include Mindflayers. Instead I imagine you'd be looking at some psychic powers, maybe even some mind control like being able to take control of weak willed adventurers to sow seeds of discent in the party or even make them leave outright if you've broken their spirit enough!
Nereid: One idea that I saw come up a few times from Cazador in particular was the idea of a Zora-esque characer, a different kind of human/aquatic mix that better showed off the qualities of the aquatic creature while still having a pretty clearly human form, using Zora's as a very clear example of it being done well. I really liked the idea, and while 'Mermaid' and 'Marrow' were already used in the tournament after a lot of research (and a big detoir on Sahagien's that didn't turn fruitful) I was able to come across Nereid's which I felt were a good mythological creature to fit this idea under. In Greek mythology Nereid's are kind of portrayed as sea succubi, being sort of reborn spirits of women in the sea, taking on a more fish like appearance and being friendly and helpful to sailors. They are meant to symbolize everything that is beautiful and kind about the sea. More classical depictions of Nereid's take on a far more human appearence, but as I said, this option wouldn't be here if I hadn't been convinced to find a way to add Zora's into this tournament so that's how they're going to be represented here.
Quetzalcoatl: This addition nearly didn't make it onto my list, while I had seen a few members of the community asking for a Quetzalcoatl to be added it just dind't click with me until I was looking through old suggestions on the discord and found this great reference image posted by Allingzae. Now, the image may be a dragon girl while Quetzalcoatl is a "winged Serpent" but the image I feel does fit pretty well with the large wings and tail. As for Quetzalcoatl's origins, he was an Aztec diety who's name more literally means 'serpent of precious feathers' but in an allegorical sense means 'wisest of men', with Quetzalcoatl himself being related to the gods of wind, of the dawn, merchants, and of arts, crafts, and knowledge so If we were to pull largely from this I would imagine that a Quetzalcoatl girl is probably a successful merchant with a taste for the fine arts, and using her large wings to travel great distances with ease.
Rakshasi: While there were several instances of round 1 girls missing out on votes because someone missed a thread, the Rakshasi stood out to me as a few people didn't vote for them due to missing that they could vote for multiple options. Since her thread was on day 1, I felt she should get another shot to win all those votes she missed here! While I do want to do this for all of the girls who missed out on votes, I fear that there's simply too many to do them all, but I got the impression that the Rakshasi missed the most in large part because her thread was on day 1 so let's see if I was right on my estimation!
Satyress: While the Satyress has certainly done very well in the tournament so far, conversations with a few people as well as reviewing their lore for myself has left me personally feeling a bit endeared to the Satyress. While she may not need my help, I personally would like to see these horny goat girls making it into ILTSDK and getting to see all the fun that can be had from more casual drunken hookups for the sake of having fun.
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